Officials of the Lagos State Environmental Tasks Force, alongside policemen and suspected thugs, have burnt down a community, whose residents witnessed the shooting of peaceful #EndSARS protesters by soldiers at the Lekki Tollgate on the night of October 20, 2020.
Some witnesses from the community, who spoke to Premium Times, revealed that soldiers and policemen shot directly at the protesters, killing some and injuring several others.
Residents of the community also accused Raji Ganiyu, the divisional police officer of Maroko Police Division, of shooting and killing some of the protesters, an accusation Ganiyu denied.
According to them, policemen and some officials of the Lagos state environmental task force, arrived at the community on Tuesday and asked them to vacate their residences within 24 hours.
As of Wednesday morning, the residents said they were still trying to gather their belongings, when the taskforce officials, mobile policemen and “persons that looked like thugs” arrived the community and immediately began demolishing structures.
The witnesses said while a bulldozer was pulling down the mainly makeshift houses, the thugs were setting fire to the fallen structures, and that the policemen chased residents who were trying to retrieve their belongings far into the banks of the lagoon, injuring some of them.
A resident said, “People were scared and thought they were going to be arrested and ran towards the lagoon where they sustain deep cuts in their legs from broken bottles that were discarded there”.
