View from outside the entrance of the Military Hospital where members of the panel were met with resistance before being allowed in.
The Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry and Restitution set up to look into brutality and high-handedness by the now-disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) unit of the Nigeria Police Force has visited the Military hospital in Falomo, the Ikoyi area of Lagos State.
Members of the panel were initially denied access but later allowed into the premises after about 30 minutes. After they were allowed into the premises, they were taken to a building said to be the military hospital.
Members of the panel also visited a detached building at the back of the hospital. According to the military authorities, the hospital and morgue have been under renovation since October 2019 and have not been in use.
The visit was shortly after the panel went for an inspection at the Lekki Toll Gate, to make more findings concerning last week’s shooting incident.
Led by Justice Doris Okwuobi (Rtd.), the panel which also included youth representatives, Rinu Odulala and Temitope Majekodunmi, interrogated the tollgate officials about the condition of their security cameras and other equipment.
While taking the group round, the Managing Director of the Lekki Concession Company, Mr Yomi Omomuwansa, said most of their equipment were damaged by hoodlums who set it ablaze – an aftermath of the shooting.
Today’s meeting is the second since the panel was inaugurated on October 27. ‘They extracted my teeth’: Watch this video of a man sharing an account of his experience with some SARS officers.
Soldiers manning the gate at the Military Hospital in Ikoyi have stopped the Lagos judicial panel on #EndSARS from assessing the hospital’s mortuary.
The panel, unannounced, on Friday went to the hospital on investigation into the shooting at Lekki tollgate where 15 protesters were reportedly killed.
Witnesses of the Lekki shooting accused the military of taking away the bodies of those killed in the incident. The panel met resistance as it got to the gate of the hospital.
Ebun Adegboruwa, a member of the panel, told soldiers, who stopped them at the gate, that the panel came to the hospital because it had intelligence that might help with its investigation.
“The facility is relevant to our investigation. We have a pathologist. We are here on the authority of the president, not only the governor,” he said.
“We are following dues process, and it is important we visit the mortuary as it will help our findings.
“If we are not allowed access, we will go back and take other actions. We won’t force ourselves in. We have confidential information that the military hospital here is relevant in the investigation of the Lekki event. We heard this hospital is controlled by 65 battalion, and under the 81 division. We are also taking steps to reach military authorities.”
Adegboruwa said though the panel does not have evidence that there are bodies of those killed at the tollgate in the hospital, it was at the facility to verify the claim that they were. Punch
