Obianuju Udeh, a Nigerian disc jockey better known as DJ Switch, has insisted that 15 persons were killed when individuals said to be members of the Nigerian Army opened fire at #EndSARS protesters at the Lekki Toll Gate plaza on Tuesday.
DJ Switch made the claim in a video posted on her Instagram page on Friday.
Individuals wearing the military fatigues of the Nigerian Army were seen in videos which circulated online shooting at the #EndSARS protesters at the Admiralty Circle Plaza of the Lekki Toll Gate on Tuesday.
The incident occurred at Lekki following the military’s attempt to enforce a curfew imposed by Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Governor of Lagos State, on Tuesday, following the violent turn of events which the #EndSARS protests across the state took as some suspected thugs launched attacks on peaceful protesters and vandalised properties, insinuating that the protests may have been hijacked.
There has, however, been a controversy regarding whether fatalities occurred during the incident, with Governor Sanwo-Olu insisting that no death was recorded apart from two isolated cases.
But DJ Switch claimed that operatives of the Nigerian Army and the Nigeria Police Force — including the now-disbanded Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (F-SARS) — fired live bullets at protesters.
According to her, the security operatives aimed and shot at the protesters while they held the Nigerian flag and sang the national anthem.
She narrated: “We were teargassed. We would run and come back and the only thing we fought with was our flags. We would sit on the floor and raise our hands up, waiving the flags and singing the national anthem. That’s all we had,” she said.
“They put off the light. Even if there is no power in that axis, on a good day, there is always light at the Lekki toll gate. But on that day, there was no light, the street lights were off, it was pitch black.”
She recounted how a boy saved her life but was later shot in the process, saying: “A boy jumped on me and kept shouting, ‘cover her, cover her.’ I did not even understand why he did that. They shot that boy while he was on my back.”
DJ Switch showed some of the bullets the protesters picked up and one which, she said, was removed from one of the victims as evidence of live ammunition used on the people at the toll gate.
She said: “While the soldiers were picking their shells, we were running around picking their shells too because we wanted proof.
“The military, they were there on Nigerian soil, killing Nigerian citizens. The police and SARS people came doing the same thing. Aiming and shooting; aiming, they were pointing the guns at us and shooting live bullets. Who takes live bullets to a protest? Who does that?”
The disc jockey insisted that the soldiers took away the dead bodies of those killed at the toll gate on Tuesday night.
She called on Nigerian leaders not to “insult the pains and intelligence of families affected by trying to downplay what happened” during the incident.
“To our leaders, do not insult the grief and intelligence of Nigerians. Do not insult the pains that affected families are facing. People were falling left and right. People did die, it wasn’t photoshopped.
“Something I think about now, with hindsight, which I wished we hadn’t done was carrying dead bodies and dropped at the feet of soldiers so that they could see what they did to us.
“When I asked their unit commander or something ‘why are you killing us’? I wish we didn’t do that because they ended up throwing the dead bodies inside their vans. This continued until the next morning,” she said.
She debunked claims that she earlier said 78 people died during the incident and asked people to desist from peddling misinformation in her name.
She said: “I also want to appeal to the people opening fake accounts in my name; please it is already hard as it is. People risked their lives to get me out of the place I call my home. Please, stop saying things you do not know. I understand things are hard and difficult. In this era of social media, you want to get followership that can help you make some money; I understand but at least copy the truth and put it out. That is all I am asking.
“Please, I never said 78 people died, I do not know that. I do know that as at the time I was doing the Live video, seven people had died. When my battery died we had counted about 15 people. I don’t know if it was more than that because we had a lot of people that were hit by stray bullets. 78 people? I do not know where you got that information from,”
