EndSARS: Lagos releases White Paper, rejects recommendation on ‘Lekki killings’

“Fourteen (14) recommendations fall outside the powers of Lagos State Government and will be forwarded to the Federal Government for consideration.”

The White Paper said the panel could not justify that people were killed.

“This finding of nine (9) deaths at LTG on 20 October is even more baffling because apart from listing out their names in that form at pages 297-298, the JPI offered no explanation regarding circumstances of their death. The names simply sprang up at pages 297-298 of the report without any justification,” the White Paper read.

“On the basis of the above fundamental inconsistencies in the findings the JPI regarding the nine (9) deaths at LTG, and particularly because the findings are clearly and mainly not supported by evidence before the JPI as attested to by the JPI itself, when it said there was no contrary evidence to that of Prof. Obafunwa that only one person died at LTG of gunshot wounds at LTG on 20th October 2020, the Government is therefore unable to accept the finding that nine people died of gunshot wounds at LTG on 20th October 2020.”

President Muhammadu Buhari had said he was waiting for the outcome of the panels set up by state governments.

Speaking when Antony Blinken, United States Secretary of State, visited him in Abuja, Buhari had said state governments will have to take steps on the reports of their panels, before the Federal Government acts on the recommendations.

“So many state governments are involved, and have given different terms of reference to the probe panels.

“We at the federal have to wait for the steps taken by the states, and we have to allow the system to work. We can’t impose ideas on them. Federal government has to wait for the reaction of the states,” he had said.