Lekki Shooting: Femi Falana Reveals Why Families Of Victims Are Afraid To Speak Out

Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), says the families of #EndSARS protesters killed by soldiers at the Lekki toll gate are afraid to speak out over fear of victimisation.

KanyiDaily had reported how Nigerian Soldiers opened fire on peaceful #EndSARS protesters at the Lekki toll gate, killing unconfirmed number of persons and injuring so many others on Tuesday night, October 21, 2020.

Following the incident, the Nigerian Army denied deploying soldiers to the scene, adding that videos showing soldiers opening fire on the protesters were untrue as it was photoshopped.

After initial denial, the Army finally admitted that its operatives were deployed to Lekki toll gate on that Tuesday night, but that the troops never opened fire on the protesters.

Reacting to the development, Falana said the Nigerian army has “a history of lies, fraud and deception” while making reference to the incident of December 2015 when soldiers lied after killing 347 Shiites in Zaria, Kaduna State.

Falana stated this while speaking at an ‘#EndSARS Zoom Meeting Global’ hosted by Sahara Reporters publisher, Omoyele Sowore, on Wednesday, October 28, 2020.

The human right lawyer called on Nigerians and the international community not to believe the explanations offered by the Nigerian Army on the Lekki shootings.

“Nobody should believe the military because it has a history of lies, fraud and deception,” he said.

“Just in December 2015, the same Chief of Army Staff, General (Tukur) Buratai claimed that there was a traffic jam in Zaria and the big man wanted to move and because of that traffic, he got soldiers from the first division in Kaduna to mow down Shiites.

“And what was the explanation? That the Shiites wanted to assassinate the Chief of Army Staff…and about six or seven persons died.

“But in the Commission of Inquiry set up by the Kaduna State Government, we were told that indeed 347 Nigerians were killed by the military. No autopsy, no postmortem, nothing was done. Their bodies were taken away in the dead of the night and given a mass burial.

“And people will ask you, if anybody lost his child in Lekki, why have they not come up? Who has come up in the case of Zaria? Because you must understand the environment under which we operate.

“By the way, some of those injured in Lekki had to forcefully discharge themselves because they were told in the hospital that they were going to be held liable for the riot in town. And so, everybody had to move.

“But as of today, the governor of Lagos State has admitted that two people lost their lives. The circumstances would have to be explained later but those two were among those shot by the soldiers.

“We are involved in the investigation and we are going to unravel the entire mystery surrounding the attack in Lagos,” he insisted.

The Senior Advocate of Nigeria also added that the military has no business enforcing curfew under the Nigerian laws.

Meanwhile, a former presidential aide, Reno Omokri has revealed that the Nigerian Government is trying to silence the survivors of ‘Lekki massacre’ by offering each of them N5 million to stay quite.