Searching for Wisdom in Lagos

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2020

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A young woman is desperately searching for her brother in Lagos. On the night of 20th October, Nigerian soldiers opened fire at a peaceful demonstration camped at the Lekki tollgate in Lagos. The government say they fired into the air, but witnesses insist that unarmed protesters came under deliberate attack. Amnesty International says that 12 people died.

The incident has traumatised a highly popular political reform movement that began as a demand to close down the S.A.R.S., a notoriously corrupt and brutal police squad. In the aftermath, many of the movement’s young supporters are keeping a low profile. Some have had their bank accounts frozen and passports seized. Others have even fled overseas, in fear of their lives.

The BBC’s Nigeria correspondent Mayeni Jones has been talking to some of them, including a witness to the Lekki shooting, and Peace, who is tirelessly searching for her brother, Wisdom, who is still missing after attending the demonstration. Mayeni finds a country whose traditionally deferential society and elderly leadership seem suddenly vulnerable; shaken by a perfect storm of youthful idealism, social media activism, and the crippling economic fallout of the Covid pandemic.

Producers: Naomi Scherbel-Ball & Michael Gallagher With additional research by Jonelle Awomoyi Editor: Bridget Harney

Transcript

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0:00.0	It was on the 20th of October Tuesday that I lost my brother at about 2 to 3 p.m. on that Tuesday.
0:15.0	BBC World Service, welcome to assignment.
0:19.0	He left for the two gates, and since then he has never returned.
0:25.0	That was the last place I saw him at the two gates before the shooting began.
0:32.0	Peace O'Connor hasn't seen her 18-year-old brother wisdom since he attended a protest at the
0:38.8	Lequito Gate in Nigeria's biggest city, Lagos.
0:42.0	A protest at which soldiers opened fire.
0:47.0	After the Tuesday that I couldn't find him, I went to the hospitals that the injured protesters were taken to.
0:55.0	I saw a lot of people that were injured, but I couldn't find my brother among them.
1:04.0	After that, I was asked to check police stations,
1:08.0	but he was still nowhere to be found.
1:20.0	Peace is getting desperate and her story reflects a wider Nigerian trauma. The lucky protesters were demanding an end to corruption and police brutality
1:25.2	since the shooting many have gone underground. But they insist they'll prevail
1:31.2	and reform the country.
1:33.0	I'm Maeney Jones, Legos correspondent for the BBC,
1:37.0	and for this week's assignment I'm asking if life for peace or Nigeria can ever be the same again.
1:47.1	A brother is just a young teenager.
1:49.1	He's a 10 years old and is new in Lagos. He was just two weeks and when he got disappearing.
1:56.0	So he doesn't know Lagos. He wasn't with phone when he left the house to the toll gate. I have no way of contacting him.
2:06.0	And he has no friends or other family here where he could be.
2:09.0	No, that's all. He doesn't have a friend here.
2:11.0	What do you think might have happened to him?
	...

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