[BREAKING] Lekki Shootings: New revelations on #EndSARS

Mr. Adesina Ogunlana was the lead counsel to #EndSARS activists at the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS-Related Abuses and Other Matters. Among other matters, the panel probed the shooting of activists protesting police brutality at the Lekki Toll Gate, Lagos on October 20, 2020.

There had been a controversy as to whether the shootings resulted in deaths. Meanwhile, there were also protests in other parts of Lagos, especially Ikeja, Orile, Marina, Oyingbo and Ketu as well as other parts of the country.

Only last week, a memo emerged in the public space indicating that N61 million may be spent by government to carry out mass burial of 103 slain protesters of the brutality by the now defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the police in Lagos. The memo, dated July 19, 2023, captures steps for the processing of funds after approval by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu. Earlier, a Ministerial Tenders’ Board Meeting reportedly sat over the recommendations of the Procurement Planning Committee, after which no objections were raised to the award of the mass burial contract to a funeral service provider.

The five-paragraph leaked memo also directs that relevant taxes and deductions are remitted by the approved company. In a response, Lagos State Ministry of Health confirmed the letter in a statement but insisted that details were being misconstrued. The state government argued that the victims were from incidents of violence that occurred in the aftermath of the EndSARS protests. The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Dr Olusegun Ogboye, said the Lagos State Environmental Health Unit (SEHMU) picked up bodies in the aftermath of #EndSARS violence and community clashes.

The areas cited included Fagba, Ketu, Ikorodu, Orile, Ajegunle, Abule-Egba, Ikeja, Ojota, Ekoro, Ogba, Isolo and Ajah areas of Lagos State. Ogboye added that there was also a jailbreak at Ikoyi Prison. “The 103 casualties mentioned in the document were from these incidents and NOT from Lekki Toll Gate as being alleged. For the avoidance of doubt, nobody was retrieved from the Lekki Toll Gate incident,” the statement added. In a television interview monitored by Sunday Vanguard last week, Ogunlana spoke on the latest development on the #EndSARS protest and the aftermath. Excerpts:

What is your reaction to the clarification given by Lagos State government on the leaked memo?

The government is being clever by half and they are not telling us the absolute truth. Yes, I agree with the position that not all the 103 bodies were picked up from Lekki Toll Gate and its environs. To use the word that the pathologist, Professor Bafunwa, used at the panel (hearing), the bodies were ‘scavenged’; that is, they were corpses picked from different places.

However, there were corpses around the Lekki Toll Gate, and these corpses were dumped at Lagos Island General Hospital. For government to say there are no named citizens, I will ask them this question: Of the 103 corpses that they intend to dispose of, do they have names? There are no names and I want to correct the impression surrounding the bodies that were taken around the environment of the Lekki Toll Gate because when Fafunwa spoke, he identified at least three that were perforated with bullets.

The statements from both sides are unfortunate. People saying that the 103 (bodies) are proof that 103 people were actually killed at Lekki Toll Gate is a grave error and I won’t join anybody to say that. But, to say that there was nobody recovered around the environs of the Lekki Toll Gate from the incident of 20-10-2020 is completely wrong. If we want to go beyond that, the people that are dead are dead. Nevertheless, the system of governance that we have in Lagos and, by extension Nigeria, shows that they want to profit from cruel loss of lives. How can they say they have approved N61 million to bury 103 degraded bodies in a mass grave? Unidentified people that nobody has come to claim? It is horrendous and speaks to the reason why Nigeria cannot recover because we have a leadership that is asking the masses to sacrifice, yet running an expensive and bloated government. A mass burial of 103 people is something that a local government can do. How many people has the Nigerian Army at the warfront buried? Is this how they spend money? As a person, this is my concern.

Are you saying it shouldn’t cost much to organise a mass burial?

We are talking about mass burial, not individual. There was a situation like that about 21 years ago during the stampede of January 2002, when there was a bomb scare and a lot of persons perished at Oke-Afa, near Isolo and Ejigbo and there was mass burial for them. For goodness sake, let us be sane in this country.

Government should not be taking people for fools and act with impunity. 103 infamous and degraded people? They are cadavers and they are not even raising a monument for them. In fact, I will be surprised if a serious government claims to do that exercise with more than N1 million or N2 million, not to talk of N61 million in this situation.

Though they are saying let the people breathe, how can people breathe when there is mismanagement? How can that even be given as a contract? Is there no Ministry of Health or local government? 103 people, not 10,000! Let’s begin to interrogate government because this is not right. There is no decent Nigerian that can defend this anywhere.

Don’t you think it could be an accumulation of the amount spent to keep the bodies for three years?

It cannot be. We are talking of transparency in governance. Keeping bodies isn’t the same as mass burial; that is called preservation. If they want to spend N61 million on a one-day burial, it is most likely that they will say N1 billion was used to preserve bodies for three years. They are two different things that do not add up. Is it the Lenin mausoleum in Russia where their supreme leader has been kept in a pristine condition for about 100 years after the revolution? That is not the situation; these are unknown people and unclaimed bodies.

How significant is it to you that relatives didn’t show up?

It is significant morally, legally and it is a pointer to the kind of country in which we are trying to live. One of the things that opponents of the EndSARS movement used to say was that, indeed, if people were shot, injured or killed, are they ghosts? Don’t they have families? We tried to explain to them that we are talking about an environment of blanket terror. I knew what it took me and my team to even manage to get the few people we got. I think I represented about 24 people at the panel.

If you followed the panel, you would find out that, at the first two or three sittings, it was a government show: The Lagos State government, the Nigerian military and all that. We couldn’t even manage to get #EndSARS people. They couldn’t dare to come out. In the case of survivors, we had to speak with their parents before they could trust us. They hunted them and many of them ran away. DJ Switch is one of the popular ones. Now, Lagos State government, in their publications, said they advertised that people should come out. In Nigeria, nobody trusts the government. This is the truth.

If you can recollect the horror of 2020, it was very horrifying. It was a particular incident that sparked nationwide outrage that led to looting and killing. The Lagos State government said it asked people to come out but people didn’t come. Who wants to come out? Our people say the person whose mother has been killed with machete by a madman, if he sees a rough mechanic, he will run away. Can we now turn the argument against Lagos State government and say it is just telling lies because it wants to embezzle money.

How significant is this issue to the outcome of the panel?

It proves indeed that people not only died in Lekki, people died all over. One of the arguments before the panel was that early that day, there was a situation at Orile that involved the police, but the military didn’t go there. The first casualty, the first shootout and confrontation was at Orile. The military didn’t go there because that was not the epicentre of the EndSARS protest in Lagos State, they only went to Lekki and Ikeja. They went to Ikeja because I was present at Ikeja.

All of these tell you that what Justice Okuwobi’s panel did was true. They didn’t say 103 people, but, the evidence before it showed that people were shot at and people died. I am relying on Obafunwa. More importantly, you will recall that the governor admitted to it that they have reached out to victims. I know for a fact that they gave each, at least from the people that I represented, behind the table and door, N3.2 million in cash. If there were no victims and nothing happened, why did Governor Sanwo-Olu government, a year after denial, give money to these people? I know because they are my clients and they gave to other people too. It only proved that government was lying and they had to come out clean on this issue. I do not agree that the panel found that 103 people were killed at Lekki Gate.

If this was meant to be done in secrecy, why would the government raise a memo?

After the crisis, during or after the panel’s job, there was an announcement that people should come out because different bodies were littering morgues. They also said if anyone didn’t show up, the bodies will be disposed of. I won’t say it’s a cover up. What we are saying is that N61 million for what? My organisation will send a letter to the Lagos State government today or tomorrow (Monday or Tuesday), to ask why it should be this way in a situation where price of fuel has risen, colleges have increased their fee and transportation cost has increased.

Why are they still running an extortionate and expensive form of governance and their boss, the President, is saying let the people breathe? They are breathing very well by taking away the oxygen of the people.