THE Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has said that residents have psychologically recovered from the protests of police brutality, tagged #EndSARS, which rocked the state two years ago.
The protest was a decentralised social movement, and a series of mass protests against police brutality in Nigeria, which initially began in 2017 in pockets, but spread nationwide in October 2020, grounding several businesses.
The protesters burnt many police stations and BRT buses in the course of the protests.
Sanwo-Olu, while playing guest to Channels Television this evening, said that though the recovery was a work in progress, the state has managed to re-emerge through the rebuilding of its infrastructure.
He said, “I would say we have recovered psychologically from it but we are still working out the infrastructure recovery from it. Infrastructure is not something that you would fix in one day. The infrastructure renewal is an ongoing process. We are developing a 15-storey edifice that would take about 60 courts at once for the Igbosere High Court.”
He added that everyone in the state, including the residents and the government, had learnt their lessons while trying to recover from the collateral damage.
The governor expressed his belief that time had been healing the wounds from the protest, saying that the people had become more forward-looking, seeking progress after such a tragedy.
“We are not taking anyone for granted and taking anything to chance and what they (young people) want is not about what has happened, but the opportunity being given to them to flourish. That is what we are doing,” he said.
He also expressed optimism that he would be re-elected for a second term, stressing that the “governance of Lagos is not trial and error,” and that he has earned it.
The governor also used the opportunity to tell residents that he has not been using the internally generated revenue of the state to pursue other personal ambitions.
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