#EndSARS protest: Duke, Imoke, Ndoma-Egba, others lost over N45b property in C/River

• Senate calls for holistic reform of police force
• Lagos begins reconstruction of Igbosere, Nigeria’s oldest court

The #EndSARS protest in Cross Rivers State has caused former governors of the state, Donald Duke and Liyel Imoke, and former and serving federal lawmakers from the state to lose property worth over N27 billion.

In total, Federal Government agencies, Cross River State government and some private individuals lost property worth over N45 billion to the #EndSARS protest in the state.

This was disclosed in a 69-page report on the mayhem by the Senate Joint Committee on National Security and Intelligence; Defence; Police Affairs; Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters.

The report of the committee, chaired by Senator Ibrahim Gobir, was considered on the floor of the Senate yesterday. Gobir, in his presentation, said investigative hearings by the committee revealed that the violence in Calabar metropolis during the protest, which led to the looting and destruction of private and government-owned properties was “largely spontaneous with no identified goals, leaders, sponsors or financiers.”

He said serving and former federal lawmakers from the state whose property and businesses were attacked are Senator Gershom Bassey, Senator Victor Ndoma Egba, Senator Bassey Ewa-Henshaw and Hon. Etta Mbora.

According to him, Duke lost N200 million; Imoke, N506 million; Ndoma-Egba, N1.5 billion; Ewa-Henshaw, N9.3 billion; Bassey, N4 billion; Mbora, N150 million and other victims, N12 billion.  

The financial value of the vandalised property/items submitted by affected persons verified by the committee amounted to the tune of N73 billion.

The lawmaker disclosed that one of the victims of the protest, Senator Ewa-Henshaw, who appeared before the committee, attributed the violence to displacement of the people of Bakassi as a result of ceding their homelands to the Republic of Cameroun, a situation that turned some of them into militants.

In addition, the committee stated in the report that a total of 41 government properties were vandalised by hoodlums during the protest around Calabar municipal and neighbouring Bakassi, Odukpani and Akpabuyo Local Councils of the state. 
 
Accordingly, the Senate in its recommendations, urged the Federal Government to evolve and implement holistic reforms in the Nigeria Police Force (NPF).  

MEANWHILE, the Lagos State government has begun to pull down the State High Court sitting in the Igbosere area, about 16 months after it was set on fire. Two excavators were seen yesterday demolishing the remains of the court, said to be Nigeria’s oldest and most recognisable judicial building.

The court was torched and looted by hoodlums in October 2020 in the wake of the #EndSARS protests. The court was once the oldest most recognisable court building in Nigeria. At one time, the premises housed the highest court in the country – the Supreme Court – before it relocated to Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

In the ’60s, matters from the Lagos High Court would go to the Privy Council in England on appeal. Notable names who sat in the court include John Idowu Conrad Taylor, better known as JIC Taylor, who was the first Chief Judge of Lagos State, as well as the longest-serving Chief Judge of Lagos, Justice Adetunji Adefarasin and Justice Muri Okunola, among others.

Justice George Oguntade, Justice Bode Rhodes-Vivor, and other serving and retired justices who passed through Lagos State also sat in the court premises.

While many senior lawyers and jurists of note cut their legal teeth in the premises, many landmark cases that shaped the course of Nigeria’s legal system were initiated in the court premises – making it a national monument.

During the demolition yesterday, the gates to the court premises were locked by officials. The reconstruction of the Igbosere High Court is being carried out by the Lagos State Rebuilding Trust Fund.

During the #EndSARS protest, hoodlums gained access into the premises, carting away computers, printers, files, fans, air conditioners and other items and later set the building ablaze before fleeing.

The hoodlums also destroyed the nearby Igbosere Magistrates’ Court, the world-class Forensic DNA Centre (West Africa’s first), police stations, and other public and private infrastructure across Lagos.

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu on November 4, 2020, signed an Executive Order to establish an eight-man Lagos State Rebuilding Trust Fund, headed by Mr Yemi Cardoso to rebuild the razed edifice.

The chairman of the Trust Fund, Cardoso, had stated in September 2021, that the Fund started off as a government thing, and later turned to a public-private partnership.