#EndSARS: Lagos Panel Counters Lai Mohammed’s Claim In Report

Contrary to Lai Mohammed’s claim that security agencies did not kill any protester at the Lekki toll gate on October 20, 2020, a report by the Lagos State judicial panel on #EndSARS has shown otherwise.

Mohammed, Nigeria’s Minister of Information, had described the Lekki toll age incident as a “phantom massacre”.

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At a press conference he summoned in response to the processions held last month to remember the slain #EndSARS protesters, the minister had said that “the massacre at the toll gate (is) the first massacre in the world without blood or bodies.”

He said, “One year later, and despite ample opportunities for the families of those allegedly killed and those alleging a massacre to present evidence, there has been none: No bodies, no families, no convincing evidence, nothing. Where are the families of those who were reportedly killed at the toll gate?”

Mohammed insisted that the country’s security forces only fired “SHOTS INTO THE AIR” to disperse protesters who had gathered at the toll gate, stressing that “the military did not shoot at protesters at the Lekki Toll Gate on October 20th 2020, and there was no massacre at the toll gate. The only ‘massacre’ recorded was in the social media, hence there were neither bodies nor blood.”

But the report submitted by the Lagos panel on Monday showed that no fewer than nine #EndSARS protesters were killed by the security forces at the toll gate, while four others were presumed dead.

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According to the report, the shooting resulted in 48 casualties, including 24 persons who sustained gunshot injuries, while a report on 96 other corpses was presented by Professor John Obafunwa — a Forensic Pathologist at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital.

While Mohammed based his claim that nobody was killed on failure of victims’ families to show up before the panel, the Justice Doris Okuwobi-led panel, however, stated that “most EndSARS protesters and victims of the Lekki Toll Gate Incident of October 20, 2020 were largely unwilling to be identified in public for fear of persecution or harassment by the security agencies and the government generally.”

The panel added that, “Immediately after the protest, there was palpable fear that the Army and Police were visiting hospitals to ‘finish up’ the protesters to the extent that some of them could not return home immediately. Some of the protesters received threats and some were being trailed by unknown persons.”

The report further revealed that the Nigerian Army and the Lagos State Government attempted to coverup evidence of the killings by removing “many bodies and corpses of the fallen protesters” and picking up expended bullet shells from the scene.

According to the report, the Lagos State Environmental Health Monitoring Unit (LASEHMU) joined in removing bodies from the scene of the shooting and drove three trucks “with brushes underneath” to the scene to clean up “bloodstains and other evidence.”

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