#EndSARS, Lekki Toll Gate Shooting: Lagos hires forensic team

The Lagos State government has hired a team to conduct an independent forensic examination of the Lekki toll gate.

Nigerian soldiers attacked peaceful #EndSARS protesters at the toll gate on October 20, 2020 after weeks of demonstrations against police brutality.

Soldiers fired on the protesters after the declaration of a curfew, leading to a yet-to-be-determined number of fatalities disputed by the government.

A judicial panel of inquiry investigating the incident revealed during a sitting on Tuesday, January 5, 2021 that the Lagos government has paid a forensic team to aid the investigation.

Chairperson of the panel, Justice Doris Okuwobi, announced this after the Lekki Concession Company (LCC) repeated a request that it be allowed to retake control of the toll gate which was vandalised after the October shooting.

Okuwobi denied the request, noting that the forensic examination will be completed within 21 days.

"Forensic analysis will clear a lot of issues in the incident of October 20, 2020, and a huge sum has been paid by the Lagos State Government for it.

"The desire is that the panel will unearth the truth of what happened," she said.

The panel adjourned further consideration of the LCC's application to January 29.

Despite eyewitness accounts of fatalities from the incident, the Nigerian Army has maintained that troops only fired blanks in the air to disperse protesters.

The government has also launched a media attack against those who have accepted the claims of eyewitnesses, claiming that their accounts were influenced to cause disharmony in the country.