… No CCTV camera removed from Lekki Tollgate Before Incident

Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has, again, spoken on the ugly incident that happened at the Lekki Toll Plaza on Tuesday evening, in which military personnel used live ammunition to disperse EndSARS protesters who camped at the tollgate to demand for the end to police brutality.

Sanwo-Olu maintained that the State Government did not order the military shooting, which left about 11 of the youths severely injured. The Governor also sustained his earlier assertion that, no protester died in the incident, stressing that he and officials of the State Government had gone round private and public health facilities across the State without being able to identify bodies of those allegedly killed in the incident except one that died from blunt force trauma and another corpse that was recovered by the police in the Victoria Island area with bullet wounds.

The Governor appeared on The Morning Show programme aired live on Arise News, said the State was already investigating whether the deceased was a protester.

Sanwo-Olu asked members of the public with credible information on anyone or group of persons killed in the incident to come forward with the claim. He said the social media overblew the proportion of the incident with what he described as “false information” being shared by those who were not at the scene of the incident.

He said: “There have been several false information that we have seen over the incident and we will appeal to people to show more restraint in posting information that cannot be verified.”

The governor spoke on the alleged removal of Close-Circuit Television (CCTV) security cameras at the Toll Plaza before the shooting started, debunking the claims that he ordered the action. Sanwo-Olu said the cameras that were removed were not security cameras but laser cameras meant to capture vehicles’ electronic tags and number plates. He said the removal of the laser cameras was a decision taken by Lekki Concession Company (LCC) that owns the facility.

He said: “When I spoke to the Managing Director of LCC over the matter, he told me the company took the decision to remove installations critical to their service when the curfew was announced. Those cameras that were displayed in the viral pictures were not security or motion cameras. They are laser cameras for vehicles, specifically designed to pick electronic tags and number plates on cars. Security cameras installed at the Toll Plaza are still there as I speak and the footages from them are the ones that we will be using in probing the Lekki incident. Since Tuesday, the security cameras at the Toll Plaza are still there and nobody can touch them.”

Sanwo-Olu said multi-agency investigation into Lekki incident may begin next Monday when order would have been fully restored across the State, pointing out that the recordings of the CCTV security cameras at the Toll Plaza would be useful in unraveling the circumstance that surrounded the incident.