By our reporter|Two lawyers, Adekunle Augustine and Semion Akogwu, has asked the Federal High Court in Lagos to disband the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry set up to look into complaints of human rights abuses by men of the disbanded police Special Anti-Robbery Squad.
The retired Justice Doris Okuwobi also has the mandate to probe the alleged shootings at #EndSARS protesters at Lekki Tollgate by soldiers on the night of October 20.
In a suit before the court, the lawyers are asking the court to disband the panel and nullify all its proceedings so far.
According to the lawyers, since the soldiers who allegedly shot at #EndSARS protesters at the Lekki tollgate were invited by the Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the same governor cannot set up a panel to probe the incident.
The setting up of the judicial panel, they argue is in conflict with the provisions of Section 36 of the Constitution.
The setting up of the panel by the governor was “tantamount to making the governor a judge in his own cause and ipso facto breaches the plaintiffs rights to fair hearing,” they argued.
They plantiffs, therefore, seek, “an order of this honourable court disbanding the 3rd defendant (panel) and nullifying its proceedings and whatsoever actions taken thereby so far, to give way for a credible and independent commission of inquiry to be set up by the Federal Government to take over the mandate of the 3rd defendant as contemplated by its establishment abi nitio.”
Listed as defendants in the suit are the Governor of Lagos State; Judicial Panel of Inquiry and Restitution for Victims of SARS-Related Abuses in Lagos State and Lekki Tollgate Incident; the panel’s chairman; and the Attorney General of Lagos State.
No date has been fixed for hearing date for the case.
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