Former Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has again maintained that although lives were lost during the nationwide #EndSARS protests in October 2020, no one was killed at the Lekki Toll Gate on the night soldiers were deployed.
He made the statement on Tuesday while appearing on Politics Today on Channels Television, stressing that the Federal Government never denied casualties during the protests but consistently disputed claims of deaths at the Lekki site.
Mohammed said he was in close contact with senior military officials as events unfolded and argued that there has been no verified claim from any family linking the disappearance or death of a relative to the Lekki Toll Gate incident.
According to him, five years after the protests, no individual has publicly come forward to confirm a death at the location, a point he says supports the government’s position. He also rejected the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry’s description of the incident as a massacre, claiming the report contained inconsistencies and insisting that troops deployed to the area carried blank ammunition.
Defending the decision to involve the military, Mohammed said the protests were initially peaceful but later taken over by hoodlums, prompting government intervention. Despite official denials, the Lekki Toll Gate episode remains a deeply disputed chapter of the #EndSARS movement and continues to shape public debate and remembrance in Nigeria.
