Atrocious killing of unarmed protesters at Lekki toll gate on the night of October 20, 2020, can be equated to a ‘massacre’ in context, the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and other matters has said.
The Justice Doris Okuwobi-led panel made this known in its report submitted to the Lagos State Government on Monday.
In the report, titled, ‘Report Of Lekki Incident Investigation Of 20th October 2020’, a copy of which was sighted by our correspondent, the panel said at least 48 protesters were either shot dead, injured with bullets wounds or assaulted by soldiers who stormed the Lekki toll gate on October 20, 2020.
Page 294 of the bulky 309-page report partly read, “The atrocious maiming and killing of unarmed, helpless and unresisting protesters, while sitting on the floor and waving their Nigerian flags, while singing the National Anthem can be equated to a ‘massacre’ in context.”
Also, page 295 of the report said, “It was alleged and corroborated that the soldiers had their vans parked at the Lekki Toll Gate and removed as many bodies and corpses of the fallen protesters which they took away with their vans.”
The report negates the consistent claim by the Federal Government of Nigeria that there was no massacre at the toll gate, a focal gathering point during last year’s nationwide demonstration against extrajudicial killings and police brutality by operatives of the now-defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad of the Nigeria Police Force.
Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, had staunchly maintained that the Lekki incident was a “massacre without bodies” and had threatened to sue Cable News Network and another international media house that claimed otherwise.
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