Following the brouhaha that has trailed the shooting of #ENDSARS protesters at the Lekki toll gate in Lagos State, which also led to the establishment of Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry for Restitution for Victims of SARS and related abuses and Other Matters, the management of the Lekki Concession Company (LCC) has said it is ready to show the footage of the shootings of #EndSARS protesters at the Lekki toll gate by soldiers.
Mr Gbolahan Agboluwaje, Head of the Legal Department of LCC, made the disclosure while appearing before the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry for Restitution for Victims of SARS and related abuses and Other Matters on Friday. Agboluwaje noted that the footage of the October 20 shootings of the #EndSARS protesters by the soldiers is available. He said there are hours of recordings on the CCTV footage.
He said the LCC received a summons from the panel on Wednesday, to appear before it, present the October 20 footage, an investigation report and any other document. He clarified that while the “LCC is prepared to air the footage before the panel” but no investigative report or document is available. We have the footage. We do not have an investigation report because we know that investigations are ongoing, and we have not been able to provide any document. We had a very short notice and we brought what we were able to lay our hands on,” he added.
Agboluwaje also told the panel that due to the short notice of the summoning, the Managing Director of LCC, Abayomi Omomuwa, would not be able to testify. He explained that this is because the company was yet to hire an external counsel to represent the MD.
However, Omomuwa had been sworn-in to give evidence before the panel. Responding, the Chairman of the nine-man panel, Justice Doris Okuwobi (Retd.), granted Agboluwaje’s request for a short adjournment. Okuwobi noted that the programme of the day for the panel was to visit the locus (scene of the Lekki Shooting) and to have proceedings based on their findings from the visit.
“We were initially to take note of what we see at the locus and today’s proceedings was to be subsequent to what we see there. The panel will arise very shortly to visit the locus. The panel noted that it is required of the witness to have a counsel of his choice. We will not take the proceedings of the visit of the locus until then,” she said.
