The Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and Other Matters (Lagos EndSARS Panel) has released some shocking discoveries from the Lekki Tollgate shootings of October 20, 2020 as a massacre.
The panel indicted Nigerian soldiers and other security agents in the killing, forced disappearances and injuring of tens of harmless and unarmed youths protesting police brutality at the Lekki Tollgate on October 20, 2020.
Below is part five of a 309-page report submitted to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State on Monday by the Justice Doris Okuwobi-led panel tagged “LASG JPI Report Of The Lekki Incident Investigation Of 20th October 2020.
This part narrates how military operatives swept the Lekki Tollgate massacre scene to mop up empty shells and washed blood stains to hide evidence:
11. It was alleged and corroborated that soldiers picked bullet shells on the night of October 20 and policemen followed up in the morning of October 21 to pick bullet shells.
12. Several unidentified bodies were removed by security agencies and LASEHMU (Lagos State Environmental Health Monitoring Unit) and deposited at various hospital mortuaries in Lagos State.
13. Three (3) trucks with brushes underneath were brought to the Lekki Toll Gate in the morning of October 21st October, 2020 to clean up the scene of bloodstains and other evidence.
14. There was abundant evidence before the Panel that the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) indicated in its Twitter handle that it had effectively cleaned up the Lekki Toll Gate scene immediately after the incident of October 20, 2020.
15. The denial of ambulances by the soldiers, which could have assisted in the prompt and effective treatment of injured protesters, was cruel and inhuman and it contributed immensely to the large number of deaths and casualties on the part of the protesters, especially those from the Lekki Toll Gate.
16. The Panel finds the cases of death or injured protesters as credible and uncontroverted.
17. The Panel finds 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.
Courtesy: news.band.com
