“It is a disaster that someone who is ready to use government paraphernalia to attempt to intimidate and force a narrative down the throat of Nigerians” ―Ebuka Onyekwelu
Nigeria’s Minister of Information Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has continued unabated with his single narrative that no one was killed at the Lekki Tollgate scandalous event over a year ago, during the endsars protest. Only a few months ago, Mr. Lai was threatening CNN for the effrontery to independently investigate and actually affirm that Nigeria army officers shot at peaceful protesters with live bullets and killed many in the process. The audacity of the report was such that it rattled minister Lai Mohammed so much that he had to call a press conference to address the issues raised in CNN’s detailed investigation. During the press conference, he then accused the giant news company of meddling in the internal affairs of Nigeria and being part of a certain plan to destabilize Nigeria, while insisting that the army did not shoot with live bullets and that nobody died at Lekki Tollgate. CNN responded in kind insisting that its report is credible.
Typical of a Nigerian panel of inquiry which usually dies and never resurrect, the Endsars panels of inquiry in nearly all the states where they were instituted have since disappeared. Only the Lagos state EndSars panel has been able to complete its task and submit its report. In Anambra which has some of the worst tales of police brutality and where a notorious SARS operative who many accuse of the “disappearance” of their loved ones held sway, the panel set up by the state government has not sat beyond its preliminary stage. This is the situation in most states where there is a judicial panel of inquiry on Endsars. But in Lagos state, it was different. Upon submission of the panel’s report to the governor of Lagos state, while the whitepaper on the panel’s report is still being expected, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has gone on to call another press conference to discredit the report submitted by the Lagos state judicial panel of inquiry on Endsars and police brutality. Not only picking holes in the report which was only leaked to the public as the findings and report of the panel is not formally made public, but regrettably preempting the expected whitepaper on the panel’s report.
He obviously, is not interested in getting to the logical conclusion of what really happened at Lekki Tollgate
Lai Mohammed, it appears is not interested in whether people were actually killed at Lekki Tollgate by government forces. He obviously, is not interested in getting to the logical and satisfactory conclusion of what really happened at Lekki Tollgate; something every responsible citizen should be interested in. His singular preoccupation is to continue to insist against good conscience, that nobody was killed by the military at Lekki Tollgate on 20th October 2020 and for him, perhaps the government he represents, it is better to sweep whatever happened at Lekki Tollgate one year ago under the carpet, than for people in authority to take responsibility. There could hardly be anything more unfortunate. This posturing admittedly is not strange because Nigerian government officials are averse to being asked some questions and the government is not used to providing convincing evidence-based answers when they choose to respond. This is the only reason a minister of Nigeria will have the courage to trivialize and dismiss facts in the name of defending the government.
The tragedy really is to think that someone, so averse to due process and to the normal procedure of investigating scandalous and suspicious issues such as the Lekki event, is an official of the Nigerian government, its spokesman for that matter. That Lai has continued to make wild, but baseless claims that nobody died at the shooting by military officers, on the evening of October 20th speaks to the depth of the rot in Nigeria. If Mr. Lai was the governor of Lagos, the panel would have simply vanished as they did in many other states.
If Mr. Lai was the governor of Lagos, the panel would have simply vanished as they did in many other states.
It is a disaster that someone who is ready to use government paraphernalia to attempt to intimidate and force a narrative down the throat of Nigerians and observes all over the world is the mouthpiece of the government of the day. This impliedly indicates that Lai’s position is one and the same as that of the government he represents. Without a doubt, minister Lai is not interested in anything else aside from his own storyline that nobody died at Lekki Tollgate. Curiously, he, and his gang of government defenders on government payroll, are the only ones pushing this story that nobody died at Lekki Tollgate a year ago, against all available evidence and commonsense. But then, for the benefit of doubt, what is even more worrisome is if what Lai Mohammed says represents the position of the federal government on the brutalization and state execution of peaceful protesters at Lekki Tollgate last year October.
For a year, some agents of the federal government demanded evidence that suggests that people were killed by the military at Lekki Tollgate. Some of them even asked that people should exercise patience for the judicial panels of inquiry to conclude their inquiries. With the leaked report of the Lagos panel, names of both injured and killed victims were gathered and documented, with strong evidence that soldiers shot at with live bullets and killed innocent protesters, should weigh heavier than any political allegiance. If anything, a thinking government should not allow or tolerate its mouthpiece coming out to discredit albeit baselessly, such heavily indicting report.
Lai Mohammed is subjecting murdered innocent citizens to atrocious dishonor even in their death. What can possibly be more comic and tragic at the same time as the unfounded insistence by Lai Mohammed that no one was killed? If the federal government still cares about anything, then, Lai Mohammed should be cautioned at least, but what he deserves is a clean sack. A government that abuses its citizens alive, and dishonours them in death, is a government that is at war with its own citizens. The government no matter how averse to the feelings of the governed must have a human face, much less the one that prides itself as democratic.
♦ Ebuka Onyekwelu, strategic governance exponent, is a columnist with the WAP
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