Police in Lagos have fired tear gas to disperse activists and political figures gathered at the Lekki tollgate to mark six years since the 2020 demonstrations against police brutality.

Participants had gathered on Tuesday for an anniversary memorial organized by the civil society group Enough is Enough to lay wreaths in honor of those killed during the October 2020 #EndSARS protests.

Prominent opposition figures, including former Lagos governorship candidates Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour and Funso Doherty, were among those present when police intervened as the crowd began to grow.

Video footage from the scene showed participants fleeing and suffering from the effects of gas inhalation. No casualties or serious injuries were immediately reported.

A symbolic site of memory and controversy

Witnesses said officers deployed to the location on Monday evening moved in shortly after the wreath-laying ceremony.

“The participants arrived after dropping the wreath at the tollgate, but the policemen began firing tear gas when the number of participants started to increase,” a witness said.

Lagos State Police Command spokesperson Abimbola Adebisi stated that she had not yet received official feedback from officers deployed to the site. “Our officers are still on the ground,” she said.

The Lekki tollgate remains a deeply symbolic site in modern Nigerian history. In 2020, widespread youth-led protests against the now-disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) culminated in a crackdown by security forces at the tollgate on 20 October.

A subsequent Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry concluded that at least nine people were killed and four others were missing, presumed dead, during the 2020 incident—findings the state and federal governments have continuously disputed.