A former presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, has said the late former President, Muhammadu Buhari, would have welcomed the #EndSARS protest if it had remained peaceful and had not been hijacked by subversive elements.
Naijaonpoint reports that Shehu made this known on Tuesday during an interview on Arise Television’s Morning Show, as tributes continue to pour in for the former Nigerian leader, who died at 82 in a London Clinic on Sunday, July 13, 2025.
While addressing a question on major events that shaped Buhari’s presidency, Shehu said the former president was initially open to the demands of the #EndSARS movement, which called for the disbandment of a notorious police unit accused of brutality.
He, however, noted that Buhari became concerned when the protest was “hijacked” and turned violent.
Shehu said, “It would be difficult to provide further insight than you probably would have heard. It would have been welcomed, knowing Buhari, even if it was a grievance issue.
“I do not want to deny that there were grievances and that you could see that the government responded from the beginning with offers, not only dialogue but concessions, including, for instance, the dismantling of EndSARS, which generated all of the anger and the atrocities that were being…
“I think the problem then came when it became a law and order issue. I mean, you saw all of the vandalism that was carried out, the attack on law enforcement, and the arson and murder.
“No responsible government would have held on to say let it go. I think that it was necessitated by the fact that EndSARS, which had noble origins, became hijacked by elements that were subversive.
“No leader would say that they were not disturbed when law enforcement had become a big challenge. As I said, police assets were being burnt in Lagos, state government and federal government assets, and all of that. And of course, the lives of innocent citizens, as was to be later established, had also been lost.
“So President Buhari could not have been happy with that. He was not, and we hope that there is never a repeat of that incident in this country.”