Lekki toll gate #EndSARS report: Why Lai Mohammed is yet to react

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, is yet to respond to the report of the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and other matters, because he is currently out of Nigeria on an official assignment.

This is claim made by the minister’s spokesman, Segun Adeyemi.

Adeyemi stated this on Thursday in a text response sent to PUNCH, when asked about Mohammed’s reaction to the panel’s findings.

“We are out of the country (Nigeria) on assignment. Expect our response shortly,” he wrote in the text message.

Mohammed’s spokesman, however, did not disclose the country his principal is in at the moment.

Though “out of the country”, Adeyemi issued a statement on Thursday hailing the United States for removing Nigeria from the list of religious violators.

The office of the minister has, however, kept mum three days after the panel’s report on the Lekki incident of October 20, 2020 leaked to the public.

Mohammed, 69, has been in the eye of the storm since Monday, November 15, 2021, when the Justice Doris Okuwobi-led panel submitted its report to the Lagos State Government, noting that at least nine persons were confirmed dead at the Lekki toll plaza when soldiers stormed the tollgate to disperse EndSARS protesters on October 20, 2020.