The Government of Lagos state has released the White Paper on the Lagos Judicial Panel of Inquiry report of Lekki Toll Gate Incident Investigation.
On Tuesday night, November 30, Commissioner for Information and Strategy,Mr Gbenga Omotoso, released a white paper where the state government said that out of the 32 recommendations made by the panel, it has accepted 11 and rejected one and agreed on six with modifications.
The document also says 14 of the recommendations fall outside the powers of the state and will be forwarded to the Federal Government for consideration.
The state government also dismissed the panel’s report that nine persons were killed at the Lekki toll gate when soldiers and the police opened fire at peaceful protesters. He described the conclusion of the panel that nine persons were shot dead as “assumptions and speculations”.
The statement read in part: “It is quite astonishing that in the list of eleven deaths set on pages 297-298, two of the names appeared twice (Kolade Salam, Folorunsho Olabisi as Nos. 37 and 38).
Also, the person listed as No. 46, Nathaniel Solomon, who testified as a witness and petitioned the JPI in respect of his brother who he alleged died at LTC, was himself listed as dead at LTG on 20th October 2020.
Remarkably, Nathaniel Solomon’s deceased brother (Abuta Solomon, was then also listed: as No.2 on the list of persons who died at LTG. The only victim of gunshot injury from LTG was picked up at 7:43, on 21st October 2020 after the curfew commenced .
Furthermore, there was no shred of evidence regarding who shot him. Another substantial inconsistency in the JPI Report was the award of compensation to only one out of the alleged nine, listed as “deceased” which showed that the JPI itself had doubts as to the death of eight other allegedly deceased persons on its list.”
