IGN!S
Nigerian Christian leader and Senior Pastor in charge of the House On The Rock Church, Paul Adefarasin has publicly condemned the Lagos shootings.
The Lagos shootings were carried out at the dusk of Tuesday, 20th October 2020 by army officers who opened fire on a group of peaceful #EndSARS protesters who were at the Lekki Tollgate in Lagos.
These protesters were gathered for peaceful demonstrations against recurring police brutality across major cities throughout Nigeria.
The Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS of the Nigerian Police Force, had been the subject of online protests and agitation by the Nigerian social media community few years ago with allegations of assault and harassment particularly on Nigerian youth.
These protests trended across social media under the hashtag “#EndSARS” and garnered national attention with the government promising Police reforms in response to the agitation.
The clamoring picked up steam two weeks ago after graphic images and videos of police brutality started making social media rounds. It became such a widespread organic movement that certain aspects of operations were shut down.
On Tuesday 20th October 2020, at about 7pm, the movement was disorganized after soldiers were released to disperse protesters from the Lekki Tollgate in Lagos, which resulted in many deaths and injury of unarmed protesters.
The city of Lagos has since been in an anarchic state of unrest with several reports of popular landmarks being set ablaze, as well as gunfire from armed authorities.
In an Instagram post, Adefarasin released an official statement from the House On The Rock Church, saying:
We Will Forever Remember – 20. 10. 20
Nigerians born and unborn will remember this day – #blacktuesday.
We cannot erase from the collective memory how the disbelief of a nation turned to shock, horror, heartbreak and unspeakable sorrow as our unarmed children were shot at, injured, maimed and killed, in the course of a peaceful protest.
We will not forget how our democracy and our nation was dealt a near-mortal blow by the brute force and deadly violence of our very own soldiers, using the Lekki toll gate as a shooting range and our children as target practice!
May the souls of those whom we have lost rest in perfect peace; and we assure you that while remembering them as martyrs, we consider it a duty to demand and receive justice in the matter of their cold-blooded murder.
I pray for healing for everyone who was injured, bereaved or traumatised by the carnage we witnessed. You are not alone. We feel your pain, we pray with you and we stand with you.
Dear Father, with one voice, we pray for our people and ask for your divine intervention and healing over our nation.
We cry out for peace and justice in our land. We stand on your word even as we pursue our rights and seek justice, in Jesus name.
We commit the city of Lagos as well as the entire country of Nigeria into the Hands of God, and we decree peace over Nigeria in JESUS’ NAME. AMEN!
