Nigeria Eases Curfew in Lagos After Protests Abate

(Bloomberg) -- Nigerian authorities said a 24-hour curfew that was imposed on Lagos, Africa’s biggest city, to quell two weeks of mass protests against police brutality will be eased from Saturday.

Thousands of youths staged marches and barricaded roads and bridges in the nation’s economic hub, before Lagos state Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu instituted the lockdown on Oct. 20 with just a few hours’ notice. Many residents have started running short of food, fuel and other essentials.

Residents will now be allowed to leave their homes between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., a restriction that will be reviewed next week, and a clean-up of the city has begun, Sanwo-Olu said in a televised address.

“We believe that we still have pockets of insecurity that we have to deal with, but they are isolated cases,” he said. “Lagos needs to heal and healing has started.”

The largely peaceful protests, which began on Oct. 5 and spread to about half of the country’s 36 states, have been a key test of President Muhammadu Buhari’s authority. While he agreed to disband a police unit that’s been at the center of the brutality allegations, he’s also warned the protesters he won’t allow national security to be compromised.

At least 56 people have died in protest-related violence so far, including 12 who were killed after security forces opened fire on crowds that gathered at two sites in Lagos on Oct. 20 in defiance of the curfew, according to rights group Amnesty International. The government hasn’t provided a death toll.

Calm prevailed across most of Lagos for a second day on Friday, although the sound of gunshots could still be heard in some districts and witnesses said there were clashes between rival gangs. There was no sign of protesters on the streets of Abuja, the capital.

The Lagos curfew was necessary to halt an outbreak of looting and arson that broke out in the city from Oct. 18, according to Sanwo-Olu. Apartment buildings and shopping malls were invaded, while a television station’s premises, several bank branches and a number of police stations were set on fire. The cost of the damage has yet to be determined.

The army took to Twitter to denounce reports that troops had fired on crowds in Lagos as “fake news.” Sanwo-Olu’s office said soldiers did use live ammunition to disperse protesters who gathered at the Lekki toll plaza in Lagos severely injured 11 people, but it hadn’t definitely been established whether they’d killed anyone. A probe into the incident will begin next week, he said.

Buhari’s office said in a statement on Friday that the protests had been “hijacked and misdirected” and that his government “will not fold its arms and allow miscreants and criminals continue to perpetrate acts of hooliganism in the country.”

The president has made no reference to the actions of the security forces, and urged the international community to avoid “rushing to judgment and making hasty pronouncements.” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo are among those who’ve condemned the violence.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.