Lekki tollgate: three bodies deposited at morgue

Lekki tollgate – At least 99 people were killed in Lagos during the #EndSARS protest and had their bodies deposited at a morgue in the state, an official has said.

The victims include three that were killed in Lekki during the shooting by soldiers at unarmed protesters on October 20, 2020, the Chief Pathologist of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), John Obafunwa, told a Judicial Panel of Inquiry.

He said autopsies were done on the 99 dead bodies which were brought to the morgues between October 19 and 24, 2020. He, however, did not present the details of the autopsies.

Mr Obafunwa, a professor of Medicine and Head of the Department of Morbid Anatomy at the Lagos University College of Medicine, spoke on Saturday while giving evidence to assist the judicial panel in its investigation of the October 20, 2020, Lekki tollgate shooting incident.

The don told the panel that only three corpses were recorded to have been from Lekki, and 96 other bodies from different parts of Lagos.

Saturday proceedings

While giving evidence on the number of dead bodies received from Lekki on the day of the shooting incident, Mr Obafunwa said LASUTH has only three records.

He presented the pictures of three bodies from Lekki to the panel, showing different degrees of injuries.

“Those are the three bodies I was told were from Lekki as recorded by the people who brought them in,” he said.

While being cross-examined by Olumide Fusika, a counsel to some #EndSARS protesters, Mr Obafunwa disclosed that a total of 99 bodies were recorded between October 19 and 24.

“I want to prove to this panel that the claim that only three dead bodies were brought in from Lekki is not true,” Mr Fusika said, while questioning the pathologist.

Mr Fusika, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, requested that the panel order the chief pathologist to present the records of all 99 cases recorded during the period.

“Since he was told that only those three are from Lekki, he might have been told the wrong thing,” Mr Fusika said.

Mr Obafunwa explained that the bodies were deposited by the Lagos State Environmental Health Monitoring Unit (SEHMU), an agency in charge of recovering dead bodies.

“I don’t go about scavenging for dead bodies. It is when they are brought in that we are told and it is recorded where they were taken from.”

The chief pathologist said according to their records, the bodies were recovered from different parts of Lagos including Ikorodu, Lagos Mainland, Yaba and Mushin.

Source – https://www.premiumtimesng.com/