Photo:Scene at the #EndSars protest in 2020.(inset) Prof. Joy Ezeilo
By Divine Ihechimerem
A member of the #ENDSARS Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Police Brutality, Prof. Joy Ngozi Ezeilo SAN, has raised the alarm that three years after, the recommendations and decisions of the panel are yet to be implemented.
Writing on her X official account@NgoziEzeilo, she said:
“I was a part of the #ENDSARS Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Police Brutality. It’s disheartening that justice has not been served, and the decisions from the various Panels of Inquiry nationwide have yet to be implemented. Without accountability, impunity continues.
“These days, the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) has started commercializing their services, charging fixed amounts as high as 300k (in Enugu, for example), and hardly responds to poor crime victims requiring their intervention.
” I support the constitutional creation of State Police and the reorganization of the NPF for utmost professionalism.”
The eight-man Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and Other Matters, headed by retired Justice Doris Okuwobi, had on November 15, 2021 submitted a 309-page report in which it indicted soldiers and the police, and affirming that security agents killed peaceful protesters.
Describing the Lekki tollgate incident as a massacre, the panel declared that at least nine persons were killed by security agents. It listed 48 names as casualties out of which 22 protesters sustained gunshot injuries, while 15 others were assaulted by soldiers and the police.
It listed the names of the deceased as Victor Sunday Ibanga, Abuta Solomon, Jide, Olalekan Abideen Ashafa, Olamilekan Ajasa, Kolade Salami, Folorunsho Olabisi, Kenechukwu Ugoh and Nathaniel Solomon. The report also listed Abiodun Adesanya, Ifeanyi Nicholas Eji, Tola and Wisdom as “presumed dead.”
The panel stated, “The atrocious maiming and killing of unarmed, helpless and unresisting protesters, while sitting on the floor and waving their Nigerian flags and while singing the National Anthem can be equated to a ‘massacre’ in context.”
Members of the panel attempted to bring to light the root cause of the violent attack on the protesters by taking testimonies from all those involved. About 80 per cent of those summoned were said to have given evidence
They included gunshot victims, family members of deceased persons, forensic experts, pathologists, ballistic experts and medical doctors, who treated the victims. The panel attempted to provide clarity on the controversy over the killings at the tollgate, which the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has repeatedly denied and described as fake news.
The panel also revealed how the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, invited the Nigerian Army to the scene of the protests.