#EndSARS Protesters Should Be Prepared To Account For Their Actions – Presidential Aide, Garba Shehu

By Edna Wande Last updated Nov 9, 2020

Presidency has said that persons who allowed the #EndSARS protests to degenerate into looting and vandalism of public and private properties should be prepared to account for their actions.

It would be recalled that several buildings in Lagos State including police stations, malls and transport stations were vandalised, looted and razed by hoodlums following the shooting of peaceful #EndSARS protesters by security forces at the Lekki tollgate on October 20.

Garba Shehu, senior special assistant on media and publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, made this known on Sunday while featuring on Channels Television’s programme, Sunday Politics.

This comes few days after Federal High Court in Abuja granted the request of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to freeze the accounts of 20 individuals and an organization linked to the #EndSARS campaign.

According to details of the order, the request which was filed by CBN on October 20 was granted by Justice Ahmed Mohammed.

The court order was addressed to the head offices of Access Bank, Fidelity Bank, First Bank Nigeria, Guaranty Trust Bank, United Bank of Africa, and Zenith Bank.

In addition, Nigerian youths have accused the Federal Government of placing #EndSARS protesters on travel ban after Immigration service seized the passport of one of the frontliners of the protest, Modupe ‘Moe’ Odele, preventing her from traveling out of the country last week.

Reacting to the degeneration of the #EndSARS protests into violence, Mr Shehu said the protesters must face the law.

He expressed;

This country has only one president and has only one constitution. President Muhammadu Buhari is responsible for his government. The buck stops on his table.

We are a country governed by law. There is a constitution —under section 33— that clearly defines the rights of citizens to freely protest in a peaceful way but where a peaceful protest turns into riot, violence and looting, there is a law and order duty to be performed.

Shehu stated;

Everyone is a witness to the massive looting of public and private properties particularly in Lagos, Calabar, Plateau, Taraba and some other states, even the FCT.

Now, the laws of the country must be allowed to decide, to rule on wrongdoing on the part of just anybody. I am not particular about any celebrity or promoter but this country has been harmed enormously and people should be prepared to account for what they did.

He also called on the major opposition party to come out publicly to denounce the looting, stressing;

And I think it will be of interest to 200 million Nigerians if some of those leading politicians who had promoted the EndSARS to the time when it was seized and taken over by looters to come out with the same force as they did support to also denounce the degeneracy that set in place; some of them have said nothing so far.

But this country has to be saved from looters and the interest of the country is above politics, PDP should come out and denounce these things.