There is a twist to the evaluation of the way soldiers handled #ENDSARS protesters in Lekki, Lagos, in October 2020.
The panel set up the Lagos State Government, which submitted its report on Monday, November 15, 2021, admitted that claims of indiscriminate shootings were corroborated.
According to a portion of its report shared by ‘The Punch’, the shootings can be likened to a massacre in a way.
In the report, titled, ‘Report Of Lekki Incident Investigation Of 20th October 2020’, the panel noted, “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.
“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.”
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu had set up the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses to determine the extent and patterns of the crises.
The government, in the course of the panel’s sittings, paid millions of naira in comepnsation to victims.
