Counsel for the Lagos State Government, Abiodun Owonikoko, claims at least 40 discrepancies in the report.
Gatekeepers News reports that the Counsel for the Lagos State Government, Abiodun Owonikoko (SAN), claims at least 40 discrepancies in the report submitted by the Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and Other Matters.
Owonikoko represented the Lagos State Government during the year-long sitting of the EndSARS judicial panel.
The panel headed by Justice Doris Okuwobi had on Monday, 15 November 2021, submitted its report to the Lagos State Government.
Part of the findings of the 309-page report showed that there was a “massacre in context” at the Lekki tollgate on October 20, 2020.
The panel also claimed that “at least 48 protesters were either killed, injured, or assaulted by soldiers and police during the protests.”
Owonikoko faulted some of the findings in the report, adding that the panel omitted essential details.
Owonikoko said this during an interview with Arise TV on Thursday.
He said, “Let me paraphrase my response with caution.
“I was a retained private solicitor to represent the interest of Lagos state government on the panel along with my other colleagues, another SAN, Enitan Olukayode and our colleagues.
“I have avoided having to make comments about proceedings before the panel or their reports up until now because I know that by law, the panel set up was a judicial panel of inquiry, and its decisions, recommendations, resolutions are not meant for public consumption in the first instance.
“What they do is to submit a report to the government, which may be a unanimous one or a divided opinion if the panel members were unable to agree on certain things under their terms of reference.
“It is the government’s review of that report and its final decision on it that ought to be available for public consumption.
“Why is that so? Even the government’s decision on it, which comes by way of White Paper, is not binding on anybody that is aggrieved, and you are entitled to subject it to judicial review in a court of law.
“An instance that you may readily recall was the Oputa Panel.
“One of the reasons a number of some of the recommendations did not see the light of day, was that it was challenged in court and the Supreme Court held that some of the matters that the panel looked into, much as the public was interested in knowing the truth about them, were beyond the remit of the federal government to constitute a panel to look into.
“Speaking today, I am not speaking for Lagos State Government. I am not speaking on a report that is validly published and which can be authenticated as the outcome of that judicial inquiry.
“Nevertheless, I can’t pretend not to be aware that certain documents have been circulating in the social media and have been subject of comments and responses.
“By law, the findings, conclusions, and recommendations of the panel were not supposed to be made public.
“I have myself seen one of such reports. It is unsigned, but it contains the names of all members, and I did not, on going through it, see any indication that it was not a unanimous position.
“It may well be, however, that it is a draft of a minority opinion, because given what I know, having spent one whole year from the beginning of the sitting of the panel till the end, except for occasions where one or two of my colleagues had to stand in for me, and we have a record of proceedings, there was nothing that transpired before the panel that escaped my knowledge.
That being the case, I must say that I am totally shocked about what I read to be the report, particularly the finding with regards to 40 something victims, some of whom were described as deceased, some of them described as missing but all attributed by the panel to what is called the Lekki incident.
“That there is the undisputed, uncontroverted fact that the military personnel got to the Lekki Tollgate around past 06:00 PM in the evening as part of mobilisation towards enforcing the curfew imposed by Lagos state government following the assessment that security situation in the state was at a stage where special attention had to be given security provided to impose a curfew and restore law and order.
“As at that morning, Mr Governor had addressed the state and issued a proclamation for a curfew to commence at 04:00 PM. That was presented from what we now knew at the panel by a security council meeting held by the State Government Security Council a day before, involving the Police, the Army, the Navy, the SSS, the Attorney-General, the Governor and a few other government functionaries where they assessed the entire situation and came to a conclusion then that things were going out of hand.
“As at that time, policemen were being killed, a female orderly to a First Lady was stripped naked and assaulted at Ikorodu.
“The report making rounds on social media is a draft of a minority opinion because I was there all through the proceedings.
“I am particularly shocked to read what is contained in the report because it is not completely accurate.
“I sighted over 40 discrepancies in this report, including awarding N15 million to someone who was a witness to a police brutality incident that had nothing to do with the Lekki incident. What kind of report is that?
“All the evidence we were able to gather during the proceedings, none of them could be fully established.
“The mistake made by the government was not setting up an entirely different panel to look into the Lekki incident because there are some members of the panel that are protagonists in the case against the Police. They were not supposed to be a part of it.
“In that report, there is no single mention of police casualty, not even a mention of what they lost.
“The Area Commander of Lekki, Epe Express came with one of his foot cut, he could not wear official police boots anymore, he was limping to testify, he was one of those recommended to be tried in this report.
“No mention of any single police person that came to testify.
“There is not a single person on that list which family or relation came to testify that he died that the family came to testify.
“No evidence of where he died, no medical certificate, nothing, and we expect that as a person of conscience, I will abide by that report. That is why I can’t believe that.”
Owonikoko added that a member of the panel, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa was absent for most of the proceedings and had a pending case in court challenging the legality of the toll gate.
“Adegboruwa cannot give an objective report on the Lekki incident because he was always absent during the sittings which were held on Saturdays.
“He already had a case in court, challenging the legality of the toll gate.
“It is worrisome that he also signed off on the report, given that he was mostly absent. It makes the report tainted.
“There are almost 40 material discrepancies in that report, including awarding financial compensations to people who were claimed to have died, who never died.
“They later came out to say that they did not die.
“How would you make that kind of mistake to award millions of naira to somebody, claiming that he has died? He was even a witness, and in the report, they awarded him N15 million.
“What kind of report is that? The report is not good for Nigeria.”
