The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has finally broken silence on the report submitted by the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and other matters.
The Minister who addressed a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday rejected the report, describing it as fake and “tales by moonlight.”
Last week, the Lagos state panel led by retired Justice Doris Okuwobi, submitted a 309-page report to the state government. In the report, the panel confirmed that at the army shot at unarmed protesters, leading to the death of nine persons.
The panel, in the report described the incident that occurred on October 20, 2020 as a “massacre in context.”
Since the emergence of the details in the report, Mohammed, alongside the Lagos State government, Federal Government and the Nigerian Army have been in the eye of the storm over their consistent denial of the purported incident that occurred on October 20.
Breaking silence on the report, the Minister said the panel failed to do justice to the assignment delegated to it. Acccording to him, the report was only a compilation of allegations made by Nigerians, claiming that the panel was unable to establish that there was a massacre at the Lekki toll gate.
“It is an intimidation of the majority by a minority. There’s absolutely nothing in the report that is circulating to make us change our minds that there was a massacre in Lekki on October 20, 2020,” Mohammed said.
The information minister added: “Any parent who is afraid to testify about the death of his or her child is not worth to be called a parent. We reject the notion that our soldiers and policemen massacred innocent Nigerians at Lekki tollgate on October 20, 2020. That conclusion is not supported by the weight of available evidence. Indictment for murder is a very serious issues that cannot be done on the basis of allegations and corroboration like the panel did.
“Such allegation must be proved beyond reasonable doubts. The report in circulation is circulated to embrass the Federal Government and its agencies without full concrete evidence. The Federal Government has never condoned the abuse of the rights of Nigerians by security agencies under any guise. Hence the disbanded SARS and encouraged states to set up panels to investigate reports of human rights abuses allegedly committed by the disbanded SARS personnel.
“The 37 policemen and 6 soldiers who died across the country during the EndSARS protest are also human beings and Nigerians and should not be forgotten. Those who have engaged in premature celebrations of the report in circulation should now go back and read the report thoroughly and tell Nigerians whether it can pass any serious critic. We are saddened that anyone die at all during the EndSARS protest as the lives of every Nigerian, every human is sacrosanct.”
