The protest in Lagos state assumed different dimension on Tuesday as many demonstrators were shot death in spite of a state-wide curfew imposed by the state government.
In Port Harcourt, many dog owners came out with their dogs to demand an end to police brutality in the country.
Even though the protesters came out with different dog breeds in Nigeria, their purposes were the same - an end to kidnapping, harrassment and extortion by a police unit called the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).
The protests has been peaceful so far in Port Harcourt with demonstrators singing the national anthem, waving the Nigerian flag, praying and staging sits-in.
But violence have erupted in other places like Abuja, Lagos, and Kano.
Based on the violence so far, the Amnesty International in its twitter handle said, “it has received credible but disturbing evidence of excessive use of force occasioning deaths of protesters.”
The tweet further stated, “while we continue to investigate the killings, Amnesty International wishes to remind the authorities that under international law, security forces may only resort to the use of lethal force when strictly unavoidable to protect against imminent threat of death or serious injury.”
In a bid to dissuade protesters from demonstrating, the government disbanded SARS on 11th October, 2020 and replaced it with SWAT. The SWAT unit will be trained by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
However, protests have continued and demonstrators are demanding psychological evaluation of police officers and an end to police brutality.
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