If Lekki Probe Panel is reeling in flak for a fact-finding job not thoroughly done, DIG Taiwo Lakanu, a member, should be held responsible, provided he didn’t provide the right road map, for independent and irrefutable evidence to solve the puzzle, of the blunt force killings around and about Lekki on 20/10.
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, defines fact-finding, which was at the heart of the Panel’s Terms of Reference, as, “discovery or determination of facts or accurate information, especially by a neutral party in an effort to settle a dispute or controversy.” Another Dictionary has it, as “the discovery and establishment of facts of an issue.”
If facts are now in dispute as they, indisputably, are, someone didn’t obviously drive the assignment Intels-wise and that should be the “expert” in their midst, who possibly led other members of the panel to rely on “imported experts” like the forensic fellow from Kaduna and the pathologist Professor Fafunwa, without adding any shreds of new evidence to the circumstantial on ground, already mutilated by the military authorities, LCC and LAWMA.
You will expect a panel with the caliber of personalities on it, to have specialists in different fields as consultants, for the duration of the sitting. But one problem with lawyers (Lakanu is also one) is trying to believe and live, the misconceived coinage of being the learned who know more than others, put together. After the pathologist’s testimony of 99 bodies and blunt force trauma, a well-guided panel would have suspended sitting, to discreetly seek help in those areas, where the bodies were recovered from.
In such an affluent neighbourhood, long-range security cameras, installed in private homes and business premises, are ten streets-a kobo, and the chances are very bright that some of the cameras, would have, though not intended, captured at least one of the 99 souls, being murdered, real time. If DJ Switch, could do so much with streaming, forcing Alhaji Lai Mohammed’s attention on her at every turn, (because she provided the closest clue to finding the killers), well-arranged, suitably-placed security cameras, will definitely provide a better view and Nigerians would be able to behold, the face of, at least, a resurrected Cain who went about smashing protesters’ head. Such documented evidence, would have narrowed the narrative to just the justice that befits the killers and those who sent them.
Just like the countless unresolved murders in Nigeria, dating back to military’s incursion into governance, the killers of Lekki 99 are still walking free, because the panel, did little or nothing, to unmask them. Hopefully, now that the relatives of the victims are suing, maybe they would do a better homework, to present substantial evidence and not the gap-filled circumstantial conclusion from the panel. Hopefully too, their lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana is not thinking of suing on the basis of the panel report, though he is obviously enamoured with the findings and conclusions. If any court of law, should strike the report down, his clients’ cases are forever doomed. He knows this and much more.
It is easy to say, Lekki affluent dwellers, who are mostly government paddy-paddy, would not release incriminating recordings to a searching panel. Likely true, considering how these big men, fight viciously to preserve their meat pots and releasing camera recordings, that could bring government down, may be considered a class suicide, because even doing it secretly, doesn’t mean such an act of kindness, would be without consequences because walls have ears.
But Nelson Mandela says you don’t know how easy it is, until done. Until you ask, you won’t know if you will receive or not. The same code of ask, to receive, also governs the realm of the Spirit. Jesus affirms this in Matthew 7:7. If the panel didn’t go knocking, doors would definitely not open. It is only those who seek, that find. It is a shame if the panel wasn’t guided to seek additional evidence, beyond the scrubbed cameras of the Toll Gate concessionaire and the evidence from the military which the ballistic expert, tagged “irrelevant”.
If the panel wasn’t moved in the direction of resolving the riddle of blunt force trauma as the leading cause of death of the dead, then the members possibly went into the assignment with fixed mindset of indicting and convicting the military of killing protesters with live bullets, at all costs. I suspect this is the case considering that the panel had as majority, sympathisers of the protests and anti-State elements. It shows that there is always something to learn after being “learned”. If most of the dead, turned up with blunt force to their skulls, then attention, should ordinarily shift from the relentless effort to pin their death, on military bullets, to justify an established narrative.
No, this isn’t saying there was no massacre of protesters. 99 bodies from an incident, would qualify for a massacre. And no, this is not an exculpation for the military. Blunt force to the head, looks more like what gun-butts would do and of all the likely prime suspects of that night, soldiers, look the most culpable. But the gap that only an espionage can fill, is so yawning, the killers are walking away free, from man’s justice. But what if God decides on immediate judgement like He did in Cain’s case.
For Sanwoolu, days ahead leading to his re-election would be very interesting. The boo-boys are on his heels, seeking to cancel him, at every turn as they did during Pastor Adefarasin’s praise and worship programme; The Experience. The embarrassed man of God had to tender public apology to the governor. The Lagos CEO, would have to go beyond public cooking with BBNaija winner; WhiteMoney, to win the angry constituency back. Right now, Ibijoke’s husband is a huge divisive figure in the state and he might just be walking into the script of those claiming he was brought in, to complete Ambode/Christian tenure, a claim that should ordinarily see him, yield the Alausa top job to a Muslim candidate from APC in 2023. If Lekki White Paper, is allowed to further disfigure his persona to an unmanageable point, is it not possible those who held the ladder for him to climb in the first place, would be asking that he descend peaceably or have the ladder, completely pulled?
Lekki killings will likely bite Sanwoolu beyond the opprobrium the mention of his name now attracts in public places. May God just be merciful to him.
Concluded
and then