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Protesters call for change in Nigeria.
PHOTO: Dan Kitwood / Getty Images
- The Nigerian police chief has ordered the immediate mobilization of all resources of the force to try to control the worst street violence resulting from protests against police brutality.
- The violence escalated after protesters were shot Tuesday night during a 24-hour curfew.
- Amnesty International said that soldiers and police killed at least 12 protesters, but the army and police have denied any involvement.
Nigeria’s police chief ordered the immediate mobilization of all force resources on Saturday to try to control the worst street violence in Africa’s most populous country in two decades stemming from protests against police brutality.
The unrest, unprecedented since the return to civilian rule in 1999, is the gravest political crisis facing President Muhammadu Buhari, a former military ruler elected in 2015. Curfews have been imposed on millions of people in recent days in response to violence and looting in some parts of the country.
The violence, particularly in the commercial capital Lagos, escalated after protesters were shot Tuesday night in the city’s Lekki district during a 24-hour curfew.
The witnesses blamed the soldiers.
The human rights group Amnesty International said that soldiers and police had killed at least 12 protesters in two districts, although the army and police denied any involvement.
Several states, mainly in southern Nigeria, have imposed curfews after two weeks of clashes between protesters and members of the security services.
As outbreaks of unrest flared again Saturday in parts of the country, a spokesman for the southern state of Cross River said several buildings had been vandalized in the past two days, including a shopping center, bank and polling stations.
A 24-hour curfew was re-imposed in parts of the central city of Jos, just one day after it was relaxed on Friday, following the looting of emergency food supplies stored there by the disaster ministry, they said. The authorities.
“This looting has spread to other facilities and is gradually degenerating, thus threatening the peace and security of the state,” Plateau State Governor Simon Lalong said in a statement.
And on Saturday a 24-hour curfew was imposed in the northern state of Kaduna. The move was to “protect lives and property and contain criminal elements,” state security commissioner Samuel Aruwan said in a statement.
‘It is a very painful subject’
The Nigerian Police said their Inspector General Mohammed Adamu had ordered the immediate deployment of all assets and resources to end violence, looting and destruction of property by criminals posing as protesters.
“The IGP orders law-abiding citizens not to panic, but to join forces with the police and other members of the police community to protect their communities from criminal elements,” the force said in a statement.
During a call on Friday between Buhari and the former Nigerian presidents, the head of state said 51 civilian deaths and 37 injuries had been recorded as a result of “vandalism” in recent weeks, according to a statement released Saturday describing his comments. opening.
Unrest intensified in parts of Nigeria after the shooting against protesters who gathered in Lagos on Tuesday night in defiance of the curfew to demonstrate against police brutality.
Olusegun Samuel, the guardian of a protester who was shot at that rally, said on Saturday that the 24-year-old’s right leg could be amputated due to a serious injury.
“It is a very painful subject; a very, very painful subject. A boy his age,” Samuel said, speaking at a Lagos hospital.
David Ivwrogbo was working as a truck driver at a railroad construction site when the curfew was announced Tuesday. He said he was not part of the protest and was trying to get home when he was also shot in the leg. He said the protesters took him to safety.
“Young people are awake and they don’t want to go back to sleep,” he said, referring to the frustrated young people who have taken to the streets of Nigeria in the wake of the campaign against police brutality.
The state of Lagos lowered curfew restrictions on Saturday from 18:00 to 08:00. Workers took to the streets to sweep up the broken glass while cars filled the roads again.
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