Lagos protesters foil attempts by thugs to hijack their march in Ojota

Armed thugs’ attempts to hijack the protest in the Ojota area of Lagos were rebuffed by the protesters who simply shrugged off such interference and moved on, eyewitnesses have told Daily Query.

As they chanted solidarity songs on their way to the popular Freedom park, Ojota and Peace Park, Ketu, where the federal high court order had restricted them from carrying out their protest, a group of hoodlums barricaded the road and ordered the protesters to pass through a particular place, obviously spoiling for a fight.

But, confronted with the courage, even defiance, of the protesters who simply ignored the thugs’ antics and continued with their march, the thugs, in what looked like an enactment of the saying, ‘never kill a man who says nothing’, who were obviously looking for a confrontation, retreated out of shame and when they saw some security agents coming their way.

An unimpressed John Maduabuchi, one of the protesters, when accosted, alleged that the armed thugs were sponsored by “a well-known transport union thug.”

“I say it unequivocally that the man sent them to disrupt the protest,” Maduabuchi stated. “I heard one of them calling him that they couldn’t do anything else. He was telling him that upon all they did to provoke the protesters, they did not reply or talk back at them. He phoned again that the police were coming and that they were leaving the place. I overheard the leader of the thugs saying that what you are telling us to do is not easy.

“Well I have it on good authority that the transport union leadership warned that their members should not participate in the protest. To live up to their threat, the transport union members constituted monitoring teams that have been going round the city to monitor members who would be joining the protest. We thank God that the thugs are yet to hijack the protest,but anything can happen.”

According to Maduabuchi, many of us are still along the road and have refused to enter the Freedom park or Peace park in Ojota and Ketu respectively, because we don’t know the reason the security agencies are telling us to move into the parks, but we are not comfortable with the order. We may be attacked by the hoodlums and be unable to escape when things go awry and a trigger-happy security operative will start shooting us,” Maduabuchi added.

However, Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Adegoke Fayoade, who visited Ojota and Ketu where the protesters were restricted to, expressed dismay at the refusal or failure of the protesters to comply with the court order for them to move into the parks.

He, however, said he was optimistic that, in the end, his men would be able to prevent hoodlums from hijacking the protest, assuring that his men had been properly briefed on what to do to maintain law and order.

“We have our men on the ground and we have all it takes to deal with hoodlums,” he declared.

The CP commended the protesters for conducting themselves in an orderly manner and enjoined them to continue to be peaceful.

The CP, it was also, had made the rounds of some trouble spots in the megacity, including the popular Lekki Tollgate where some #EndSARS protesters were shot in 2020.