By Fola James
Governor Babajide Sanwo-olu must be summoned to the Lagos state Judicial Panel of Inquiry and Restitution to explain his role in the October 20 Lekki shooting of EndSARS protesters by soldiers, said a right group, Lagos Emancipation Project, LEP.
Failure to do this within seven days, the rights body said, it was prepared to go to court to stop the panel from proceeding with its work.
But the 1999 Constitution grants state governors immunity from being personally summoned by any panel of inquiry or court of law.
The LEP headed by a senior advocate of Nigeria, SAN Babatunde Fashanu, in a statement on Thursday, said the governor cannot be a judge in the incident, in which he allegedly played a role.
“It is our belief that the person or authority who invited the military to the scene to take action against peaceful protesters is neck-deep in whatever transpired there and its aftermath and is, at least, one of the dramatis personae to answer for it,” the group said.
The state government set up the Justice Doris Okuwobi’s panel, two weeks ago, to find out why soldiers from the Nigerian Army shot at people protesting police brutality. The state governor confirmed that one protester died from the incident and many others received serious gun injuries.
The governor Sanwo-olu’s government had earlier denied sending the soldiers to disperse the protesters but the military authorities later debunked the claim, insisting that their men move in to the venue after they were invited by the state government.
On October 27, few days after the incident, Acting Director, Army Public Relations, 81 Division of the Nigerian Army, Major Osoba Olaniyi, said the state government called in the military.
“The decision to call in the military was taken by the Lagos State Government after a 24- hour curfew was imposed
“This was as a result of the violence which led to several police stations being burnt, policemen killed, suspects in police custody released and weapons carted away.
“The situation was fast degenerating into anarchy. It was at this point that LASG requested for the military to intervene in order to restore normalcy,” Olaniyi said.
The government has, however, kept mum after the military spoke, raising serious posers on why it lied in the first instance and the motive behind sending soldiers against peaceful protesters.
That seems to be the concern of the advocacy group which said the state government is trying to be the judge in its own case by setting up the panel.
The human rights body said “By our reckoning, the panel is to sit and submit its report to the Governor of Lagos State, who is empowered to act on it by virtue of the provisions of the Tribunals of Inquiry Law of Lagos State.
“Having regard to the fact that the governor to be reported to and who is to take action on the report seems to have a case to answer in the matter and he is not allowed by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to act in his own cause, we hereby request that you avoid sitting or hearing any matter on the Lekki Tollgate incident in the proceedings of the judicial panel so that it can be looked at by some other authority who would not have to report to the governor,” the notice read in part.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Army, on Thursday said they will appear before the panel on Saturday, November 7, to explain its role in the incident contrary to its earlier position.
