The report on cases of killings and assault by security personnel during the #EndSARS protest in October 2020 was submitted by the Lagos Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Monday.
There are some recommendations in the report to be implemented by the Lagos State governor Babajide SanwoOlu. Some of the panel’s recommendations include the designation of the Lekki Toll Plaza where young Nigerians were killed as they waved the Nigerian flag and sang the national anthem as a memorial site for the protest # EndSARS and renaming the place to #EndSARS Tollgate.
“The Panel recommends that the Lekki Toll Plaza be made a memorial site for ENDSARS Protest: By renaming to ‘ENDSARS TOLLGATE’ the record stated. “A monument memorializing the lives lost and people injured on the Lekki Toll Gate with the names inscribed at the Monument.”It also recommends that October twentieth of each year be made a ‘Toll-Free Day’ on the Lekki Toll Gate so long as the tollgate exists.”
In the record submitted to Sanwo-Olu, the panel observed that officials of the Nigeria Police Force who had been deployed to the toll gate on the night of the incident, shot, assaulted and battered unarmed protesters, which brought about accidents and deaths” which it stated culminated into the killing of unarmed civilians.
The Nigerian government, Lagos State government, Nigeria Army, and police had denied that any killing took place on the night of the protest October 20, 2020, at the Lekki Tollgate.
Since the killing, many protesters who’re nonetheless missing, eyewitnesses, families, relatives of individuals still narrates the pain of losing their loved ones.
Still, the government denies that any killing took place at the lekki tollgate #EndSARS protest. The Lagos Judicial Panel of Inquiry stated that honouring the #EndSARS protesters killed will bring them some consolation.
The panel also stated that government needs to publicly apologize to the youth for the purpose of restitution, restoration, and reconciliation.
The panel additionally encouraged the prosecution and dismissal of law enforcement operatives who ‘massacred’ protesters at the Lekki Toll Plaza.
