The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has described the position of the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed on the report of the shooting at EndSARS protesters as pathetic and disappointing.
HURIWA condemned the minister for dismissing the report submitted by the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and other matters as “tales by moonlight”
Mohammed told a news conference in Abuja on Tuesday the the report was fake and a hoax insisting that it was an “intimidation of the majority by a minority.”
He added that the report circulating in social media cannot be relied upon saying the document was full of discrepancies and errors.
The Minister stated that the panel’s report failed to address some of the issues raised by the ballistic expert who testified before it and the testimonies of the Nigerian Army.
Speaking with Punch on Tuesday, National Coordinator for HURIWA, Emmanuel Onwubiko said that the Minister’s statement was pathetic, disappointing and disrespectful to the Judicial Panel report.
The Coordinator added that the minister had not respect for the lives lost, the President, Lagos State Governor and the Panel of Inquiry.
According to Onwubiko, “The reaction of Lai Mohammed stridently denying the clear and evidently proven massacre of gargantuan proportions in Lekki Toll Gate on 20th October 2020 and his attempt to rubbish and discredit the report of the illustrious Lagos State Judicial Panel on #EndSARS protest, is a demonstration that there is no coherence and cohesion in government at the centre.
“It shows that there is truly nobody at the Centre who is providing leadership in which case the cabinet-level ministers are doing and saying whatever they deemed alright in their warped imagination to say or do.
“The Minister of Information Lai Mohammed has succeeded in revealing the spectacular collapse of the Presidency and that governance is now through an autopilot mode. It is sad, pathetic and disappointing that the Minister spoke even before a White paper is published by the Lagos State Government and it shows that he has no respect for the sensitivity and sacredness of the many lives that were needlessly wasted by soldiers and police.
“He has no valid reason to remain as a minister because he has lost all modicum of self respect and I think Nigerians will no longer take the Federal government serious if he remains in office as the official spokesperson of the Government.”
Read also:
EndSARS Report: Lawmakers Demand Resignation or Sack of Lai Mohammed
‘EndSARS Panel Report: Lai Mohammed Statement is Pathetic and Disappointing,’ HURIWA