We Were Shot At Lekki Tollgate – #EndSARS Protest Victims
Some persons with injuries on Friday stormed the Lagos Court of Arbitration,(LCA) in Lekki, the hearing venue of the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry probing the alleged shooting of #EndSARS protesters by soldiers on the night of October 20 at the Lekki tollgate. Some of the injured persons, who were brought to the LCA in a white bus, had plaster of Paris cast on their legs and arms and bandages wrapped on their heads and chests. One of the injured, Edwin Augustine, said he ended up on crutches after a bullet pierced his thigh on the night of October 20 at the Lekki tollgate. Another injured person, Damilola Ogunleke, also attributed his wound to alleged gunshot at the tollgate, adding that he already had two surgical operations. A man, Nathaniel Solomon, displayed the picture of a young man lying dead on the grass at the venue. Solomon said the young man in the picture was his brother, Abouta, whom he alleged was shot dead on the protest ground at the tollgate. Solomon said we are from Mubi North Local Government Area of Adamawa State. My brother was shot at the Lekki tollgate on October 20. It was the Army that shot him. “His corpse was at the Lekki tollgate. There were protesters around at the time. He was laid on the grass that was growing on the road divider in the middle of the road. That night when we took my brother’s corpse, we saw other people who had been shot, about four of them, on the ground. They were all dead.”
Meanwhile speaking during the demonstration in front of the courthouse, an #EndSARS protester, Dabiraoluwa Adeyinka, who had pending petition before the retired Justice Doris Okuwobi led panel, said the decision to bring the injured was to debunk the claim by the Nigerian Army that soldiers neither shot at nor killed any protester at the tollgate. Adeyinka said, “We want justice. We don’t want to be silenced, we don’t want to be marginalised even in our own country. That is why we have come here today to show the victims. Also speaking, the #EndSARS protesters’ lawyer, Ogunlana, claimed that agents of the Lagos State Government had been threatening or offering monetary inducement to victims to discourage them from coming to testify before the panel.