#EndSARS — the campaign to disband the Special Anti-Robbery Squad — had been on Nigerian Twitter since 2017 (the #EndSARS hashtag was launched by Segun Awosanya in December 2017). The viral video of 3 October 2020 — purporting to show SARS officers shooting a young man at Wetlands Hotel, Ughelli (Delta State) and driving off in his Lexus — produced the explosion. From 8 October 2020 mass demonstrations broke out at Alausa (Lagos), Eagle Square (Abuja), and in every major city; within five days the protest had become the largest youth-led civil mobilisation in Nigerian history, organised through the Feminist Coalition (which raised ₦147.8m for legal aid, food and security) and a network of decentralised cells with no formal leadership.
On 11 October 2020 the Inspector-General of Police Mohammed Adamu announced the dissolution of SARS — the fourth such announcement since 2017. On 13 October 2020 the IGP announced the creation of the Special Weapons and Tactics Team (SWAT) staffed from former SARS personnel; protesters rejected the rebrand and converged on the Lekki Toll Plaza in Lagos for a continuous occupation.
On the evening of 20 October 2020, between 18:30 and 21:00, the Lagos State Government declared a 24-hour curfew (announced at 16:00, effective at 16:00 the same day — making lawful evening movement impossible). Lekki Toll Plaza CCTV cameras were removed; the floodlights were switched off. Soldiers of the 65 Battalion of the Nigerian Army (under Lt-Col S.O. Bello) arrived in two Toyota Hilux trucks and opened fire on the seated, flag-waving demonstrators. Live phone footage — most prominently the Instagram Live of DJ Switch (Obianuju Catherine Udeh) — broadcast the shooting in real time. The Lagos Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses (Justice Doris Okuwobi, October 2020–November 2021) returned a 309-page Report on 15 November 2021: 'the atrocious maiming and killing of unarmed, helpless and unresisting protesters, while they sang the National Anthem and waved the Nigerian Flag, can be equated to a massacre in context.' Confirmed dead at the Toll Plaza: 9. Disputed by Army and Lagos State Government. Total #EndSARS-related dead nationwide (Amnesty International): 56.
The Lagos State White Paper (December 2021) accepted 11 of 32 Panel recommendations and rejected the central finding. No officer has been prosecuted. SARS personnel were reassigned to other units. The Lekki Toll Plaza was demolished and rebuilt in 2022; demonstrators were prevented from re-occupying the site for the 2021 and 2022 anniversaries. The Iva Valley template of 1949 — peaceful demonstrators, state shoots, commission whitewashes, no prosecutions, institution renamed — was reproduced almost exactly 71 years later.