Lekki shooting: Presidency rejects Amnesty Int’l report

The Presidency has rejected the report from Amnesty International Report, alleging that it was skewed.

The presidency also said the global rights body cannot have more facts about things happening in the country than the President.

Mr. Femi Adesina, Special Adviser on Media & Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, said these on Channels TV breakfast programme, Sunrise Daily, while responding to claims that military high-handedness towards the protesters at Lekki Toll Gate led to hoodlums looting and burning public and private properties across the country.

Also exonerating the military, Adesina said the Lekki Toll Gate incident didn’t precipitate the arson and looting spree that spread across the country.

Amnesty International, on Wednesday, released a report, entitled “Nigeria: The Lekki Toll Gate massacre — new investigative timeline”.

In the report, the rights group chronicled the movement of soldiers from a barracks till they got to the toll gate, where flag-waving and the National Anthem-singing #EndSARS protesters were shot at.

Soldiers fired blank bullets in Lekki, says Usman, ex-Army spokesman

Reacting to the Lekki shooting on Arise Television ,  former spokesman of the Nigerian Army, Brig. Gen. Sani Usman, retd, said soldiers fired blank bullets at the Lekki protesters, and not live ammunition as widely claimed.

He said contrary to reports that many were killed in the incident, the blank ammunition used was not capable of killing anyone.

General Usman said there was enough ground to involve the military in the protests, citing reports of violence in parts of the state as a justification.

He accused various persons and organizations, including Amnesty International — which had  fingered the army  in the reported killings — of politicising the issue and lying against the military.

“People have decided to denigrate the military and turn the military as the fall guy but evidence on ground does not support that assertion.

“Yes, there was the deployment of the military; to what extent and all that, it will be determined by the commission of enquiry.

“If you look at the canisters, they were blank ammo and blank ammo don’t even kill. At a close range, maybe 100-metres, it will have some pigmentation on your skin. Let’s leave the commission of enquiry to do its job.

“But it is very dangerous for anybody to politicise security in this country. The military is a symbol of national unity and national power; they should be insulated from all these politics,”  said Usman who retired from active service last year.

Investigate, don’t reject report — CISLAC

Similarly, Executive Director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC, Auwal Rafsanjani, said: “Government should not be in a haste to reject citizens’ monitoring of this incident. They should carry out investigation to know if this report is really authentic, rather dismissing it.

‘’It should take advantage of the various report to investigate to know whether the claims can help in identifying officers involved in the incident. This is important and already, Lagos State governor has contradicted himself.’’

Also reacting, Country Director, Global Rights Nigeria, Abidoun Baiyewu, said: “It is very unfortunate that they (government) didn’t even review the report that was sent to them. So why won’t they listen to the timeline of the events and call for forensic evidence of the shooting? The CSOs on several occasions have called on them for independent investigation.’”

It’s wrong to open fire on unarmed protesters — CACOL

Also reacting, Executive Chairman, Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, CACOL, Debo Adeniran, said: “Amnesty International is a Non-Governmental Organization, NGO, that has global spread which monitors violations of human rights where they operates from. 

“Most of their reports are based on observations of their representatives in those respective countries, including Africa. It’s possible for their representatives to have monitored the movement of the soldiers from their base to Lekki Toll Gate. What they can’t establish is if those soldiers who shot were actually the ones who left the base.

“But Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu had come out to say the military was only called in to enforce the curfew and never expected them before the curfew time of 9 pm. More so, he had no authority to give orders or directives to shoot at the protesters.

“Thus, from all intent and purposes, Amnesty International could have seen the soldiers when they were firing but did not show us the corpses of those killed. By so doing, it has not given us adequate evidence on the claim of number of deaths.

“Under the criminal justice system, nobody can be criminally culpable without adequate evidence. There must be adequate evidence that the crime was actually committed. If anybody has died, it is the pathologists who will confirm the victim actually died as a result of a particular incident or cause. In this case therefore, Amnesty International may be wrong.

“However, it is not right for any armed personnel to open fire on defenceless, harmless protesters for any reason. If they must disperse the protesters, lethal weapon should not have been applied against them. The Amnesty International must have relied on the report of their representatives here in Nigeria but the report leaves much to be desired.”

Pattern of lies — Adeyanju

Convener, Concerned Nigerians, CN, Deji Adeyanju, in his reaction, said: “The same government lies so easily and this same government lied when they killed Shi’ites in Zaria, when they shot at unarmed IPoB protesters in the South-East at the peak of the agitation, you can see the pattern of lies at the Lekki Toll gate shooting. 

‘’The Nigerian people should not give up in demanding for what is right and total overhaul of the Nigerian Police Force.”

In his reaction, Executive Director, Centre for Democracy and Development, CDD, David Anyaele, said:  “It is not in the interest of  this government to reject any report on Lekki Tollgate shooting, in particular Amnesty International report.

“Rejecting Amnesty International report is a form of giving credibility to their findings and recommendations. It is also an expression of weakness on the part of the Federal Government.

“There is no need to set up panels across the country, if government’s intention is to discriminate against reports from some quarters.

“The government must demonstrate to Nigerians and the international community that it should be trusted. Part of the reason the protest lasted for more than one week was due to trust deficit.

“Therefore, by discriminating against reports from sources that are demanding for accountability is a pointer that the government may be hiding something from the public, and may not like to take responsibility. It is unfortunate.”

Culled from Vanguard