Lagos Panel Admits Autopsy Reports on 99 #EndSARS Victims

Lagos State Judicial Panel on Restitution for Victims of SARS and the Lekki Tollgate Incident yesterday admitted in evidence autopsy reports of 99 persons reportedly killed in Lagos during the 2020 #EndSARS protests.

The Chief Pathologist of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Prof. John Obafunwa submitted the reports following an order on June 5 for the post mortem results of all the 99 corpses to be made available.

The evidence, which the chief pathologist tendered at the sitting of the panel yesterday, was contained in two nylon bags- blue and white. After the evidence tendered before the panel, there was no objection from any parties at the panel.

Subsequently, the Chairman of the panel, Justice Doris Okuwobi, admitted the documents in evidence after the counsel to some #EndSARS protesters, Yinka Olumide-Fusika, moved for the documents to be admitted.

Okuwobi adjourned further sitting to July 13.

During the cross-examination, Olumide-Fusika noted that Obafunwa disclosed that the bodies were recovered from different parts of Lagos at the time.

“I want to prove to this panel that the claim that only three dead bodies were brought in from Lekki is not true,” Olumide-Fusika said at the sitting of the panel.

Obafunwa, a professor of Medicine and the Head of the Department of Morbid Anatomy at the Lagos University College of Medicine had claimed that at least 99 persons were killed during the #EndSARS protests.

The pathologist added that three persons were killed in Lekki when soldiers opened fire on unarmed protesters at the toll plaza on October 20, 2020.

The remaining bodies were received from other parts of the state including Surulere, Ikorodu, Ajah, Fagba, among others, Mr Obafunwa said.

On October 20, military officers arrived at the Lekki Toll Gate in Toyota Hilux vans and shot at peaceful protesters that converged on the tollgate waving the Nigerian green-and-white flag and reciting the national anthem

The youths were protesting police brutality and asking for reforms in governance.

The army, which initially denied shooting at the protesters, later admitted that its men carried live bullets that night but only to tackle armed hoodlums who had hijacked the protests.

Ahmed Taiwo, Commander of the 81 Division, Military Intelligence Brigade, Victoria Island, had told the panel of Inquiry into the Lekki Tollgate incident that the army went to the tollgate “with both blank and live ammunition”.

The official also fell short of saying his men fired live shots at Nigerians on their way “to clear the Lekki, Eti-Osa corridor”.