Our reporter/ Nigerians took to social media on Sunday to condemn the Lagos state government reaction to the leakage of the #EndSARS memo seeking approval for mass burial of 103 victims killed during the 2020 protest against police brutality in the country.
Following the leakage of the memo via the social media on Sunday, the Lagos state government urged the public to disregard rumours that mass funerals will be held for #EndSARS victims in 2020, claiming that those responsible for the memo are troublemakers.
The government made this known in a statement signed by its Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Dr. Olusegun Ogboye on its Twitter page, stating that the victims to be buried are not from the Lekki Tollgate shooting.
“The attention of the Lagos State Government has been drawn to some social media publications about a purported mass burial plan for casualties of the 2020 #EndSARS incident. Peddlers of the news are deliberately misinterpreting and sensationalising a letter from the Lagos State Government Public Procurement Agency titled: Letter of No Objection — Mass Burial for the 103, the Year 2020 ENDSARS victims, to misinform the public, stir public sentiment and cause public disaffection against the Lagos State Government, the statement reads.
“While the Lagos State Government would not have dignified the mischievous elements peddling such news with a response, we consider it appropriate to set the records straight and draw the attention of well-meaning citizens to the antics of some unscrupulous elements who are hell-bent on disrupting the peace and tranquillity of Lagos with distorted news and half-truths about the PPA letter.
“It is public knowledge that the year 2020 #EndSARS crisis that snowballed into violence in many parts of Lagos recorded casualties in different areas of the State and NOT from the Lekki Toll Gate as being inferred in the mischievous publications.
“For the records, the Lagos State Environmental Health Unit (SEHMU) picked up bodies in the aftermath of #EndSARS violence and community clashes at Fagba, Ketu, Ikorodu, Orile, Ajegunle, Abule-Egba, Ikeja, Ojota, Ekoro, Ogba, Isolo and Ajah areas of Lagos State, including a jailbreak at Ikoyi Prison. The 103 casualties mentioned in the document were from these incidents and NOT from Lekki Toll-gate as alleged. For the avoidance of doubt, nobody was retrieved from the Lekki Toll Gate incident.
“In the aftermath of the #EndSARS violence, the office of the Chief Coroner invited members of the public Throughout public adverts and announcement who had lost loved ones or whose relatives had been declared missing between 19th and 27th October 2020 from various clashes as mentioned above, to contact the department of Pathology and Forensic Medicine of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) to help with identification of these casualties deposited in State-owned mortuaries. Relatives were to undergo DNA tests for identification purposes. It is important to state categorically that nobody responded to claim any of the bodies.
“However, after almost three years, the bodies remain unclaimed, adding to the congestion of the mortuaries. This spurred the need to decongest the mortuaries, a procedure that follows very careful medical and legal guidelines in the event that a relative may still turn up to claim a lost relative years after the incident.
“Decongestion of our public morgues is a periodic and regular exercise approved by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to free up space in mortuaries that have a large number of unclaimed bodies.”
Outrage trail govt reaction
Many Nigerians took to the social media to call out the government for persisting with lies which was debunked during the sitting of the panel of inquiry which investigated the killings.
Sarah Ibrahim, one of the leading participant of the movement described the government reaction as an amazing own goal via a tweet in her Twitter handle.
“It’s been 22 hours and this was the best lie Lagos State was able to come up with and it’s an amazing own goal”, she tweeted.
“You picked up 103 bodies but not at the Lekki Toll Gate where senseless soldiers massacred peaceful #EndSARS youths.
This is the same lie Sanwo Olu told the panel and the lawyers embarrassed him with the truth when he could not prove it”.
“There was not a single reported case of clash anywhere in Lagos at that time.
This same lie Hakeem Muri-Okunola came to say in court and was embarrassed because he could not defend it. You think 2 and a half years down the line, we would forget”.
“You are jokers. 103 bodies and you picked them up from every other place apart from where you actually shot into a crowd”.
“The most amazing part of it, these liars sent Hakeem Muri Okunola to court and said the bodies were from Ikoyi Prison clash and guess what, they claimed the prisoners did not have names, that they did not know the names of the prisoners and there was no documentation of the prisoners to show their identity that’s why the morgues tagged them as EndSARS
A stupid lie”.
“Such a stupid own goal”.
Omoleye Soworo, an activist and one of the presidential candidates in the February 25 general elections also condemned the reaction, describing it as watery.
“This is what the @followlasg criminals have been working on all day long, a watery denial to state that the 103 bodies being contracted for mass burial were not from #LekkiTollGateMassacre but from elsewhere, some of their trolls today even claimed that these bodies were from other states. @jidesanwoolu @officialABAT @MBuhari and Buratai massacred peaceful #Endsars protesters and must be made to pay for their crimes against humanity! #RevolutionNow”, he tweeted.
#ENDSARS
“Contempt and obloquy will forever attach to the odious young people murdering and conveyor belt of poverty creating Buhari regime.
The #ENDSARS massacre is a heinous crime to which no more opprobrium could reasonably attach.
I join others in calling for Justice”, Dr Alloy Chife tweeted in his reaction.