#EndSARS panel was illegal, says Festus Keyamo SAN, as angry Nigerians slam SERAP

*’SERAP goofed demanding arrest of agents based on dubious report’

By KEMI KASUMU

The Nigeria’s Minister of State for Labour and Employment, and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Festus Keyamo, has faulted the judicial panel of inquiry set up to investigate cases of police brutality and SARS-related abuses across the country.

Keyamo spoke just as Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) was slammed by some citizens for ‘stooping so low’ to believe the Lagos Panel report that has been confirmed from several angles as being riddled with scores of errors, omissions and omissions and, based on that, still drag its own integrity in the mud by asking the Federal High Court in Abuja to compel President Muhammadu Buhari to arrest of security operatives deployed to ensure law and order at  that the Lekki Toll Gate on 20 October 2020.

SERAP was particularly asked to tell Nigerians, “if you are truly fighting for the rights of the masses and sincerely working to hold government accountable when you know full well that very many important and ordinary citizens used the Channels and TVC television programmes during that crisis to call on the Army not to leave security of the Lekki area to police alone as people were being attacked, killed, homes, super markets especially the first Nigeria’s ever ShopRite building were being raided, how can you still ask court to force the government, who will be held responsible if it did not ensure security of lives and properties, to go ahead and still arrest those security operatives? What rights are you fighting for? Rights which same violent protesters lost when they later did the same thing against the Capitol in the United States of America, a country believed to be behind the activities of your non-Government Organisations (NGO) now being taking too far in Nigeria?

“It is sad that SERAP, with the quality of people with it, has in recent times pushed itself to a point that Nigerians can no longer trust it other than the few unpatriotic, who would want to hear bad news told about their country, government and security agencies and forces all the times and failure for such bad news to come, who go all out to create some, which they attempted with the fake news spread about so called Lekki Toll Gate.

“We will continue to fault whoever says massacre was ever committed at the Lekki Toll Gate last year’s October because we have seen the many lies and deliberate insertions of unreal information by judicial panels members, who are supposed to be the last hope of the masses but who have ended up rubbishing themselves.  Journalist Kemi Olunloyo punctured one of the victims of the so-called massacre when she posted photo and name of one of those listed to be killed by soldiers in the panel’s report and she blew it off: ‘this guy was killed while watching football match in 2019’.  Up till now, no member of the panel has debunked the popular media.activist personality.  Then what manner of lawyers and some information managers do we now parade in Nigeria?” One of them, who sought not to be named, lampooned SERAP and others who believe the Lagos panel’s report dismissed by Federal Government rehash of fake news regarding #EndSARS.

The report had even been described by the Lagos State Government’s counsel Owonikoko as a mere minority opinion, even as the Federal Government of Nigeria, through a press conference address by Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammmed, last Tuesday, described it as a rehash of the fake news that had trended on social media.

The Nigerian government has come out, unequivocally, to tear the ‘dubious’ panel report into shred saying it is mere rehash of fake news of the past.

Stating his own position to the matter, while responding to a question about the position of the government specifically regarding a leaked report by the Lagos judicial panel, human rights lawyer, Festus Keyamo, according to Channels Television report, described the panel as illegal.

“I will not answer this question as a sitting minister,” he said on Channels TV’s Sunday Politics. “I will answer this question as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and so, I am entitled to my own opinion. This is not the Federal Government’s position.

“For me, that panel was an illegal panel”.

His comments come days after the leaked report by the panel indicted the operatives of the Nigerian Army and Police, saying they indeed shot at unarmed protesters.

While the report has yet to be officially released, days later, the panel submitted its findings to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.

One of the reports was on claims of police brutality while the other was on the shooting in the Lekki area of Lagos State on October 20, 2020.

The Nigerian army had, however, denied shooting live rounds at protesters, telling the judicial panel that only blanks were used.

As part of efforts to further get to the root of the matter, Governor Sanwo-Olu on Monday, set up a four-member committee led by Lagos State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Moyosore Onigbanjo (SAN) to raise a White Paper on the reports submitted by the judicial panel.

Keyamo’s comments come two days before the committee is expected to submit its recommendations to the National Economic Council (NEC) for discussion and possible implementation.