ASCAB opposes US report on Lekki shooting, says it’s an attempt to cover up killings

The Alliance on Surviving COVID-19 and Beyond (ASCAB), a coalition led by Femi Falana, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), says the US report on the shooting that took place in Lekki, Lagos state, during the #EndSARS protest is misleading. 

Soldiers had, on October 20, opened fire while protesters were gathered at the Lekki tollgate. 

Although Amnesty International said people died of gunshot injuries from the incident, the US, on Thursday, said there is no accurate information on the fatalities.

Reacting, ASCAB accused the US of “attempting to cover up the killings”.

“It is a very contradictory report. On the one hand, the report claimed that the members of the security forces were enforcing curfew by firing into the air to disperse protesters at the toll gate,” reads a statement issued by Falana on behalf of the coalition. 

“On the other hand, the report stated that some protesters had turned violent after criminal elements infiltrated them, and so the security forces fired protesters at the Lekki Toll Gate. The report did not mention the detachment of the Nigerian army which perpetrated the mayhem.   

“Do soldiers shoot into the air to enforce curfew in the United States? 

“The media should stop treating our people like colonial subjects by celebrating a foreign report that is subversive of the rule of law in Nigeria. How can the United States Government be allowed to treat the proceedings before a properly constituted Judicial Panel of Inquiry so contemptuously? 

“The report is prejudicial in every material particular. It should be ignored by the Judicial Panel as it is designed to preempt the evidence being adduced by the survivors of the barbaric attack. 

“The report did not acknowledge that the Nigerian army, which initially denied that soldiers were present at the Lekki toll gate, later turned round to admit that they were there but fired only bland bullets. The Americans should update the report by explaining  how casualties and amputees were recorded when the soldiers only shot into the air.”

Falana said Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governor of Lagos, had earlier admitted that protesters were treated for gunshot wounds. 

He, however, wondered if the US government is not aware that some amputees who lost their legs as a result of the shooting have appeared before the judicial panel set up by the Lagos government to look into the matter. 

The senior lawyer added that the Lagos government has also invited people whose family members were missing to identify the corpses at the Lagos state mortuaries. 

“Did the Alliance on Surviving COVID-19 and Beyond (ASCAB) not disclose that there were 98 corpses dumped in the mortuaries? From the information at my disposal, 3 of those corpses have been traced to Lekki,” he said. 

“I also know a lady who disclosed that her adopted son died of gunshots at Lekki toll gate. 

“My law firm has taken up the case of a 28-year-old lady who collapsed at Lekki with head injury and later died at a hospital in Lagos.”

He said the names of the casualties and amputees will be revealed at the appropriate time.

Challenging the US government to review its report on the incident, Falana dismissed “the unreliable report compiled in Washington”.