The government has disagreed with the panel it set up that a massacre happened at the toll gate. A white paper of the report of a judicial panel that investigated last year’s shooting of peaceful protesters in Lagos State has dismissed conclusions that a massacre took place.
Security forces attacked the protesters at the Lekki toll gate on October 20, 2020, in an aggressive attempt to dismantle the symbolic stronghold of historic demonstrations against police brutality.
Eyewitnesses reported numerous fatalities from the night, but the government has run an aggressive counter-campaign insisting no one was killed by security agents.
A judicial panel of inquiry set up days after the shooting finally submitted its report on November 15, 2021, confirming the claims of eyewitnesses that a massacre happened.
The panel established that at least nine protesters were killed, with four others missing presumed dead.
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But a four-member white paper panel of state officials, set up by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has rejected the panel’s conclusion that those people were killed by security forces as ‘assumptions and speculations’.
Of the 32 recommendations made by the panel, the government accepted only 11 as presented, six with modifications, and one rejected one.
14 other recommendations that fall outside the Lagos State government’s powers are to be forwarded to the Federal Government.
The white paper was released late on Tuesday, November 30, hours after the governor made a rallying cry for closure of the crisis that rocked the state last year.
The governor said he plans to lead a ‘walk of peace’ in December, inviting youths to join him to put the crisis to bed.
