Lekki shooting: Of Sanwo-Olu, soldiers and the truth

BY SOLA OTENIYA

Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu appears to me as the latest and finest jester to emerge on the country’s political firmament. Lagos is very strategic being the commercial nerve centre of Nigeria. Years back, I read even intellectuals stylishly referring to it as the macrocosm of Nigeria.

In saner climes, whoever is entrusted with a public mandate to govern the state should be a person with impeccable credentials; upright with enviable records of excellence, integrity and infectious selflessness. But having followed Gov. Sanwo-Olu’s leadership of this complex state keenly for about two years now, I am under the compunction to believe the allusion to his instability by ex-Gov. Akinwunmi Ambode.

As I know of some Nigerian politicians, especially at partisan times, Sanwo-Olu profusely denied all the allegations. However, actions  speak louder than words. As governor now, Sanwo-Olu strikes me more as an unstable character, barren of finesse to govern and thus, confirming through actions.

I am not surprised at the happenings in Lagos/Lekki to be specific.  After all, Mr Ambode cautioned all of us before now, but we wouldn’t listen. As usual, we reduced everything to politics and ignored him. Most Nigerians are tilted to darkness and I was not surprised when Lagosians voted Sanwo-Olu as Governor in 2019.

I have come to know; the strength of a leader is measured mainly by his sagacious outings in times of public crisis. Sanwo-Olu, however, has shown to be devoid of this leadership dexterity or traits.

The Lekki Toll Gate #EndSARS protests incident assails my mind strongly. It has attracted national outrage because the governor abdicated his responsibility as the Chief Security Officer of the state with his poor handling of the protests by its manifest signs of turning into violence and bloodbath.

To my utmost surprise, Gov. Sanwo-Olu’s belated announcement of a 24-hour curfew, its stealthy extension to 9 pm same day without considering the traffic gridlock and mobility peculiarities of Lagos was his first display of incompetence to manage the crisis. His order to security agents to fortify Lagos to forestall further breakdown of public law and order by hoodlums, miscreants and criminals who hijacked the otherwise peaceful protests had no feedback mechanism. It means, the Governor may have abandoned the state willy-nilly to subordinates.

With the alleged Lekki shootings by soldiers, Sanwo-Olu is completely lost in giving the accurate account of the incident. It shocked me that the Governor was easily caught in the web of self-denials and contradictions. He is parroting so much on the incident, but discernibly in doublespeak.

By Sanwo-Olu’s various narrations on the incident at different times, it is suicidal for me or any other person to vouch for his accounts of the Lekki incident. The Governor has deepened my conjectures on whether he requested the Nigerian Army into Lagos or never consented it; 30, 70, 12 persons, seven or “only” two or one protesters was killed from the incident.

And the number of persons hospitalized who sustained injuries, supposedly shot by soldiers, Police bullets or wounded from the chaotic stampede is also a mystery of scientific complexity. If a State Governor has disappointed me in recent times, it is Mr Sanwo-Olu.

I am astounded to hear Sanwo-Olu inconsistencies and incongruent accounts of a single incident on security in his state. The Governor celebrated self- contradictory statements. At first Sanwo -Olu claimed he tried to call Mr President when Lagos was being violently pulled down by #EndSARS protesters or hoodlums as they were later truly nicknamed.

At this point, the violence of the #EndSARS protesters had peaked evident in the torching of several police stations; gruesome murder of policemen; unlawful and coercive release of suspects in police custody. Massive weapons were also carted away by the hoodlums. But to my amazement again, Sanwo-Olu claimed days later that he didn’t know where the soldiers came to Lekki. People with criminal instincts are also cheap liars.

It compelled me to ponder why the Governor was attempting to call Mr President but was physically disrupted by the enraged protestors. But shockingly too, Sanwo-Olu said; “For clarity, it is imperative to explain that no sitting governor controls the rules of engagement of the military…” I started wondering whether Mr President sat in Abuja and intuitively knew there was a problem of frightening magnitude in Lagos and decided to deploy soldiers without Sanwo-Olu’s consent.

And when pressurized, the Governor countered himself by saying he invited soldiers but didn’t ask them to shoot. In another aftermath rendition of the Lekki incident, Sanwo-Olu told Nigerians in a state-wide broadcast the next day that no one died from the Lekki incident; buttressing it by his visit to the scene immediately and then claiming there were no bloodstains at the spot.

Sanwo-Olu later rebuffed himself as he told CNN’s Becky Anderson in an interview that only “Two dead bodies, that is what we have seen from all the morgues, that’s what we have seen going to hospitals, that’s what we have seen as a record…. I have been to the ground, there is no scratch of blood anywhere there.”

The same Governor again reenergized his rehearsal of self-contradictions. He tweeted on the second day of the incident that, “Information reaching us now is that a life was lost at Reddington Hospital due to blunt force trauma to the head. Three of the injured protesters have been discharged, while some are in the hospital. There is no record of any fatalities.”

The Governor’s contradictory reversal of himself indicated clear disparities with what transpired at Lekki Toll Gate.

But as the Nigerian Army has repeatedly articulated, it was never involved in the #EndSARS protests initially, but the “decision to call in the Military was taken by the Lagos State Government after a 24-hour curfew was imposed;” and at no time did soldiers open fire on protesting civilians.

This is the macabre dance from Lagos and Nigerians must watch with keen interest. Having voiced this far, can the Judicial Panel constituted by Sanwo-Olu to probe the Lekki incident still be trusted to do justice or be fair to all parties?