TheCable

The Chevening Alumni Association of Nigeria (CAAN) has asked the federal government to identify and prosecute the soldiers involved in the shooting of #EndSARS protesters at Lekki toll gate in Lagos.

On Tuesday, armed men in military uniform opened fire on protesters who had assembled at the Lekki toll gate in Lagos.

The incident has sparked condemnation within and outside Nigeria, with calls for an investigation into the incident.

Kester Osahenye, CAAN’s president, in a statement issued on Thursday, described the action as “inhumane, insensitive and reprehensible”.

“We thought as compatriots, the dark days of deploying brute military force is over. It is inhumane, insensitive and reprehensible in a democracy to deploy military men to shoot unarmed protesters,” Osahenye was quoted as saying.

The association called on President Muhammadu Buhari to, as a matter of national urgency, “identify the soldiers behind the shooting of the unarmed protesters, enforce their arrests and prosecution, and also arrest and prosecute the hoodlums who also stabbed #EndSARS protesters in Abuja”.

The alumni association also frowned at the “perceived conflicting statements” from Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governor of Lagos, who had initially claimed that there were no fatalities, and that the soldiers were sent by “forces beyond our direct control”.

CAAN called on Sanwo-Olu to publish the names of all the victims, dead or injured from the Tuesday shooting.

It also urged the federal government to, as a matter of urgency, implement without further delay, the “5For5 requests of the #ENDSARS protesters; compensate every family that lost loved ones, and immortalise the names of everyone killed during this protests”.

The association also commended the #EndSARS protesters for “opening  a new vista in the history of advocacy and activism in Nigeria”, and called on the youths to obey the curfew imposed by different states.