Sanction Officials Who Tried To Cover Up Lekki Massacre – Femi Falana tells FG

Popular human rights lawyer, Femi Falana has called for sanctions against government officials who tried to cover up the Lekki massacre

Recall that the Lagos State Endsars Judicial panel has described the Lekki Shooting of October 20, 2020, as a massacre, after several denials by several government agencies and officials, noting that the soldiers opened fire on the protesters while sitting on the floor and waving their Nigerian flags, while singing the national anthem.

The Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed has maintained on several occasions that there was no shooting at the Lekki Tollgate despite several undeniable shreds of evidence.

The Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami had also said those who attacked the youths at Lekki toll gate weren’t soldiers but wore military camouflages while the LCC had allegedly removed the closed-circuit television at the toll gate in a move that had been widely described as a cover-up.

Speaking on Channels Television’s ‘Sunrise Daily’ programme on Thursday, Falana said that the Lai Mohammed, Abubakar Malami (SAN); as well as the managers of the toll gate, the Lekki Concession Company; should be sanctioned for trying to cover up the “crimes against humanity committed at the toll gate” during the EndSARS protests last year.

His words: “They are all going to be sanctioned. Anybody who attempted to cover up would be sanctioned, any of them including those who managed Lekki, the LCC, because they disabled their system in order to cover up.”

“Any regime in the world that says these are federal officers and we are not going to sanction them, if you don’t, these are materials for the ICC (International Criminal Court). Under the Rome Statute, the ICC will only intervene if a government is unwilling or unable to prosecute those who engaged in crimes against humanity, genocide and aggression. If by the time the (Lagos State) government issues its White Paper, recommendations are made and these people are not prosecuted, that is not the end of the matter. No President can behave as in the ‘80s, that this is an internal affair.”

He also noted that those who released the Lekki panel report feared cover-up by the government, hence, they released the report to the public to know their findings.

When asked whether the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), should speak on the report of the panel, Falana said, “No, not yet; the President made a broadcast last year in 2020 based on the information given to him. I’m sure you are aware that five times, the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has said nobody was killed. The Attorney General of the Federation, Mr Abubakar Malami (SAN), said those who appeared in Lekki were not Nigerian soldiers but people just put on military uniforms to perpetrate atrocities.

“Even the military denied that (but) it was when the young people who are advanced in technology and who took photographs in the night when the soldiers were shooting, it was at that stage that the military said, ‘Yes, we were shooting, we only shot into the air.

“And the panel found that even LAWMA (Lagos State Waste Management Authority) went there to do a clean-up in the night, in the early hours of 21st (of October 2020) so that there would be no trail but by the time the panel visited the scene of the incident they were still able to pick some expired bullets.”

“The panel painstakingly analysed the evidence of every witness before arriving at the conclusion. So, it is difficult to cover up what happened on that day,” he added.