‘It’s Nothing But Fake White Paper’ — Adegboruwa Continues Attack On Lagos Govt

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria and member of the Lagos State EndSARS judicial panel of inquiry, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, has continued to attack the Babajide Sanwo-Olu-led government over its recently released white paper on the October 2020 EndSARS protests.

The Lagos government had rejected the findings of the panel which it constituted about 13 months ago to investigate allegations that Nigerian soldiers killed unarmed EndSARS protesters at the Lekki Toll Gate, amongst others.

In the white paper released late Tuesday, the state government described the panel’s findings as “totally unreliable” and “unacceptable”, especially its declaration that at least nine people were killed by security forces at the toll gate.

According to the white paper, the panel’s entire report is riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions and the conclusions in it were based on “assumptions and speculations”.

While other members of the panel have yet to react to the white paper, Adegboruwa and the youth representative on the judicial panel, Rinu Oduala, have continued to tear into the Lagos State Government over its position.

“It is nothing but a fake “White Paper”, Adegboruwa wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday, adding “The Lagos State Government has so far sought to crucify the Panel for a tabular overlap from the bottom page of the table of names of victims as part of the ground upon which it rejected the report of the Panel.

“In its White Paper released on November 30, 2020, it is titled: “Report on General Police Brutality Cases 10th October 2021.”

“The Panel did not treat any case of brutality of 10th October 2021 at all. This is only a figment of the imagination of the White Paper. In fact, the Panel stopped receiving Petitions from the public on December /22, 2020. So, where did Lagos State get its own cases of general police brutality of 10th October, 2021 after the Panel had long stopped receiving petitions? Where, I ask again?

“You cannot reject a Panel report on the ground of typographical error with another error. And definitely you cannot deploy fake statistics to discredit a report of over one year.”

The senior advocate went on to point out some alleged contradictions in the white paper.

He said, “PANEL DID NOT RELY SOLELY ON THE EVIDENCE OF PROFESSOR OBAFUNWA

“1. Panel never said it relied on only the evidence of Lagos State Pathologist, Professor Obafunwa.

“2. At page 296, Paragraph 16 of its Report, the Panel stated that “The Panel finds the cases of death or injured protesters as CREDIBLE and UNCONTROVERTED. The White Paper conveniently overlooked this vital finding of the Panel. Professor Obafunwa was just ONE of the many sources of confirmation of death.

“LASG HAS ALREADY ADMITTED GUNSHOT WOUNDS

“3. Panel recommended payment to all hospitals that treated victims of gunshot wounds. The Comment of Lagos State on this Recommendation 8 is that:

“Lagos State had paid all the hospitals.”

“So, how do you pay for an atrocity or abuse and then turn around to dispute it. The payment in itself is an admission of liability.

“What did Lagos State pay the hospitals for:

“A. Verdic Life Healthcare treated 15 victims for varying gunshot wounds
“B. Reddington Hospital treated about 28 victims, most with gunshot wounds.
“C. Many other hospitals also treated other victims.

“Lagos State says it has paid for these treatments but yet denied the wounds. You hit a car on the road, you accept liability immediately and proceeded to pay for the repair of the car only to get home later and you claim there was no accident at all.

“MEMORIAL HOLIDAY

“4. You refuse to acknowledge the killings; yet you agreed that a memorial should be set on that date as toll-free day!!! In commemoration of what? What are memorials meant for?”