An Analytical Study of the Right to Life and State-Sponsored Extrajudicial Killings in Nigeria: The EndSARS Movement and Its Legal Implications

The October 2020 EndSARS protests and the Lekki tollgate shooting incident exposed systemic patterns of police and military extrajudicial killing in Nigeria, generating significant constitutional law questions about the right to life, state accountability, and the adequacy of existing legal mechanisms for prosecuting state-sponsored extrajudicial killing. Section 33 of the 1999 Constitution protects the right to life, permitting deprivation of life only in specific constitutionally defined circumstances. This study analytically examines the right to life under the 1999 Constitution and its application to state-sponsored extrajudicial killings, using the EndSARS context as an empirical case study. A doctrinal methodology combined with case analysis is applied, reviewing Section 33 of the 1999 Constitution, the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry Report on EndSARS, the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights communication on Nigeria, criminal law provisions on unlawful killing by state actors, and comparative jurisprudence from the European Court of Human Rights. The study evaluates the adequacy of inquest law, disciplinary tribunals, and criminal prosecution as accountability mechanisms for state-sponsored killing. Available human rights law literature from Nigeria identifies the failure to prosecute any military or police officer for the Lekki shooting as the most analytically significant impunity gap. The Right to Life Absolute Prohibition Framework and the Minnesota Protocol on Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Death provide the normative reference. Findings support an independent accountability commission proposal. Keywords: right to life, extrajudicial killing, EndSARS, accountability, Nigeria.