Former Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, has reiterated that soldiers deployed to the Lekki Tollgate during the October 2020 #EndSARS protests were issued blank ammunition and that no massacre occurred at the site.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Monday, Mohammed defended the position of the Federal Government under former President Muhammadu Buhari, maintaining that claims of deaths at the Lekki Tollgate were unfounded.
He acknowledged that there were casualties during the nationwide protests, stating that 37 police officers and six soldiers lost their lives in different parts of the country. However, he emphasized that the Lekki Tollgate was not among the locations where fatalities were recorded.
“We reported and admitted casualties in places like Kano and Abuja, but there were no deaths at the Lekki Tollgate,” Mohammed said.
The former minister criticised international media coverage of the incident, singling out CNN for what he described as reliance on unverified reports. He referred to the Lekki incident as “the only massacre in the world with no bodies,” challenging critics to provide evidence of deaths.
“Five years on, nobody has come forward to say their son or daughter was at the Lekki Tollgate and never returned home,” he added.
Mohammed confirmed that soldiers deployed to the tollgate were issued blank ammunition, noting that while such ammunition can cause injuries, it is not designed to cause death.
He also disclosed that he reviewed the report of the Lagos State judicial panel set up to investigate the incident and remained in close communication with the Chief of Army Staff and the Chief of Defence Staff during the period.
Reflecting on the Buhari administration’s policies, Mohammed defended the 2021 suspension of Twitter, now known as X, describing the platform at the time as a tool that could be used to destabilise the country.
The #EndSARS protests, which erupted over allegations of police brutality and demands for the disbandment of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), continue to be commemorated annually, five years after the Lekki Tollgate incident.
