Lai Mohammed Maintains No Fatalities at Lekki Toll Gate During #EndSARS

 

Former Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has reiterated that no deaths occurred at the Lekki Toll Gate during the October 2020 #EndSARS protests under the administration of the late President Muhammadu Buhari.

Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Tuesday, while discussing his new book Headlines and Soundbites: Media Moments That Defined an Administration, Mohammed acknowledged that lives were lost in different parts of the country during the protests, but insisted none died at the toll gate where military personnel were deployed.

“Lives were lost during #EndSARS, including those of soldiers and policemen, but nobody was killed at the Lekki Toll Gate,” he said, adding that he maintained constant contact with the military leadership before and during the incident. He also claimed that soldiers at the toll gate carried only blank ammunition.

Mohammed dismissed reports by Amnesty International and the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry, which suggested fatalities at the toll gate, describing their findings as inconsistent. He further noted that, five years after the incident, no family had come forward to report a missing child or relative from that location.

“If anyone was killed there, wouldn’t the family come forward?” he asked.

He defended the deployment of soldiers, explaining that it was necessary after the protests were allegedly hijacked by hoodlums, stressing that the action aimed to prevent a breakdown of law and order.

The former minister added that his book seeks to document events from an insider’s perspective and to correct what he described as misinformation surrounding the Buhari administration.

The Lekki Toll Gate shooting remains one of the most contentious episodes of the #EndSARS protests, which saw thousands of Nigerians protest against police brutality in October 2020. While multiple eyewitness accounts, video footage, and social media live streams indicated that soldiers opened fire on protesters, official sources have denied fatalities, with the military dismissing reports as “fake news” and the government calling it “a massacre without blood or bodies.”

Despite official denials, the incident continues to shape public discourse, legal proceedings, and annual commemorations of the #EndSARS movement.