Our reporter| Commander of the 81 Military Intelligence Brigade, Brigadier Ahmed Taiwo, on Saturday said that the Nigerian Army is unhappy that the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, denied inviting them to come and restore calm at the Lekki Tollgate area of the state in the heat of the #EndSARS protests.
Brigadier Taiwo who stated this while testifying before the Judicial Panel of Inquiry set up by the state government to investigate cases of police brutality, also presented videos before the panel as part of evidence of the violence that had erupted across the state following the nationwide protests.
He said, “The Nigerian army was not happy about two things. The first is his (Governor Sanwo-Olu’s denial) that he asked us to intervene when in actual fact, it was the proper thing to do.”
“He called the Chief of Army Staff and the GOC 81 division and asked for intervention because the police had been overrun”.
“I’m sure that after we have watched everything, we have seen that he had reasonable grounds to ask the army to intervene.”
Brigadier Taiwo also insisted that only blank bullets containing gunpowder were fired at the Lekki Tollgate area of Lagos State on October 20 and that the military only fired into the air and not directly at the #EndSARS protesters.
According to im, the blank bullets used cannot cause any damage to the flesh, stating that if real bullets were indeed fired, one bullet had the potency to kill three persons at one shot.
He reiterated that the Army were deployed to the scene on the orders of the state government to contain the violence that had broken out in parts of the state by persons who hijacked the peaceful protests and that they did get the update that the timing which had initially been set to commence at 4:00 pm, was shifted to 9:00 pm.
The troops, he said, were not only deployed to the Lekki tollgate but also to other areas like Badagry, Ikorodu, Apapa, Alimosho, Epe, Lagos Island and the entire state to restore normalcy.
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