The Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Lagos State, Moyosore Onigbanjo (SAN), during an interview on Arise TV said there were many discrepancies with the EndSARS Panel report which made the findings of the panel unreliable, leading to the rejection of some conclusions of the report.
It was gathered that the white paper on the report submitted by the panel was released by the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu. The panel had submitted two reports — one on cases of police brutality and another on the Lekki shooting incident of October 20, 2020, on November 15, where it listed nine fatalities from the Lekki shooting.
But the white paper, citing what it described as “fundamental inconsistencies,” rejected the figure, adding that the findings were not supported by evidence.
According to Onigbanjo, head of the four-man white paper committee, said the panel’s findings on the Lekki shooting at the tollgate were contrary to the evidence provided, adding that the panel’s report “created doubts and gaps and did not explain how they arrived at that conclusion, the names, who shot them and when they were shot.
“The panel said they found the report of Prof. Obafunwa, who conducted autopsy on all the bodies picked up around Lagos during the protest, not just in Lekki, credible but Obafunwa said of all the bodies he conducted autopsies on, three came from Lekki and only one out of those had gunshot injury.
“And the panel then said, “We believe you and accept your evidence because there is nothing to the contrary.” It means what Prof. Obafunwa said outweighs every other piece of evidence before the panel.
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“Then the panel went on to say there were nine dead. If you look at that page where the deaths from the Lekki tollgate were listed, they did not explain how they arrived at that conclusion, the names, who shot them and when they were shot. So that’s a contradiction because what Obafunwa said is different from the conclusion they are now reaching. And there were so many others.
“They also said one Nathanial Solomon died at Lekki Tollgate. It turns out that Nathaniel Solomon was a witness before them and handed a petition in respect of his late brother.
“Take another example, they said nine persons died, and they awarded compensation to only one. Why, if you believe nine persons died, why are you not awarding compensation to the other eight persons?
“These contradictions and many more made that particular finding unreliable. Because, for a finding that somebody died at a scene to be acceptable, there must be no doubt.”
Onigbanjo stated that the two reports from the panels would be released to the public soon to allow the people make their own judgment from the findings.
“We are going to release the two reports of the panel to the public to judge by themselves. So, it is not just going to be a case of Lagos State analysing this in itself and coming to its conclusions. We are going to make them available to everybody to read it,” he said.
