I won’t lie. My chest is heavier than I can bear. For days I worked backstage with a solid team of people at Lekki Toll. Yesterday was the only day I missed. I’d been there everyday since the protests began. Then I come online to see that it’s been turned into a slaughterhouse.

Most of us didn’t know each other. We were just an organic family working together to ensure that everything went right. We all looked out for one another. I was stressed the fuck out everyday but the purpose & hope we all shared kept me going. I didn’t care about anything else.

One of our security volunteers was shot dead last night. They murdered him in cold blood. In cold fucking blood. People were slaughtered like sheep. For doing nothing but demanding their rights. Killed for asking to live. For begging for their own property — life.

The faces & hearts of people I saw at Lekki Toll were filled with hope and passion. But some of those hearts will never beat again. Some of those faces will never smile again. The ones who will live to tell the story will tell it bearing scars & trauma that will last a lifetime.

I had never held the Nigerian flag. I was born into a religion that saw it as idolatry, and even when I left religion, I just never really cared about it because did it even matter? For the first time in my life, I held a flag in my hand, and I felt some hope in this country.

For the first time in my life, I wasn’t indifferent to the meaning of my country’s flag, and it was because of the protesters at Lekki Toll. I figured it meant something deep to them, some sort of protection, and that it might mean something to me too. But we were all deceived.

Lekki Toll was such a chilled place. So chilled that people were complaining that it was getting too chilled. The people were so alive. We had a team that searched every protester before entry to ensure that no one was armed. And no one was. Their only arm was the fucking flag.

I had never seen so many flags in my life. They were like confetti. The people held it with so much hope and pride. They believed it was a talisman of some sort. That no armed officer would shoot at them if they held the flag. That it was going to protect them. But it was a lie.

Every morning, they started with the National Anthem. They always sang the two stanzas. You could tell that these people had been so hurt and broken by Nigeria but they still had hope in their voices while they sang. You could tell that they believed that better days were ahead.

Nigeria betrayed them. Nigeria betrayed these people. This country turned their hope to ashes. We asked to be unbroken but all they did was break us more. We asked for our right to live so they served us death on a dark, cold platter.

I don’t think I will ever get over this. Many of us will never get over this. To think that a place that used to be a safe ground for many is now home to a massacre. To think that I will never drive past that place without seeing haunting images of blood and tears.

I feel a mixture of sadness, anger and guilt. I feel terribly guilty. I know that I didn’t have as much passion for this country as those who were slain. That I deserved it more than they did. That I am not worthy to be here. I know it. I should’ve been there. I just know it.

I no longer know how to talk without crying. Every word I say is followed with tears. Every sound is louder than usual. Everything sounds like a gunshot. I have just come to the realization that everything is real and I am still battling to shake it off. How can I accept this?

My greatest fear is that no one will be made to pay for this. That we are helpless, indispensable pawns in the hands of power. It is my greatest fear and I desperately want to be proven wrong. I want to be proven a liar. If Nigeria failed them, we can’t fail them too.

No. This is not defeat. These people didn’t die for nothing. Seyi and others didn’t die for nothing. They didn’t die for Nigeria. They did not choose to be matyred; they were killed by the state. By the country they wanted peace in. But we the living live to fight another day.

20-10-2020. Lekki Toll Gate, Lagos. The Nigerian Army created a kill box, ambushing several unarmed protesters who were peacefully singing the National Anthem & opened fire on them, killing and injuring many. The only weapon they had was the Nigerian flag.

The Nigerian Flag.