544
The Management of Lekki Concession Company (LCC) yesterday told the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry for Restitution for Victims of SARS and related abuses and Other Matters that the video evidence of the October 20 shootings of the #EndSARS protesters is available.
Mr Gbolahan Agboluwaje, the Head of the Legal Department of LCC made the revelation after Mr Abayomi Omomuwa, the Managing Director of the company had been sworn-in to give evidence before the panel. Agboluwaje said that the LCC received a summon from the panel very late on Wednesday, October 28 to appear before it and was also ordered to present the October 20 video footage, an investigation report and any other document.
“ We have the footage. We do not have an investigation report because we know that investigations are ongoing and we have not been able to provide any document,” he said.
He, however, noted that the LCC was prepared to play the video footage before the panel adding that there are hours of recordings on their CCTV footage.
“ We had a very short notice and we brought what we were able to lay our hands on,” he said.
Agboluwaje told the panel that due to the short notice of the summon, the Managing Director of LCC, Mr Abayomi Omomuwa, would not be able to testify because the company was yet to hire an external counsel to represent the MD. Responding, the Chairman of the nine-man panel, Justice Doris Okuwobi (Retd), granted Agboluwaje’s request for a short adjournment.
Justice Okuwobi noted that the programme of the day for the panel was to visit the locus (scene of the Lekki shooting) and to have proceedings based on their findings from the visit. At the scene of the incident, the panel found five bullet shells. Mr Omomuwa, at the scene informed the panel that a camera on the mast worked until the carnage erupted at the scene on Wednesday.
He said the camera was no longer working at the moment because it stopped working after the carnage. The panel also made an unscheduled visit to the military hospital, Ikoyi. After an initial resistance by the soldiers for about 30 minutes, the panel members were eventually allowed into the premises of the hospital. Addressing journalists, a member of the panel, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, SAN, said the panel has ‘confidential information’ that certain events took place in the hospital on October 20, 2020.