EndSARS report: Adegboruwa alleges threat to life, says Nigerians should hold govt responsible

Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa (SAN), one of the members of the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and other matters, has alleged a threat to his life over the report of the panel that protesters were killed at the Lekki toll gate on October 20, 2020.

Adegboruwa raised the alarm in a statement on Monday titled, ‘Nigerians Should Hold Government Responsible If Anything Happens To Me’.

Podiumnews had earlier reported that the Justice Doris Okuwobi-led panel submitted its report to the Lagos State Government, noting that at least nine persons were confirmed dead at the Lekki toll plaza when soldiers stormed the tollgate to disperse EndSARS protesters on October 20, 2020.

The 309-page report 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.”

Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who received the report last Monday, constituted a Committee to bring forward a White Paper within the next two weeks to be considered by the Lagos State Executive Council.

Many Nigerians have been outraged by the panel’s report which is at variance with the consistent claim by the government that there was no “massacre” at the toll gate, a focal gathering point during last year’s nationwide demonstration against extrajudicial killings and police brutality by operatives of the now-defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad of the Nigeria Police Force.

But Adegboruwa, who represented the civil society organisation on the panel, said members of the panel are being unfairly persecuted by some state government officials.

He wrote, “Since the submission of the report of the Lagos #EndSARS Panel, there have been lots of threats and attacks, by those suspected to be agents of the government, upon me, especially in the media.

“I have not committed any crime beyond joining other eminent Nigerians with unblemished integrity, to accept the nomination of government on behalf of my constituency, the Nigerian Bar Association and the civil society and the indeed the masses of our people, for a national assignment.

“Two prominent lawyers of the government have openly incited opinions against me on national television, with mindless accusations.

I have however refused to be intimidated or bend to the tactics of government to be silenced.

“I urge the good people of Nigeria, my professional colleagues in the Nigerian Bar Association, my comrades in the civil rights movement and the people of Nigeria, to hold government responsible should anything happen to me.

“Just last night, one of the prominent EndSARS protesters who testified before the Panel, Miss Kamsiyochukwu Ibe, was attacked and dealt serious machete blows, in what was clearly an attempted murder, as reported by her counsel, with very disturbing photos.

“I heeded the clarion call to serve by the government with the honest believe that the Panel was meant to say the truth and nothing but the truth, which is what we have done. 

It is left for government and Nigerians to do the needful with the report of the Panel.”