CNN REPORT CONFIRMS
SOLDEIRS AND POLICEMEN KILLED MANY AT LEKKI TOLLGATE
- Army, Lagos Government Police Keep Mum
The military fired
live bullets at #EndSARS protests at Lekki Tollgate, Lagos, contrary to its
denial, a report by Cable News Network (CNN) said yesterday.
The CNN, in the
report watched by THISDAY, detailed the events before and after the shooting
and countered claims by the Nigerian Army that its troops did not shoot at the
protesters.
The report also
established that many protesters were still missing while bodies of slain
protesters were yet to be accounted for.
The report titled:
“They Pointed Their Guns at Us and Started Shooting,” showed analysis of videos
obtained and geo-located by the news organisation depicting bodies, including
that of one Victor Sunday Ibanga, drenched in a pool of his blood and wrapped
in the Nigerian flag.
The Defence
Headquarters (DHQ), however, decline to speak on the issue, saying the matter
is already before the judicial panel set up by the Lagos State Government, to
probe the incident.
A senior officer,
who spoke anonymously told THISDAY, said: “The military is already at the Lagos
panel. We do not have two positions.”
Military officers
from the 81 Division of the Nigerian Army that appeared before the panel have
insisted that soldiers only shot in the air and not at the protesters, adding
that they fire blank, and not live bullets.
But the CNN, in the
report, said it obtained and geolocated a photograph and videos of bodies,
including that of Victor Sunday Ibanga, lying in a pool of his blood and
wrapped in the Nigerian flag, one of the same flags gripped by fellow
protesters earlier in the evening as they sang the country’s national anthem.
A member of Ibanga’s
family confirmed the photograph was that of his brother.
The CNN report also
showed the body of the deceased in a pool of blood wrapped in the Nigerian
flag.
The report said:
“The Ibangas are one of several families yet to locate the bodies of their
missing loved ones, protesters at the toll gate, who dozens of eyewitnesses say
were shot at, first by members of the Nigerian army and then hours later by the
police.
“Eyewitnesses told
CNN they saw the army remove a number of bodies from the scene.
What happened on
October 20, and into the early hours of October 21, at the eight-lane Lekki
toll gate, a key piece of Lagos’ road network, has stunned the country.”
It stated that the
protesters who were present told CNN that “it was a ‘massacre’ with multiple
people killed and dozens wounded. But local authorities have downplayed that
account.”
CNN said calls to
the Nigerian Army were not returned.
But on November 14,
during a judicial inquiry into the shooting, army representative, Brigadier
Ahmed Taiwo, said: “There’s no way officers and men will kill their brothers
and sisters. I repeat no way. We have those who constantly seek to drive a
wedge between us and between the citizens of Nigeria…”
The army also said
at the hearing that it was Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who
called soldiers to intervene because the police were overrun.
The governor has
denied this, saying he does not have the authority to call in the army.
But the CNN report
into the disputed events cast doubt on authorities’ shifting and changing
statements.
“Evidence of bullet
casings from the scene match those used by the Nigerian Army when shooting live
rounds, according to current and former Nigerian military officials.
“Verified video
footage, using timestamps and data from the video files, shows soldiers who
appear to be shooting in the direction of protesters”, CNN said.
Accounts from
eyewitnesses established that after the army withdrew, a second round of
shooting happened later in the evening, the report said.
The report noted
that since Elisha Sunday Ibanga learned of his brother’s death, he has been
visiting hospitals in a desperate search for his remains.
“My mother, my
sisters, all my family are in prayer, just to see if we can find out and know
where my brother’s dead body is,” he said.
The bodies of other
protesters are nowhere to be found.
Peace Okon, 24,
hasn’t seen her younger brother Wisdom, 18, since he went to the protest the
night of the shooting.
“He just came back
from work on that Tuesday, ate his food and went there,” Okon told CNN.
She started worrying
when he didn’t arrive home that night. By the next morning, Okon was out
searching for him.
“I’ve gone to
hospitals, I’ve gone to police stations, I’ve gone to everywhere. I can’t find
him,” she said.
Her brother had only
moved to Lagos a few weeks before the protest. Okon had helped him find a job
as a cleaner at a bank.
She said he didn’t
know anyone at the protest and had never been to one before.
Okon said she wants
the Nigerian authorities to tell her if her brother is alive and detained or
dead.
Testimony from
dozens of eyewitnesses and family members interviewed by CNN and a forensic
examination of hours of video and dozens of photographs captured before, during
and after the two shooting incidents showed how the protest ground allegedly
turned into a death ground.
Less than three
hours after the original curfew time came into effect, army trucks left the
Bonny Camp barracks on Victoria Island and headed towards the toll gate plaza
and the protesters, according to videos reviewed by CNN.
Two eyewitnesses
told CNN they saw soldiers arriving in a Toyota Hilux pickup truck with “OP
Awatse” written on it — the name of a joint military task force that operates
in Lagos State.
Videos examined by
CNN showed the army trucks approaching the protesters from both sides of the
toll gate — barricading them in.
DJ Switch, a local
musician whose real name is Obianuju Catherine Udeh, was streaming live on Instagram
when it all happened and the shooting began.
“Please explain to
me how, in which part of the world, do you go to a protest with live bullets.
“There was a guy
that was running, and he just… he fell, and we looked at him. He was shot in
the back,”
DJ Switch, 29, told
CNN.
DJ Switch said she
wanted people to see what was happening which is why she started broadcasting.
“I didn’t want
anybody to come on and twist the story. I wanted people to see. So, I just went
live.”
At one point during
the broadcast, there were attempts to resuscitate a man in red clothing who had
passed out.
Later, DJ Switch
could be seen helping to extract a bullet lodged in another man’s thigh as he
screamed in agony while someone in the crowd said that “you will live, you will
not die.”
As the live
broadcast ends, people were still trying to apply CPR on the man in red, while
DJ Switch could be heard saying, “this guy is dying.”
DJ Switch told CNN
that protesters lifted bodies with bullet wounds and put them at the soldiers’
feet.
“I said, why are you
killing us? Why are you doing this,” she said. “He expressly told me: ‘I am
acting on orders from above.’”
From multiple
videos, CNN has pieced together a timeline that shows that shooting by the army
lasted from 6:43 p.m. until at least 8:24 p.m.
One eyewitness,
Sarah, whose last name CNN declined to give for security reasons, said the
soldiers shot in the air but also directly at the protesters.
“They pointed their
guns at us and they started shooting.
“They were shooting
in the air, they were shooting at us, they were shooting everywhere,” she
stated.
Some chanted: “We
are peaceful protesters” and “End Sars, we no go gree [pidgin for we will not
agree, or give in].”
“They’re shooting,
they’re shooting,” another person screams in one of the videos. Cries of “Na
lie, na lie [exclamations of disbelief in pidgin]” can also be heard.
In several of the
videos, reviewed and verified by CNN, some of the protesters can be seen
carrying bodies, the flashlights on their phones the only thing illuminating
the darkness as the sound of ambulance sirens wailed in the background. It is
not known whether these were dead or injured protesters.
In another, there
are several injured people, some on the ground bleeding while defiant
protesters continued to wave Nigerian flags.
Injured people whom
CNN has confirmed were present at the toll gate started arriving in local
hospitals, carried by civilians, from 7:19 p.m. while the shooting was still
ongoing, according to videos analysed by CNN.
One of the protesters,
Mathew, said he was injured when the army opened fire at them. Using metadata,
CNN geolocated the image to the protest location at 6:50 pm.
CNN also verified
footage from one man who used his car as a makeshift ambulance and transported
people to hospital.
Executive Medical
Director at Grandville Medical Centre, Dr. Ayo Aranmolate, told CNN he and his
colleagues received around 15 injured people that night with various gunshot
wounds and cuts. None of the people they treated died, he added.
“We referred some
for treatment to other hospitals. One of the victims had to have his leg
amputated,” he said.
The army has denied
that anyone was taken to hospital with gunshot wounds, and that they only shot
into the air.
Multiple
eyewitnesses told CNN that ambulances were prevented from reaching the scene by
the authorities.
A video filmed at
8:49 p.m., according to metadata, showed ambulance workers in a van at the
scene saying they were unable to get through.
When contacted by
CNN to share the findings of this investigation, a Lagos State government
spokesman declined to comment.
“Talking about that
subject now will be subjudicial since the matter is already before a panel of
inquiry. Until the panel concludes its investigation, the subject will not be
open to any discussion or comment by any state official,” the spokesperson
said.
CNN has examined
bullet casings found at the scene and confirmed with current and former
Nigerian military sources that the bullet casings match those used by the army.
Two ballistics experts have also confirmed with CNN that the shape of the
bullet casings indicated they used live rounds, which contradicted the army’s
claim they fired blanks.
CNN has verified
that bullets fired at Lekki toll gate are from live ammunition. This one was
manufactured in Serbia in 2005, and is currently in use by the Nigerian army.
And working with the
Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, CNN established that several of the
bullets from the Lekki toll gate originated from Serbia. Export documents CNN
saw showed that Nigeria purchased weaponry from Serbia almost every year
between 2005 and 2016.
After the army
withdrew from the scene, members of the police, including the SARS police unit
— disbanded by authorities on 11 October — moved in, according to multiple
eyewitnesses CNN spoke with.
In a video obtained
by CNN and geolocated to Lekki toll gate at 2:36 a.m., one eyewitness, simply
identified as Legend, was seen with the Nigerian flag around his head saying,
“…my hand is broken, my leg is broken, and police are still shooting at us.”
“I couldn’t count
how many dead because I was running for my life.”
“They are shooting
anything that moves outside…Stay safe through the night. And if I don’t make it
through the night let it be known that I died fighting for our freedom, for
what we believe in.”
Legend, who
survived, told CNN his father was a police officer and that he recognised the
SARS uniform. About 200 protesters remained at the toll gate when witnesses
said police and SARS arrived, he added.
“I couldn’t count
how many dead because I was running for my life,” Legend said. “If I stood my
ground five more seconds, I would be dead.”
While CNN has not
been able to independently verify that SARS members were present, multiple
eyewitnesses said they saw police officers, accompanied by officers from the
unit, at the scene after the army left.
A Lagos State police
spokesman declined to comment because of the ongoing panel investigation. But
police have denied any use of force against protesters on Twitter, saying, “our
police officers never resorted to use of unlawful force or shooting at the
protesters.”
Some of the
activists told CNN they were offered money to recant their initial testimonies.
CNN said it saw some
of the messages received, though it is unclear who sent them.