Thread by @Ezeakachidozie

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LEKKI TOLL GATE - MY ACCOUNT. 20/10/2020.

By Prof. Tosan Blessing

I flew from kano to Ikeja Airport and from there did a Taxify to Lekki toll gate to meet the protesters when I was told they had no leadership structure. My Taxify Driver's name is Ayo.

I thought I introduced myself to AY, Wiz kid, Timi Dakolo, Japhet Omojuwa, Damini Ogulu, Moe Odele, Folarin Falana, Yemi Alade , Ikuforiji Abdurahman and other persons I was meeting for the first time to persuade them to understand the existential dynamics of a resistance which

this has become.

I stayed at Four point hotel at Lekki Phase 1 five minutes walk away from the toll gate. I took my time to explain revolutionary models to them from the Bolsheviks to Mensheviks, to Southern American guerilla warfare to proxy wars in Africa to Asian to Arab

springs, and told them I have not seen anything called horizontal non hierarchical leaderless model anywhere and warned that they might not be able to negotiate and may soon be consumed by other conflicting variables.

Because I have lived in DSS cells some of the times I saw a few of their officers I know so well on singlets and pants helping them to chant. At this point, I knew the protests have been infiltrated.

On the 20/10/2020 which was my intended return date to kano, I missed my flight booking and chose 212020 instead but have not been able to leave Lagos. I did not know that was going to be the night that will change the spectra of event for Lagos and Nigeria.

That night the youths now started taking me serious from their previously ignoble stance when they saw me hook up to Antonio Gutteres on video call who just finished a meeting on ethnic Armenian and Azerbaijan people over Nagorno Kabakh to alert him

on what the military was going to do with protesters.

I feared for the worse and even reported same given that I cannot be at all point around the stretches of the protest dimension.

That day we had heard what happened to businesses at Abuja with cars burnt and the presidency using hoodlums to chase peaceful protesters. We saw the modern police station at coker torched. Then of course we heard about the prison breaks in Benin.

I was there when they came to remove the number lasers on the toll gate and adjoining lights on the spectrum boards.

I went back to the hotel but came back when the youths began to gather to defy the curfew and the soldiers came. Looking at those soldiers and their mien on one side and the reticent protesters on the other side I knew we were facing an incident night.

First it was back and forth movement. Then the shooting started over the head of the protesters.

I saw DJ switch videoing with two guys by her. I saw other people doing the same thing- videoing.

Each time the soldiers shoot the mass of people close to them would sit down but the back would stampede and people were trampling on people, resulting in life threatening injuries.

I saw 15 badly injured protesters at different points of the toll gate in a radius of 50 meters apart. This was after a Don Jazzy's guy who had earlier exchanged pleasantries with me close to the side of an ATM gallery was calling someone and said 78 protesters were dead.

I called Jean Claude Junker, and sent a tweet to Joe Biden, Bill and Hillary Clinton.

The more serious injuries were taken back to where cars have free access to take them to hospitals at VI, that part was where the soldiers were doing the cat and mice game with the protesters.

The way the ammo were flaring I suspected they were unusual and not the type of bullets I know, I thought probably this ammo was built to contain this kind of activity.

The soldiers initially resisted anyone coming near them because that was the only area free and that was where cars or ambulances were parked but at a point they allowed the wounded to be evacuated.

I was concerned about a lady that was rushed to Reddington with blood allover her. Others not so serious were rushed into field ambulances set up to manage emergencies inside Lekki.

After about 2.00 am the protesters had scattered with a handful seated on the kerb and at different holdings beyond the Toll gate,

I saw the soldiers turned their Humvees to face the 1004 direction and drove one way towards Atlantic city road plaza divide to join the other lane and zoomed off.

I woke up about 3.00pm in the afternoon of 21/10/2020 after already agreeing to miss my flight to now see the massive destruction of the toll gates, banks, ATMs and nearby malls and shops ostensibly because the protesters were no longer there.

I also started READING and HEARING that there was MASSACRE at LEKKI TOLLGATE.

I asked if it was the KILLINGS in LAGOS they meant or the LEKKI INCIDENT, they said Lekki.

I became confused and have not been well ever since.

I concluded in order to help myself from FALLING into DELIRIUM that it was either the GUN SHOTS back and forth OVERWHELMED my EARS and AFFECTED my SIGHT that I didn't see the DEAD or that I am UNABLE to FUNCTION as a HISTORIAN in a CRIME SCENE.

I had to go and pick a book HEART OF DARKNESS" and COILED myself around the part that is titled "YOUTH" to CONSOLE MYSELF.

I have told my two European friends what I saw the night and monitoring Kano to be sure it is safe to return there before getting away from this their Lagos