President Muhammadu Buhari, has on Tuesday, been called upon to sack the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, with immediate effect,
The call comes, following the report of the Judicial Panel of Investigation set up by the Lagos State Government, to unravel the incidents of October 20, 2020, at the popular Lekki Toll Gate, in Lagos State.
Recall, that Lai Mohammed, in a series of Press Conferences, had continually denied that anyone was killed when Soldiers and other Security Operatives invaded the protest scene, on the said night.
Despite the Federal Government’s stance, the report showed obvious evidence that there was indeed a massacre at the Lekki Toll Gate.
The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, in a statement reacting to the Lagos Panel report, called for Lai Mohammed’s dismissal, arrest, and trial, for his egregious falsehood which has now been contradicted by the Judicial Panel of Investigators, in Lagos.
The 309-page report detailed how the Army and Police disregarded their rules of engagement during the protest.
HURIWA recalled that Lai Mohammed also faulted the claim by Amnesty International, that no fewer than 12 protesters were killed in Lagos State by Security Operatives, during the EndSARS protest of 2020.
In its statement, HURIWA “is asking President Muhammadu Buhari, as a biological father of many well-educated children, to order the arrest and prosecution of his Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, for committing a grave and heartless offence that is equivalent to the denial of the Holocaust of the 6 million Jews by Adolf Hitler, which is punishable by nearly half a century of incarceration”.
HURIWA, “is also commending the brave members and Chairperson of the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on the #ENDSARS PROTESTS, especially the circumstances surrounding the massive cases of extrajudicial killings by the Army and Armed Police, when these Armed Forces opened fire with lethal weapons targeted at the unarmed protesters”.
It also asked the President not to sweep the lawlessness of the Security Agencies under the carpets, just as it said that if the President allows his Information Minister to get away with the impunity of denying the massacre that happened before the eyes of the world captured live on video cameras, then he will be remembered long after he has retired from Public Office, as a Dictator who oversaw the genocide of young protesters, and the generations unborn will never forgive him for this.
It added: “President Muhammadu Buhari must note that as a Father of many Children, he needs to ensure that impunity is never tolerated, especially the extrajudicial killings of very youngsters of Nigeria by the Army, just for protesting Police Brutality.”
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