EndSARS Report: Govt Agents Attacking Panel Members

Date of Occurrence

November 22, 2021
State/Country

Lagos, Nigeria

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Description

Legal practitioner, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa (SAN), has raised an alarm over what he described as “vicious attacks” on members of the Lagos Judicial Panel of Enquiry on Police Brutality following the group’s submission of its report.

“Since the submission of the EndSARS Panel Report to the Governor of Lagos State on November 15, 2021, members of the Panel have become the subject of vicious attacks by those suspected to be agents of the government, ” Adegboruwa, a member of the panel, said in a statement he issued on Thursday.

“All manner of allegations has been heaped upon Panel Members, some of who have been called unprintable names.”

He restated that members of the panel were appointed on merit, debunking reports that they lobbied to get into the position.

“As a matter of fact, in my own case, His Excellency, the Governor of Lagos State, appealed to me to accept my appointment, which I saw as a call to national service,” he added.

“The primary reason the Governor gave to me then was that he wanted men and women of integrity, independent and not subject to manipulation, to be on the Panel.”

Adegboruwa described a report credited to an unnamed counsel to the Lagos State Government that members of the panel took bribes as “unfair, ungodly, and least expected of the government and its lawyers”.

According to him, the panel is waiting for the Lagos State Government’s white paper on the report submitted by the panel but decried the “mindless propaganda upon Panel Members”.

While calling on the Lagos State Government to “call its agents and lawyers to order so as not to provoke aggravated responses,” he said members of the panel deserve better treatment from the government.

“I should not become a victim of unwarranted attacks just because I accepted to serve the government and the outcome of that assignment did not favour the expectations of the government,” Adegboruwa, further noted.

“Suffice it to mention that I worked with men and women of unblemished integrity and I’m proud to be associated with them all.”

Actions Taken

NIGERIANS SHOULD HOLD GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBLE IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME - Says Adegboruwa

A week after threatening to publish the full report of the Lagos State Judicial Panel on Restitution for the Victims of SARS-Related Abuses and Other Matters if the government fails to honour its recommendations, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, a member of the panel, has said his life is at risk.

In a Facebook post on Monday, Adegboruwa said he was being targeted by government-sponsored agents, especially in the media.

“Since the submission of the report of the Lagos #EndSARS Panel, there have been lots of threats and attacks by those suspected to be agents of the government upon me, especially in the media” he wrote.

“I have not committed any crime beyond joining other eminent Nigerians with unblemished integrity, to accept the nomination of government on behalf of my constituency, the Nigerian Bar Association and the civil society and the indeed the masses of our people, for a national assignment.

“Two prominent lawyers of the government have openly incited opinions against me on national television, with mindless accusations.
I have however refused to be intimidated or bend to the tactics of government to be silenced.”
Adegboruwa, a lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), found his way to the panel after Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the Governor of Lagos State, nominated him to represent the civil society.

He urges “the good people of Nigeria, my professional colleagues in the Nigerian Bar Association, my comrades in the civil rights movement and the people of Nigeria, to hold the government responsible should anything happen to me”.
“I heeded the clarion call to serve by the government with the honest believe that the Panel was meant to say the truth and nothing but the truth, which is what we have done,” he said.

“It is left for government and Nigerians to do the needful with the report of the Panel. God bless Nigeria.”

Adegboruwa’s pleas came barely 24 hours after Kamsiyochukwu Ibe, one of the witnesses that appeared before the panel, was attacked by unidentified persons.

“Last night, I was attacked on my way back from TNS by three guys whom I thought were passersby,” Ibeh said in a gory video capturing herself and her blood-stained wounds, obtained by FIJ.

“We were standing at the bus-stop waiting for a vehicle, only one of them to shed light on my face. One said, this girl from panel, shebi an una sabi pass, una no wan step back abi?“