The Lagos State Government has rejected the report of the EndSARS panel that probed the Lekki toll gate incident of October 20, 2020, denying that nine persons were killed at the toll gate when soldiers stormed the protest ground to disperse the young protesters.
In the White Paper released on Tuesday night, the government described the claim of the panel that nine persons were shot dead as “assumptions and speculations”.
In a short statement, Gboyega Akoshile, the Chief Press Secretary to Sanwo-Olu, said one of the recommendations of the panel was rejected.
In the statement titled, ‘Highlight of the Lagos Government White Paper On The Lekki Incident Investigation’, he said, “Out of the 32 Recommendations made by the JPI in its Report of 15th November 2021, Government accepted 11, rejected one and accepted six with modifications.
“Fourteen recommendations fall outside the powers of the Lagos State Government and will be forwarded to the Federal Government for consideration. Let the healing begin,” the statement said.
Information Minister, Lai Mohammed, said on Tuesday last week that the federal government cannot accept the report of a judicial panel set up to investigate the attack on unarmed #EndSARS protesters at Lekki Toll Gate on October 20, 2020.
Mohammed said the report, which indicted the Nigerian army, police and Lekki Concession Company, is filled with errors and contradictions.
The panel said the attack by Nigerian security forces “could in context be described as a massacre”. But Mohammed maintained that the government believed there was no massacre.
Submitted to state authorities on November 15, the leaked report contradicts the army’s version of what happened at the city’s Lekki tollgate on October 20, 2020.
The report found that 11 people were killed, four more were missing and 21 others were wounded by gunshots.
Amnesty International said separately last year that 10 people were killed.
The army has denied that security forces opened fire with live rounds.
Mohammed told reporters that “there is absolutely nothing in the report that is circulating to make us change our stand that there was no massacre at Lekki.”
The report was “riddled with errors, inconsistencies, discrepancies, innuendos and conclusions that are not supported by evidence,” he said.
The document “cannot be relied upon” as it is not yet officially public, he added.
The youth-led protest started as a campaign to end the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) — a police unit notorious for extortion, torture and extrajudicial killings.
A judicial panel was set up by Lagos state government to investigate the crackdown at Lekki and other claims of police brutality.
The commission’s findings were leaked penultimate week and widely circulated online.
A member of the panel and a Lagos state government official told AFP that the document was authentic.
