The Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) has said that the Lagos State government’s White Paper on the report of the Judicial Panel on the Lekki tollgate massacre as an insult to the dead and the sensibilities of victims of the 20 October 2020 shooting incident.
The organisation also criticized Governor Babajide Sanwolu’s Peace Walk planned for an undisclosed date this month in commemoration of the #EndSARS movement.
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It said that the event can be likened to dancing on the blood of victims of the Lekki shooting that have been denied justice one year after the incident.
The 41-page White paper was released Wednesday by the Lagos State Government.
In the report, the state government accepted 11 out of the 32 recommendations made by the panel, rejected one, agreed on six with modifications, while 14, which it said, fell outside its powers would be forwarded to the federal government for consideration.
It also rejected claims that nine people died at the Lekki toll plaza.
However, Executive Director of CAPPA, Akinbode Oluwafemi in a statement said the White paper report and Governor Babajide Sanwolu’s remarks at a televised briefing in Alausa, brush aside the most important recommendations of the report that have to do with the killing of innocent #EndSARS agitators and the need to bring the perpetrators to book.
Oluwafemi said, “The Whitepaper report is not only disappointing, but also exposes how far the Lagos government and its federal collaborators will go to deny a known truth. But Nigerians are not deceived.
“The panel report mentioned names of the dead and victims that Sanwolu did not even acknowledge. Last week Kamsiochukwu was attacked with matchets and Dabira Oluwa threatened by so-called unknown persons. Some of the Panellists have also threatened.
“Shockingly, Sanwolu turned a golden moment into a joke by proposing a Peace Walk to mark his own commemoration of the shameful events of last year. We refuse such a march. The real date we mark the fallen victims of the state’s mishandling of a peaceful protest is October 20, 2020.
The report of the judicial panel established the fact that Nigeria’s Army led by Lt. Col Bello was at Lekki Gate on October 20, 2020, and further described the event of that day as a “massacre in a context”.
In the 309-page report, the panel confirms the Lekki shooting and goes further to publish the list of victims and casualties of the shooting, indicting the Nigerian Army and police of complicity in the death of protesters at the Lekki Tollgate.
He said, “We align with the recommendations of the panel and reiterate our demands that criminal prosecution should be instituted against individuals found to have committed the massacre that happened on October 20, 2020, at the Lekki Tollgate in Lagos.”
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