Lekki Shootings and the Violation of Human Rights: A Qualitative Review of the ENDSARS Protest
Chapter One
Objective of the study
The sole aim of this study is to expatiate and amplify the position of the law on protest and civil disobedience with respect to the Lekki toll gate extra-judicial killings.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
Acts of civil disobedience are not interesting by themselves but because of how they relate to their context. The varying degree of opportunities for a social movement shapes the political reality by determining whose voices are heard and what issues are discussed. The structures and signals shaping protests, here understood through the perspective of Political Opportunity Structures are made evident by both direct response, typically police interference, and indirect such as in a political debate. In this chapter, the focus is to discuss the varying concepts of protest, its local and foreign implications and how the rights of protesters can be upheld and not abused. Also, a review of supporting theories will be carried out as well.
Defining the term, protest
Manifold definitions exist of the term ‘protest’, and the picture is further complicated by the evolving nature of online and on the ground protests, blurring the contours and boundaries of protest movements. These difficulties acknowledged, this study attempts to piece together a broad definition by examining the various definitions available of assemblies, non-violent civic action and protests. Our definitions draw from sources that include international CSOs, UN human rights experts and academic literature. International human rights treaties do not provide a definition of the right to protest. Instead protest, and the rights essential to its realisation, are subsidiary to the right to the freedom of assembly. An important step was, however, taken in March 2016 when the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association and the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary killings put forward a definition of assemblies. In their landmark report, ‘On the proper management of assemblies’, the Special Rapporteurs articulated that assemblies: “…express a common position, grievance, aspiration or identity and… diverge from mainstream positions or challenge established political, social, cultural or economic interests.” The implication here is that protests, by their very nature, involve a challenge to existing norms, policies or practices. In other words, they maintain a dissenting element. An equally important principle of protests is their temporal nature. While an individual protest is typically a temporary phenomenon, protest movements require sustained efforts. These set them aside from one-off, spontaneous assemblies in which participants cannot expect to bring about significant long-term change. Our definition of protest is also intentionally limited to gatherings in physical spaces. While there is a growing recognition of the importance of ‘virtual protests’, the intention here is to examine the range of variables that specifically shape protests in physical spaces as a particular form of protest. A final component of our definition of protest is the centrality of non-violent civil action as a matter of policy.
Accordingly, while acts of violence by individual members of a protest do not necessarily undermine the non-violent objectives of a protest movement as a whole or forfeit the rights of the protesters, protest movements must maintain an instrumental commitment to non-violence to be considered legitimate. By combining these elements, we arrive at the following definition of a protest movement, employed in this report: a continuous public and physical gathering of a group of individuals committed to using nonviolent tactics to effect some political, social, cultural or economic change that diverges from mainstream or extant political positions or practices.
Conceptualization of human right
Human rights are those categories of rights that nature has bestowed on man. They presume the sacredness of the human person in any society in the world to doggedly resist any constraints upon this right as they underlie his humanity and freedom. In its modern form, where the dominant terminology has taken the e phrase ―human‖ rather than ―natural‖ human rights is defined as a…. Universal moral right, something which all Men, everywhere, at all times, ought to have And something of which no one may be Deprived without grave affront to justice Something which is owing to every human Being simply because he is human. ((Ibid) Issa Shivji goes to opine that: There is only one universal conception and Formulation of human rights. Human rights a Are universal.
They inhere in human beings By virtue of their humanity alone…they are Neither privileges nor contingent upon any Duties by entitlements against the state. Conceptually, the dominate outlook on ―human right‘ centers around the concept of ‗human nature‘. Human nature is an abstraction both from history as well as society. (Klenner, 208,p8).
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The method used in this study is mainly of doctrinal or library research in nature. The opinion-based teaching methodology will allow the researcher to consult, address, examine, study and fill in the gaps in the authors’ work contained in textbooks, magazines and the Internet. The data collected through library research, which the researcher reads, writes and collects relevant information about this project. When seeking information from related documents, such as books, scientific journals and others that consider the main problem of this subject of study, the researcher tries to draw conclusions from examining various views.
Population of study
The target population for this study comprised of various academic and opinion-based publications published on the ENDSARS protest from October 2020 to January 2021 .
Sample Size and Sampling Technique
In view of the researcher’s inability to reach out to the entire population the research used sample cases and discussions from national dailies and scientific journals to build up this study. The analysis for this study were founded on personal view which was influenced from the volume of Information arsing from both local and international legislation.
CHAPTER FOUR
DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS
Introduction
In this chapter, an attempt is made to highlight the position of Nigeria laws regarding protest, gathering, and conditions necessary to achieve peaceful protest. In this chapter, a personal analysis is employed by the student in attempt to compare the position of the law on peaceful demonstration and the actual incidence that took place during the October ENDSARS protest in Nigeria.
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION AND SUMMARY
Conclusion
In this study the student adopted a qualitative and judgemental method to assess the events of the October ENDSARS protest which resulted to extra-judicial killings of Nigeria youths.
Group tasks Police Service Commission on extrajudicial killings by officers. “Protests play an important part in the civil, political, economic, social and cultural life of all societies. Historically, protests have often inspired positive social change and improved protection of human rights, and they continue to help define and protect civic space in all parts of the world. Protests encourage the development of an engaged and informed citizenry and strengthen representative democracy by enabling direct participation in public affairs.
“They enable individuals and groups to express dissent and grievances, to share views and opinions, to expose flaws in governance and to publicly demand that the authorities and other powerful entities rectify problems and are accountable for their actions. This is especially important for those whose interests are otherwise poorly represented or marginalized.” -Article 19 on the Right to Protest: Principles on the protection of human rights in protests
Summary
International and supranational organisations such as the Commonwealth should adopt measures to make individual governments, particularly in the developing countries, observe the right to protest as sacred. Currently, the pattern of killing and torture used by some countries against protesting citizens amounts to crimes against humanity. The right to protest should not be subjected to any permit issued by the authorities in individual countries. The Nigerian Public Order Act, which subjects protests to the whimsical and capricious decisions of the Governor and Police, deserves to be repealed. Rather than suppressing the right to protest, demonstrators who adopt violence should be prosecuted in public courts. An urgent challenge is being made for supranational organisations such as the Commonwealth to support the demands of the Nigerian trade unions and civil society groups for the repeal of the Public Order Act, which subjects exercise of the right to protest to the whims and caprices of the government. Supranational organisations such as the Commonwealth could also support independent initiatives on the part of civil society organisations to develop capacity for covering protests and monitoring the policing of protests in individual countries, with a view to exposing and thereby curbing the excesses of national governments.
REFERENCES
- See Kalu v. State, [1998] 13 NWLR (Pt. 509–659) 531 (Nigeria); see also Okoro v. State, [1998] 12 SCNJ 84 (Nigeria) (holding that the death penalty is not inconsistent with Section 33(1) of the Constitution). 27. Greenpeace U. K., Greenpeace Oil Briefing No. 7: Human Health Impacts of Oil, (Jan. 1993); see also Manby, supra note 6, at 67.
- Amnesty Int’l, Killings at Will: Extrajudicial Executions and Other Unlawful Killings by the Police in Nigeria, AI Index AFR 44/038/2009 (Dec. 9, 2009), https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/AFR44/038/2009/en/. 29.
- BUREAU OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND LABOR, NIGERIA 2012 HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT, available at http://www.state.gov/i/drl/hrrpt/humanrightsreport/index.htm#wrapper; see also Mike Odiegwu, Ex-Cop Admits Policemen Killed Victor Emmanuel at Bayelsa Checkpoint, PUNCH, June 13, 2013. 30.
- Amnesty Int’l, Amnesty International Report 2008 – Nigeria, (May 28, 2008), available at http://www.refworld.org/docid/483e27a54e.html. 31
- Nigeria Police Watch, Three Nigeria Police Officers on Trial for Murder of Bayelsa’s Victor Emmanuel, NIGERIA POLICE WATCH (Oct. 28, 2011), http://www.nigeriapolicewatch.com/ 2011/10/three-nigeria-police-force-on-trial-for-. 32.
- U.N. Office of the High Commissioner on H.R. [OHCHR], Universal Periodic Review – Nigeria, ¶¶ 73–74 (Jan. 5, 2008), cited in Open Society Institute in Criminal Force, Torture, Abuse
