By Tunde Abatan
There is a Yoruba adage, which says that if lies run away for twenty years, truth will catch up with it in one day.
Today, truth the five letter word, has eventually caught up with lies told by prominent state actors last year led by Infirmation minister, Lai Mohammed and backed by Police that said there was no killing.
Indeed, as things has now revealed through the Panel set up by the Lagos State government, there was indeed a massacre similar to the 1976 Soweto uprising in the then South Africa when children were mauled down by the apartheid police.
And this damning verdict about true face of Lekki is from the body the government set up to investigate the incident.
Indeed, for liars and psycophants and Police, which tried in vain to cover up the massacre at the Lekki toll gate last year,when many defenceless young citizens were mauled down by Army personnel,the truth has finally come out with the admission of the panel set up by government to prove what went wrong.
It was a serious affair as the panel sat for over six months and at the end of the day the report submitted by the Justice Doris Okuwobi led panel is that indeed there was massacre by the soldiers who put off the light at the Lekki Toll Gate to commit atrocities against those they were paid to defend.
Also culpable of the massacre is the Lekki Concessionaire Company accused of siding the soldiers in their heinous crime against humanity.
The panel also noted that the Police tried in vain to cover-up killings by the military probably to justify claims by Information Minister, Lai Mohammed that there was no killings. Such deliberate falsehood have seen flown out when confronted by facts. Now that a case of massacre has been proven – except if government wants to deny its own fact finding probe, let those who put face to deliberate lies take a bow from public office.
To the Cable Network News,CNN, which also carried a report that there was killings and on, which Mohammed coerced them to apologize to Nigeria, it is now the other way round.
Sanwoolu
From the Federal government apology must go to CNN for forcing it to deny its findings.
The Truth has also come out to put lies into the claim by Governor sanwo-Olu that he never invited soldiers to Lekki…it is now a fact that he indeed invited soldiers and that the soldiers he invited carried out massacre of those people he swore to protect and defend.
The probe panel report have also validated William Shakespeare statement that,” Truth suits upon the lips of dying men”.
For members of the investigative panel,they have allowed truth, which state actors led by information minister tried in vain to cover up, to come out and confront deliberate falsehood.
By admitting and disclosing the real Truth about the massacre of October 20, the panel members have exhumed souls of innocent victims which blood were hurriedly and secretly buried by the state to cover up activities of soldiers who killed those they were paid to defend.
Said the report,”
At the Lekki Toll Gate, officers of the Nigerian Army shot, injured and killed unarmed, hapless and defenseless protesters, without provocation or justification, while they were waving the Nigerian Flag and singing the National Anthem and the manner of assault and killing could in context
be described as a massacre.”
By the above,it is now an open secret that the soldiers indeed fired gun shots at the soul of Nigeria as symbolised by the Green white Green Flag being waved by the youths…perhaps this explain the reasons why blood has continued to flow ceaselessly all over Nigeria fron the far North to the Middle belt,down South west and now a consuming fire in the South East.
The Panel by its admission of soldiers complicity also reminded us of the Unknown Soldier saga of 1977 during the Olusegun Obasanjo regime when same soldiers invaded residence of maverick musician, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, maimed,rape and kill and indeed fatally wounded the symbol of independence as typified by Mrs Funmilayo Ransome Kuti.
At the end of the day we hear..Unknown Soldiers.
Today, 44 years after,we are still been told that unknown Soldiers muzzled life out of defenceless youths….
Now the big question is,Who are the Soldiers who pulled the trigger ?
Surprisingly, the soldiers who pulled the trigger also wait at the Toll gate to ensure that those protesters fatally wounded after their shootings,were never attended to until they bled to death.
Hear the Justice Okuwobi panel
“The Panel also found that the conduct of the Nigerian Army was exacerbated by its refusal to allow ambulances render medical assistance to victims who required such assistance.
“The Army was also found not to have adhered to its own Rules of Engagement.”
The Panel also “found that the Nigerian Police Force deployed its officers to the Lekki Toll Gate on the night of the 20th October, 2020 and between that night and the morning of the 21st of October, 2020, its officer shot at, assaulted and battered unarmed protesters, which led to injuries and deaths.”
However,the culpability of the Police who aided and abetted was revealed as the Panel discovered that ,
“The police officers also tried to cover up their actions by picking up bullets.”
By this act,the police joined in reinforcing lies told by state actors like Information minister,Mohammed, that no life was lost. Now the Truth has been unveiled!
That the panel also found out that the Lekki Concession Company (LCC), operators of the toll gate, was found to have, “hampered the panel’s investigation by refusing to turn over
some useful and vital information/evidence as requested by the Panel and the Forensic Expert engaged by the panel, even where such information and evidence was by the company’s admission, available, points to culpability of the company in the whole cover up to prevent the unearthing of the Truth.
Now the horse has bolted from the stable and lies has taken flight in the face of Truth.
As for the CNN and other media organisations which earlier published the Truth of the Lekki massacre,the onus is on them to use the Panels report to confound the government about its position and also exert an apology from it.
As for, parents,relatives, families, CNN and those who lost their beloved ones ,the onus lies on them to press for damages inflicted on them.by the massacre and psychological effects on their reputation respectively.
Indeed,Ebun Olu Adegboruwa,a member of the panel warned that should the government failed to come out with it’s true findings,he will be free to make his copy available to the public.
In order words, Adegboruwa is saying that no report of Unknown soldiers as it happened in 1977 …those who fired the shots were led by a commander Col Belo who was recommended for reproach by the Panel.
Giving an inkling to salient aspects of the report, Adegboruwa said the panel answered a lot of posers and questions
“truthfully, frankly and courageously, based on the evidence led before it, believing that the crimes against humanity that took place at the Lekki Toll Gate on October 20, 2020, would never happen again in our nation.”
From the foregoing, it is now evident that as it happened in Soweto then under the apartheid minority rule,the same incidence though on a lesser scale, occured in a supposedly free nation where the rule of the jackboot is now the order of the day in it’s democracy in spite of protestations and official lies.
To the government and state actors covering up lies, I say in the words of Uthman Dan Fodio…conscience is an open wound,only truth can heal it”
