 It's one year after the Lecky Toe Plaza shooting in Lagos, and the protesters are back on the streets for a memorial who will be discussing all that happened on this day a year ago. We will also have the lead council to the protesters here in Lagos, where we'll talk about the judicial panel. And as always, Off The Press comes up today also to share with you major stories making headlines across the country. This very interesting Wednesday morning. Here on the breakfast. With that, we'll say good morning and thanks for joining us on this very, very beautiful Wednesday morning here, 20th of October, 2021. This is the breakfast on Plostivia Africa. I am Kosauki Ogmara. And I am Messier Bofor. Good morning. Thanks for joining us. Our conversations this morning are going to be mostly centered around one particular event, and of course the build-up to what happened on this day in 2020. The Lecky Toe Gate shooting. And we'll be talking about that with the lead council to the end, SARS protesters at Lagos panel of enquiry. You'll be joining us sometime around 8am this morning. But before that, of course, we have Off The Press, where we get to share with you major stories making headlines across Nigeria today. So it seems like it's going to be a rainy morning in Lagos. It felt like it was a little drizzle on my way to work this morning. I actually witnessed the rain in my zone, apparently last night. Oh yeah, yes it did. Yeah, because it rained yesterday and so it might also just rain sometime later. Still, I mean, I think I said it yesterday. It's still a little shocking to see it raining that heavy in the month of October. That's because, let's just say that we're very close to, you know, it's a coastal city. So definitely you expect the rains, especially when you leave around this particular zone. Aside from the rain, there's, of course, a lot of other conversations mostly centered around the end SARS protests. And that's our top trend in this morning. In the last 20 days, there have been online conversations about a memorial and, of course, a remembrance of those people who lost their lives all through last year. And those who lost their lives particularly during the protest last year. It started, of course, in Delta State where yet another person had been a victim of police brutality. Eventually spread, you know, numerous conversations online, mostly on Twitter that led to maybe the biggest protest Nigeria has seen in a very, very long time. That eventually ended somehow some way on the streets on the 20th of October in 2020. The conversations have centered mostly around the gains and, of course, the failure of government to actually do something and to show some level of accountability as to what happened in the month of October. All through the month of October last year. They're not just on the 20th. And I think our conversations are going to be centered throughout the month of October last year and eventually on the night of the 20th of October 2020. And we spoke a little bit about this yesterday. What level of accountability has the government shown? How different is police behavior in the last one year? In what ways have the police been able to have some level of reforms? In what ways have the police officers, who are being able to be made accountable for their actions? And it doesn't seem like a lot has changed. That really is what has led to more of these conversations this year. I drove past the Toge this morning and, you know, I've been driving past Toge every day. And there's an increased level of police presence there again this morning, mostly to prevent people from gathering or to prevent any type of protest. I also saw a message saying that the latest state police is saying that they would only allow online protests. And of course, protests from home, which I really don't even understand. What it means to protest online? I mean, yes, you can have conversations online. You can necessarily protest online. There's other ways that you can have some level of protest. But I think it's also important to know that the police itself cannot give orders whether there should be a protest or not. They're not the ones. It should be the government. And of course, there's still a court ruling that says that you don't need to even seek permission from government before a protest is held. So the events for today, I'm sure they're going to be very interesting. I want to see how they play out. We're going to have a correspondent on ground at the Toge to also give us live feed and give us some reports as to what exactly played out over there. It's more of an irony, if you ask me. The fact that we have increased presence of security forces around, one would rather think that the fact that you have this persons on ground should be to protect because that's the way it is. Now, let's not forget that during the protests, one of the narrative that was being pushed was that, yes, it became, it was hijacked. But why should a protest be hijacked? Because on normal day, I mean, in a normal day or during normal circumstances, you are expected to have the police. You're expected to have protection. You're expected to have that this protest should not go wrong and that's where the police comes in. So it's really funny and it is really an irony to say and to know and to see that you have presence of security forces just to ensure that the protest doesn't really happen. In a democratic dispensation, it costs a lot of concern. I mean, it really, really costs a lot of concern. Now, protest is a tool. It's a universal tool, if you like to say, that has been used over the years in different countries, you know, to get government to act, to respond to the demands of the citizens. And so it wouldn't be different. This is not the first time. I would even rather say that, I mean, we're actually embracing this, you know, it's rather late than never, right? Because we have a lot of people who have gone ahead of us and we have seen that some of these countries have actually gotten, you know, several results. But why are we different? What's going on with us? I think it's mostly the Nigerian government's attitude towards opposition or attitude towards, you know, anyone who disagrees with them. And it's not just for protesting. Even people, you know, on separate different political parties, people who have counterarguments concerning the Nigerian government, anything, anything whatsoever that the Nigerian government feels like they choose to do. They have a particular attitude towards anybody who has completely discerning arguments about it. And that's what eventually has translated into some of all of this. And it's also showing really the attitude of the Nigerian police itself towards the respect to the fundamental human rights of the Nigerian citizen. They have completely, completely forgotten, you know, what their responsibility should be and the roles that they should have in society. And this, you know, covers every single justification. If you've been to a police station, if you've had discussions with the police, if you've been stopped at a checkpoint, every single, you know, way that you can describe. You can really tell that they really almost don't have any idea what their responsibilities should be and how, you know, they should always be able to respect the rights of the Nigerian that they are paid to protect. And that's what eventually plays out here. So you begin to ask the question of how many times you have training and retraining. And I'm sure that, you know, one of the major reasons, because if you also look at the Internet and the discussion that's been going on for the past, you know, 20 days up until this moment, you'll find that that one of the discusses the fact that people are asking that, you know, the police, there should be a reform in the system. And the reform, apart from the fact that they're asking, yes, crab a particular, which is, you know, that of the SAS. But necessarily they're saying, if you look at the condition of the Nigerian police, I mean, if you look at the world, just look at, just look at, you know, a typical police officer, it doesn't really look good. I mean, first of all, you ask, how are they faring? I have been to the barracks, you know, where these people reside. And it's really nothing to really write them about. It's not something to be proud of. And so these are some of the concerns that Nigerians actually, you know, took to the streets on, you know, on behalf of the police. And so I'm wondering why they do not understand the narrative. And all of this is actually going on. And it also brings us back to the question of when people begin to come. And because the elections are here again, 2023 is very close, as much as we say, oh, 2023 is very far off, but it's very close. I'm asking what conversations are we having? What are we talking about? What leaders are we looking up to? Because it's high time we begin to understand that we need to elect leaders who would represent our interests, not leaders who would feel that, you know, when they get into the office, you know, everything that they say would begin to take them for what they say. So this is the time we begin to have all of this conversation. It is really, really sad and it saddens me. Today is usually, every time I look at the news and I look at all of those clips, I get very emotional, really, really emotional. And so I saw CNN report, you know, that was what I think was two days ago, where a woman was saying, you know, that her son died in her arms. You know, she had gone to the, I'm not sure if you saw that. She had gone there the next morning to talk it next morning and she had seen, you know, that a child had been shot in the chest. Eventually died in her arm and she had also seen other, you know, people who had been killed, you know, that morning, I think it was five or six a.m. the next morning when she went there. And, you know, I'm putting that out, you know, really to express the, some level of, to express the pain, you know, that people have had to deal with in the last one year. And, you know, just express some level of it. Of course, I can't in any way express, you know, to its full extent, but the level of pain that people have dealt with in the last one year. The thing you were talking about, you know, about, you know, how the protesters really and some of the things that they protested for was to have a better police force, to have a better living conditions for the police, have better remunerations for the police and some of all of that. It might seem decent, but, you know, like Sherwin Cote said, sometime last year, he's not, you know, a party to, and I think I'm also part of that group that I'm not, you know, a party to those who are campaigning for a better life for the police. They are human beings. They are adults. They are grown-ups. If they want a better life, they should be able to campaign for a better life for themselves. It is not the people that they have been killing, that they have been, you know, manhandling, that they have been abusing for years. The same police officers that you're campaigning for would, you know, treat you like dirt if you ever find yourselves under, you know, in their cell or, you know, behind their counter, as it is popularly called. So I'm not part of those people who's campaigning for police. Yes, police reforms. Yes, absolutely police reforms. And that should cover every single, you know, sphere of the armed forces and, you know, non-aggressive security agencies. Yes, there should be reforms. They should invest more in technology. They should invest more in better ways of carrying out criminal justice acts. But I have no business with, you know, talking about, oh, they go fix their barracks. That's their personal problem. And as adults, they should be able to campaign for themselves and say, we demand better living conditions. We demand better pay. It's not the same people that you have been abusing, that you still look at the toge this money. But however, however, that's also a reality because some of the videos making the rounds at this point in time. It's also countering what the narrative that has been put out, because I mean, during that period, you would also want to agree with me that there's a narrative that's been put out saying, oh, the protest is destructive. There's so much of destruction. It's been used, you know, to actually do a lot of crime, commit a lot of crime and criminality. But I have seen the videos where, you know, this young protesters are open about sharing more of a humanitarian angle. You see them giving water, snacks and all of that to the police officers and telling them, oh, this is what it is. That narrative was put out for a reason. And I'm sure you know the reason. The narrative was put out for a reason to, you know, they say if you only kill a dog, you know, you give a dog a bad name, you know, to hang it. That's the reason behind that narrative. Everyone who's been honest with themselves knows that the protest was largely, you know, 80% or 100% peaceful last day until the very end. Very organized. Very organized. You know, and you saw videos, you saw pictures of people cleaning up right after the protest. I even have a friend who was, I mean, I could see her. You just see some of these girls leaving their high horses and coming down to the streets to pick the debts. And after that, I was really, really impressed and it was really, really emotional. And that really tells you the mentality of the people who came out to demand that the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, you know, be ended. And of course that police learns, you know, about the rights of the Nigerian and, you know, they have complete police reforms. That's really the mentality of those people. Every other person who was a part of the destruction, you know, that we saw eventually after the night of October 20, basically, yeah, you can see those clips on your screen. Every other person who came out and of course was a part of that destruction was not in any way, you know, a part of the Ansar's protest, had no business with the Ansar's protest. I feel like they were planted. I feel like it was a deliberate attempt. You had another camp or you had another group of persons. You want to say those were against the protest because it wouldn't really be the same group of persons who went out asking. There's that narrative. But at the same time, you know, it's still a failure of government. Two things that I'll point out, you know, as a failure of government. The first one is the fact that there's that many jobless people that have nothing to do but destroy because they don't have any. And so that's what they went out to do to destroy. There's that many jobless people. There's that many violent people. There's a failure of government itself that there's that Legos is filled because it wasn't all in Legos. It wasn't all in Legos. It wasn't all in Legos across, you know, you know, the country, different states. You need to see that. Oh, well, if you're talking about the, yeah, breaking into prisons and some of all of that, yes, absolutely. But it's the same same thing. Still a failure of government that has led to that many jobless people being readily available to destroy what they didn't build. That's one. And then second, when you declare a curfew, it's not the responsibility of the entire protestors to protect Legos and protect the infrastructure across the state. It is the responsibility of the same police, the same police that are paid with taxpayers money. They are the ones who are meant to ensure that there is peace and there's quiet and there's safety and security during a curfew. So when you declare a curfew and all the policemen go to sleep and go to back to their police stations and, you know, don't do any work for the next, you know, 72 hours. It's not the fault of the protesters. And you can't blame the protesters for that. It's still the failure of the Nigerian state and the Nigerian government to protect its, you know, lives and property, you know, that within its territory. Now, if the narrative that has been put out there says, you know, the protest was actually hijacked, then like you rightly said, it is very true because I believe that if there's going to be a protest, then you ought to have the police, which is responsible, saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that, you know, there's protection within the civil society. So yes, if the protest was hijacked, where the men of the Nigerian police force is another question you need to ask. And how come we don't have, because for every time you have a protest or people go out to protest, nothing, nothing ought to go wrong. I mean, nothing should go wrong with all of that. You ought to have, you know, some level of protection to ensure that the people who are protesting and these peasants or hoodlums as there would be characterised don't coming to hijack the entire process. But like you rightly mentioned, I agree that is a total failure on the parts of government and those who should do the needful. Once again, it's a really sad discussion, you know, and I'll be honest, it's an emotional discussion to be honest. There are certain discussions that I honestly wish that I didn't have to partake in. But these are important discussions and they must be spoken about for justice, for fairness, for, you know, the idea of moving forward and for a better society somehow, some way. We'll take a short break. When we come back, Off the Press begins where we get to share with you major stories making headlines across Nigeria this morning. And of course we have an analyst joining us this morning. Stay with us.