The Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and other matters says at least nine persons were confirmed dead at the Lekki toll plaza on the night soldiers stormed there to disperse #EndSARS protesters on October 20, 2020.
The Justice Doris Okuwobi-led panel made this known in its report submitted to the Lagos State Government on Monday.
According to the report, nine protesters were confirmed dead, while four were presumed dead.
The panel listed 48 names as casualties of the incident.
Among the 48, about 20 sustained gunshot injuries, while 13 others were assaulted by the military.
The panel also noted that 96 other corpses were presented by a forensic pathologist at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Prof John Obafunwa.
According to the 309-page report, the protesters were allegedly killed by policemen and soldiers.
The report negates the consistent claim by the Federal Government that there was no massacre at the tollgate, a focal gathering point during last year’s nationwide demonstration against extrajudicial killings and police brutality by operatives of the now-defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad of the Nigeria Police Force.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, had staunchly maintained that the Lekki incident was a “massacre without bodies” and had threatened to sue the Cable News Network and another international media house that claimed otherwise.
It found that the firing of live bullets by the Army at genuine protesters resulted in grievous injuries and the loss of lives of the protesters.
It said the Divisional Police Officer of the Maroko Police Station along with policemen deployed from the Maroko Police Station on October 20 and 21, 2020 should be prosecuted for arbitrary and indiscriminate shooting and killing of protesters.
It recommended that the Lekki Toll Plaza be made a memorial site for the protest by renaming it the #EndSARS Tollgate
It recommended that October 20 of every year be made a “toll free day” at the plaza as long as the tollgate exists.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu had said while receiving the panel’s report on Monday that he would set up a four-member committee to raise a white paper on the report.
