ionigeria.com Nigerian Newspaper
United States has called on both Lagos and Federal Governments to respond to the report submitted by the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on the ENDSARS protest.
The US Embassy in Nigeria in a statement on Tuesday also asked both governments to take suitable measures to address those alleged abuses as well as the grievances of the victims and their families.
In the statement issued by the Consulate General in Lagos, the United States said its “welcomes the conclusion of the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry with the transmission of its final report.”
The United States Embassy however said: “We look forward to the Lagos State government’s response as part of a process that represents an important mechanism of accountability regarding the #EndSARS protests and the events that took place near the Lekki Toll Gate on October 20, 2020.”
The Embassy added that: “Those events led to serious allegations against some members of the security forces, and we look forward to the Lagos State and federal governments taking suitable measures to address those alleged abuses as well as the grievances of the victims and their families.”
In a damning report released yesterday, the Judicial Panel of Inquiry (JPI) set up by the Lagos state government to probe the October 20, 2020 #EndSARs protest had in its repirt submitted to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Monday revealed that at least 11 persons were killed during the peaceful demonstration at the Lekki Tollgate and another four missing but presumed dead, making a total of 15 dead persons.
The report, which also called the Lekki Tollgate shootings of October 20, 2020, “a massacre,” was an incriminating indictment of heightening extrajudicial killings and unprofessionalism by Nigerian law enforcement agents
The report described as “atrocious”, the maiming and killing of unarmed, helpless and unresisting protesters, while sitting on the floor, waving their Nigerian flags and singing the National Anthem, stressing that the act could be equated to a “massacre in context.”
