Lagos is embroiled in a dispute over what really happened when hundreds of retired civil servants gathered at the Alausa secretariat on Monday to demand overdue pension payments, with police now claiming a key photo behind the brutality allegations was entirely AI-generated.
The Lagos State Police Command used a Tuesday press statement to push back forcefully against a wave of reports that officers had fired tear gas to break up a demonstration by the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), Lagos State Council.
Briefing reporters at the command’s Ikeja headquarters, spokesperson SP Abimbola Adebisi described the allegation as false and misleading, insisting that no tear gas was used during the protest. She went further, telling reporters that not a single canister of tear gas was fired throughout the duration of the protest.
According to the command’s account, roughly 500 pensioners assembled peacefully outside the Governor’s Office at Alausa at around 8:30 a.m., led by NUP chairman Michael Omishade and NLC Lagos chairperson Agnes Funmi Sesse.
Police say operatives from the Rapid Response Squad, the Lagos State Taskforce, the Eko Strike Force, and nearby divisional stations were deployed under the command’s account to protect the gathering rather than disperse it.
The protesters were later addressed by the governor’s Chief of Staff, Tayo Akinmade Ayinde, before union executives were ushered into a three-hour closed-door meeting at the Governor’s Conference Hall, after which the crowd dispersed peacefully around 4:30 p.m.
The most striking element of the police response, though, was its handling of a photograph that had spread rapidly across social media, purporting to show elderly retirees engulfed in tear-gas smoke.
Adebisi stated that the image was AI-generated and does not represent what occurred at the protest venue and warned that the circulation of false or manipulated information could mislead the public, create unnecessary tension, and undermine confidence in security institutions.
That framing sits awkwardly against a chorus of contemporaneous reporting from Monday. Multiple outlets reported that the demonstration was disrupted after police officers reportedly fired tear gas at the pensioners, forcing some of them to disperse, with witnesses describing tension around the Lagos House premises as some of the elderly protesters dispersed.
The union’s grievances are not new: the protest fell on the exact date the pensioners had earlier set as a deadline for the Lagos State Government to address the delayed implementation of their pension enhancement and wage award, after what they described as months of unheeded engagement with officials.
The alleged use of force drew swift condemnation from civil society. Human rights lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) issued a strongly worded statement branding the police action unlawful and asking the Inspector-General of Police, Tunji Disu, to identify and prosecute the officers involved.
Falana leaned on a 2008 Court of Appeal precedent affirming Nigerians’ right to protest without a police permit and argued the operation breached Section 4 of the Nigeria Police Force Establishment Act, which he says obliges police to secure rallies rather than break them up.
He called the episode a complete violation of the rights of the protesters to assemble and protest against the failure of the Lagos State Government to pay their pension as and when due.
Activist and Sahara Reporters publisher Omoyele Sowore joined the condemnation, arguing that it is bad enough that these senior citizens are being denied their legitimate post-retirement entitlements after giving years of their lives in service.
The Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) also weighed in, with its leadership describing the alleged action against the elderly protesters as inhumane, unacceptable, and a serious affront to human dignity.
Adding another layer to the dispute, one report citing NUP chapter chairman Michael Omisande claimed that representatives of the Lagos State Commissioner of Police later met with the pensioners and apologized for the disorder that followed the police intervention, an account that, if accurate, would sit uneasily beside the command’s official position that no tear gas was deployed at all.
The same report noted that Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu was out of Lagos at the time and sent his chief of staff in his place.
Beyond the question of what happened on the ground, the episode has become an early test case for how Nigerian security agencies respond to the growing problem of AI-generated disinformation muddying real protest coverage even as it raises the opposite risk: that genuine evidence of state force could be dismissed as fabricated.
The Lagos Police Command has urged the public to await verified information from credible, authorized sources rather than share unconfirmed images or reports.
For now, the matter is set to move from the streets to the negotiating table. The pensioners are expected to meet directly with Governor Sanwo-Olu later this week in a session billed as an opportunity to press their case for outstanding pension adjustments, consequential increases, and wage awards arrears that, all sides agree, remain the real source of the standoff, regardless of how Monday’s confrontation is ultimately adjudicated.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
There are two irreconcilable accounts of the same protest, and the truth remains unverified. Pensioners and multiple news outlets say police tear-gassed elderly retirees demanding unpaid pensions; the police say it never happened and dismiss the viral photo as AI-generated.
Until independent verification emerges, neither claim should be taken at face value, but the underlying issue driving the protest, unpaid pension adjustments and wage awards owed to Lagos retirees, is undisputed by both sides and remains unresolved, with a meeting between the pensioners and Governor Sanwo-Olu now the next real test of whether it gets addressed.
