Nigeria, Oct. 21 -- Five years ago today, a generation of Nigerians, weary of brutal governance and endemic corruption, gathered in peaceful defiance. Their simple request for better treatment and an end to the brutality of the security force was met with live ammunition. The massacre at the Lekki Toll Gate on 20 October 2020 remains a jagged, unhealed wound on the country's collective psyche.

Today, as we mark this grim anniversary, a recurring pattern of state defiance confirms a tragic truth: the system's DNA of impunity remains fundamentally unchanged. As I type this, the echoes of 2020 are being heard in the streets of Abuja, where activists led by Omoyele Sowore are challenging the prolonged detention of Nnamdi Kanu and demanding d...