The Lekki Toll Gate Shooting as an Act of Communication
By: Ioannis Akingonte
Tags: Nigeria, Endsars, Violence, Terrorism, Diplomacy

Introduction

The shooting at the Lekki toll gate could be interpreted as an act of communication. This perspective will help us understand the event with an open mind, free of bias. In this way, we do not fall victim to burdens of proof. The facts considered will be limited to the attributes of the media event. We will solve the Lekki puzzle by determining if it was an intentional act to sway public opinion and behaviour, or an act of punitive violence. We will understand the Lekki tollgate shooting by what it intended to accomplish. Further, I will entertain the proposition that all stakeholders active at the Lekki shooting are suspect, or may have acted in ways that can be described as terrorism. There is no smoke without fire, we say in Nigeria.

What happened at the Lekki toll gate?

Follow me, let us trace the smoke to its origin. Picture the Lekki shooting as a cloud of smoke. Smoke contains toxic gasses creating clouds that obstruct vision. No wonder, the term smokescreen is used in military terminology to describe deception and obscurity. That is a screen of smoke that camouflages activity, hindering enemy observation. In a cloud of confusion, the first step is to reduce the incident to its rawest form possible.

Following two weeks of #EndSARS protests, persons in military uniforms opened live fire on a group of peaceful protesters at the Lekki toll gate in Lagos, a popular protest ground.

After this description, it is all smoke. By smoke, I mean, how many people were killed, if any people were killed, who gave the order, who ‘invited’ the army, the time of the shooting, how many injured, who turned off the lights, were the cameras uninstalled, security cameras or tracking devices, who set the gates on fire, where the shooters Nigerian Army soldiers? Or impersonators? Was Dj Switch there?

I tuned in to the Instagram live from Dj Switch at about 7:05 p.m with 36,000 other viewers. When the broadcast ended, there were close to 180,000 Instagramers tuned in. The shooting was over, but screaming filled the background. The video was dark for the first 15 minutes. That made it additionally horrifying. We could see the front screen of her phone with a constant stream of comments, many from other celebrities. When the lights finally came on, we could see some injured people and others squatting around a barricade. I watched as they attempted to remove a bullet out from the thigh of a protester. The Nigerian Army initially denied the incident. All smoke. Almost three weeks later, the case remains inconclusive. I admit until disinformation pervaded the public sphere, I had no reason to doubt what I saw. In retrospect, I suppose, one cannot rule out the possibility of a choreographed broadcast. Which is in itself a very wild assumption, yet not impossible. If so, then this also falls into the trajectory of terrorism; by making use of terror to sway public opinion. The video felt real. As real as the moon landing in 1969. Staged or real the video is a media event. We can limit prejudice by isolating and observing the attributes of the event.

Violence as an end, or as a means to an end

My mission is to classify the Lekki shooting as terrorism. I define terrorism as a tool of strategic communication that employs the use of violence or the threat of it. A predetermination to communicate an agenda to an audience through violent acts is the defining factor of terrorism. The terrorist act and its intended audience effects constitute the core of this method of communicating.

Was the Lekki shooting a strategic action employed to send a message, or was it a violent action that had no other purpose but to regulate a relationship by punishment, defence, or retribution?

Was the shooting used to coerce audiences into taking a specific action? Aimed at influencing further behavioural changes? Or communicate fear, targeting the end of protests? If the answers to these questions are yes, we can consider the incident as a case of strategic communication. Thus, we can reject the notion that the primary objective of the Lekki shooting was to murder or harm. A classification of violence that may summon the description of massacre or genocide. The end goal of violence in conventional warfare is surrender, contrary to killing or destruction. Following a surrender, any acts of violence are considered a war crime. In a war, the Lekki Shooting would be classified as “willful killing” and “making demilitarized zones the object of attack”.

Roughly, violence is intentionally harming or killing another person. Violence is usually considered an evil action. However, according to the virtuous violence theory by Fiske & Rai (2015), there are various reasons humans use violence for regulating relationships with others. They explain that such violence is morally acceptable, legitimate and even obligatory. They are protection in the form of defence, and punishment in the form of redress. Most cultures understand self-preservation likewise punishment. Besides, consider the violence that is even acceptable in sports like boxing, or rugby. In most respects, terrorism is distinguishable from this ‘virtuous’ violence. Terrorist communication uses violent acts instrumentally to disseminate fear, to strong-arm a public (or many publics) into conforming with preconfigured agendas. Terrorism appears as an option in a political conflict where diplomacy is exhausted or intentionally overlooked.

In line with my quest for impartial reporting, each act of terror becomes a unit of observation. Each terror event is a statistical unit whose attributes are measurable. That is the philosophy of science I am attempting to insert into the discussion of the Lekki toll gate shooting. In any scientific research, the characteristics or attributes of an object form the basis for verifying or falsifying the accuracy of results.

Results: Acts of terror or retribution

What are those attributes? I want us to consider two of them. Terrorist acts could be classified by the type of target (discriminate or indiscriminate) or the degree of force (lethal or non-lethal). I will cross-examine these attributes against the main argument raised in this analysis. Was the shooting intended to punish? Or transmit a message to an audience?

Assumptions and attributes

Assumption A: The Lekki shooting aimed to punish a violation

The outcome of the ‘attack’ does not suggest the soldiers intended to kill

Video footage shows the soldiers shooting upwards

In a curfew, if law enforcement becomes overpowered, soldiers may act to disperse crowds

If the protesters violated the curfew, the proportional punishment is apprehension, not death

The protesters (victims or targets) were ‘non-combatants’

Assumption B: The Lekki shooting aimed at influencing public behaviour

It created a maximum amount of fear, with minimum loss of life (or no loss)

Lekki toll gate is a popular target that influenced favourable media exposure

The outcome has acted as a deterrent to further protests

Punishment is the goal of assumption A. Punishment ranges from corporal punishment to murder, from a slap to a gang shootout, or an execution. It incorporates revenge and honour killings. If the event redresses a violation, revenge or retribution, on a large scale, it qualifies as a massacre, genocide or war crime. Remember that, war aims at enemy surrender rather than extermination. Based on the attributes of the shooting, we can refute this assumption. The victims were a heterogeneous crowd, discriminately targeted and non-combatant. This combination fails to establish a motive for the massacre. In the context of war, making non-combatants the object of attack is a war crime. Also, the video evidence contradicts the assumption that the perpetrators shot to kill. The video which appeared a day after the live Instagram footage, the soldiers appear to be dispersing a crowd. Crowd control during a curfew. Finally, the low casualty count does not support the notion that the attack aimed to obliterate a hostile, armed crowd. Assumption A is false.

Transmission of a message is the goal of assumption B. It aims to influence public behaviour, the strategic use of violence as a communication medium. The intention is to disseminate fear that elicits wider behavioural ends. The Lekki shooting fits this assumption. The outcome defines its purpose, the #EndSARS protests came to an end and further protests have been deterred. The choice of Lekki toll gate is also an indicator of terrorism. Since the more popular the location, the greater the media effect. Also, the attack considered minimal damage and maximum effect of the message. The assumption is B is true.

I framed this investigation by what the shooting was intended to accomplish. This exercise in logic scrutinises the shooting by considering two hypothetical statements. As retribution or as an instrument of communication. Violence as the goal, versus violence as a means to a goal. This method of deduction has helped us conclude that the shooting was an act of strategic communication. Therefore, an act of terrorism.

#EndSARS protest as terrorism

I promised to entertain the idea that peaceful protests are a form of non-violent terrorism. Our definition characterizes terrorism as the strategic use of violence aimed at persuading an audience to alter opinions or behaviour. Since terrorism is a covert action, the real purpose of the event is hidden. Only the perpetrators can reveal the definitive goal of the act. That means, the perpetrators must explicitly claim responsibility. The scientific method, however, allows us to investigate terror acts by considering the attributes of the media event.

The goal of the protests was to peacefully strong-arm the Nigerian government into disbanding and prosecuting members of SARS, a notorious police unit accused of human rights violations. The government was swift to respond by dismissing SARS. Surprisingly, the protests continued, which is analogous with a hostage situation whereby the demands of the perpetrators were fulfiled yet the hostages executed. If ending SARS was not the target of the protest, then, it can be labelled terrorism. We can suggest that the protesters aimed to strategically communicate a message to audiences about overall dissatisfaction with the government; albeit non-violently. A wild presupposition would be, the protests took place in anticipation of a violent response from law enforcement. A thin line separates diplomacy from terrorism.

A critique of violence

I am convinced that any sort of violence is immoral. Hurting or killing is inherently wrong. Nonetheless, in many facets of social life, especially in history, violence has been used to repair, regulate, initiate, as well as terminate relationships. When a relationship ‘contract’ is breached, people have determined it moral, just, necessary, obligatory, and virtuous to repair the relationship through violence. To make things right. From self-defence, to honour, dignity, retribution, gang initiation, martial arts, human or animal sacrifice and so on, “people often feel — and explicitly judge — that in many contexts it is good to do these kinds of violence to others… hurting or killing others is not only justifiable, it is absolutely, fundamentally right.” Fiske & Rai (2005). A hard proclamation to swallow. But it is true. Most violence is motivated by morality, those who enact violence, base their actions on moral rights. Thus, to understand and mitigate violence in society, we must understand what motivates people to be violent.

A critique of terrorism

I claim that terrorism is an instrument of strategic communication. I have always suspected that conventional definitions are inaccurate in their descriptions of terrorism. I am suggesting that terrorism is diplomacy, and diplomacy is terrorism. A thin line draws the boundary of these two poles, a pair of identical opposites. They are both devices of communication. The challenge to academics, philosophers, conflict managers and thinkers is to consider diplomacy and terrorism as opposites of the same concept. Propaganda, psychological operations, marketing, public relations, political campaigning, shootings, bombings, debates, round table discussions, negotiations, highjacking, assassination, are variations of both terrorism and public diplomacy. Hence, I declare that all forms of persuasive communication are terrorism. Any attempt to sway public opinion is an act of terrorism.

Terrorism overshadows public diplomacy in conflict resolution and vice versa. If you agree that the threat of terrorism increases as diplomacy decreases, then we can ascertain that they are both mechanisms of political communication. These mechanisms are available as persuasive tools in any political system. When the political process faces injustice, repression of political voice, broken electoral systems, unfree media, the suppression of political expression and the disenfranchisement of the electorate, violent terrorism may emerge. In volatile regions of the world, as diplomacy in the political sphere reduces, the option to employ terrorism as a communication tool becomes a viable option for both state and non-state actors.

The desire for public communication forms the bond between terrorism and (public) diplomacy. The use of violence distinguishes diplomacy from terrorism. Hence, we can attribute all persuasive communication as instances of terrorism. Non-violent versus violent terrorism. We can eliminate diplomacy from our lexicon. Diplomacy is only a sugarcoated word for terrorism, a politically correct expression for terrorism.

I admit that it is not an easy task to redefine a word that has defined much of human political relations. Jesus Christ, Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King were all at some point considered terrorists. I claim, Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Galileo, Thomas Edison, and anyone else who challenged the status quo are terrorists. Anyone that used persuasive communication to change the world, or to liberate is a terrorist. So, he who is not a terrorist should please, cast the first stone!

Every unorthodox method of persuasive communication is a liable candidate for terrorism. Every unconventional revolutionary idea is an act of terrorism. Every form of violence, whose end goal is not to harm or kill, or fix a relationship violation is terrorism. Every violent act that objectifies victims as a means to communicate a message is an act of violent terrorism, from domestic to political violence. Violence is what makes terrorism a crime. It is not a crime to persuade a public. It is a crime when the methods of persuasion are lethal.

Conclusion

My duty was to determine that the shooting at Lekki was an act of terror. My assignment was not to determine the identity of the perpetrators. That goes beyond my mission. Terrorists are proud of their accomplishments. They usually claim responsibility and issue ultimatums. At the time of writing, the Lekki shooting remains a mystery. No one has claimed responsibility. Also, no report has endeavoured to call the incident an act of terror.

The Lekki shooting was strategic communication. As such, it qualifies as terrorism. We know this because we judged the case through the attributes of the media effects. We studied the event by considering the goals it accomplished. Since the end goal was not murder, the end goal was to disseminate a preconceived message.