Commander of the 81 Military Intelligence Brigade, Brigadier Ahmed Taiwo, on Saturday expressed displeasure over Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s alleged denial that he invited the Nigerian Army to come and restore calm at the Lekki Tollgate area of the state in the heat of the #EndSARS protests.
Taiwo disclosed this on Saturday after presenting videos as part of evidence of violence that took place across the state during the EndSars protest, to the Judicial Panel of Inquiry set up by the state government to investigate cases of police brutality.
He said, “The Nigerian army was not happy about two things. The first is the (Governor Sanwo-Olu’s) denial that the army was asked us to intervene when in actual fact, it was the proper thing to do.
“He called the Chief of Army Staff and the GOC 81 division and asked for intervention because the police had been overrun”.
“I’m sure that after we have watched everything, we have seen that he had reasonable grounds to ask the army to intervene,” he added.
Taiwo maintained the army’s earlier position that officers were only deployed on the orders of the state government, to restore normalcy at Lekki Tollgate.
However, governor Sanwa-Olu has not made any definite statements about who ordered the deployment or the shootings by the army.
He had at one time, attributed the unfortunate incident to ”forces beyond his control” thereby living Nigerians confused over who really ordered the shootings.
The governor had told CNN that, “from the footage that we could see, because there were camera’s at that facility, it seemed to me that they will be men in military uniform which should be the Nigerian Army.”
When asked further if military forces ordered the shooting of the peaceful protesters, he said: “yes, they were there, that’s what the footage shows”.
He also claimed that only two people were killed during the attack, but independent video footages uploaded on the social media by witnesses of the ugly incident, revealed that many Nigerians died during the incident while countless orders sustained various degrees of injuries.
“Two dead bodies. That is what we have seen from all the morgues, that is what we have going to hospitals, that is what we have seen as records.
“What has happened is, there have been so many footages that people have shown but we have not seen bodies.
“We’ve not seen relatives, we have not seen anybody truly coming up to say indeed I am a father or mother to someone and I cannot find that person.
“I have been to the ground and there’s no scratch of blood anywhere”, he stated.