The Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, has kept his mouth following the Lagos judicial panel’s report that affirmed that Nigerian soldiers massacred unarmed and peaceful #EndSARS protesters at the Lekki tollgate on October 20 last year.
Mr Mohammed has rabidly denied the soldiers killed protesters, predominantly Nigerian youths, at the Lekki facility.
After the report was released on Monday, Peoples Gazette made efforts to reach Mr Mohammed for comments, but phone calls and messages went unanswered. Also, the information and culture ministry, which he superintends, has kept mum in light of the damning report.
The panel’s report focused on police brutality, including an investigation into the Lekki killing, concluding that it was a “massacre.”
After the soldiers’ violent attack on civilians at the tollgate in October 2020, Mr Mohammed had insisted no one was shot and killed by the army.
In the past year, Mr Mohammed has repeatedly pushed the notion that no protesters died at the tollgate despite multiple reports stating otherwise. Mr Mohammed also attacked international media that reported the killings by the Nigerian Army.
In November 2020, the minister attacked DJ Switch, who filmed the army shooting #EndSARS protesters at the tollgate, saying she will soon be “exposed for who she is.” The report has exposed Mr Mohammed as being untruthful instead. The minister referred to the disc jockey as a “purveyor of fake news” and publicly questioned her motive for revealing the army’s atrocious act on the night of October 20, 2020.
In November 2020, Mr Mohammed heavily criticised CNN’s report on the Lekki massacre. He said the report “did not just fall short of journalistic standards but reinforces the disinformation that is going around on the issue.”
In a letter written to CNN, the minister said it left out a video that could have shown that “armed hoodlums invaded the Lekki Toll Gate that night, and could have hit any of the protesters as they shot sporadically.”
In January, Mr Mohammed challenged Amnesty International to prove that 12 people were killed at the tollgate. Mr Mohammed said the human rights organisation was gradually losing credibility.
In February, Mr Mohammed claimed both local and international media had not established that the military violently attacked the protesters, dismissing the report of killings as “fake news and unverified social media reports.”
In October, on the first anniversary of the Lekki tollgate massacre, Mr Mohammed, in a press briefing, further insisted there was no proof that any protester was killed at the tolls. In his statement, he described the incident as a “phantom massacre.”
“One year later, and despite ample opportunities for the families of those allegedly killed and those alleging a massacre to present evidence, there has been none: No bodies, no families, no convincing evidence, nothing,” Mr Mohammed had said.