Nigeria’s minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed, on Thursday lashed out at CNN, saying the global news platform “goofed” by airing what he described as unverified reports on the October 20 shootings at the Lekki Toll Gate during the EndSARS protests.
The minister, at a press conference in Abuja, also called for a disciplinary action against CNN, saying the Federal Government would take appropriate actions.
Nigeria’s Federal Government is reacting just a day after CNN aired a widely circulated report on the Lekki shootings – ‘How a bloody night of bullets and brutality quashed a young protest movement’ – which sharply contradicts government position that the Army did not shoot live bullets at the protesters.
“CNN goofed in its preconceived stance that the soldiers who were deployed to Lekki Toll Gate indeed shot at protesters, killing some of them,” Mohammed said.
“CNN relied heavily on unverified and possibly-doctored videos, as well as information sourced from questionable sources, to reach its conclusion,” he told the news conference, stressing that this should earn them “a serious sanction for irresponsible reporting”.
The minister claimed that the report reinforced the disinformation that is going round, and called it “blatantly irresponsible and a poor piece of journalistic work by a reputable international news organisation” and that CNN engaged in incredible sensationalism and did a great disservice to itself and to journalism.
He said, in the first instance, that CNN had earlier touted its report as an exclusive investigative, but relied on the same videos that have been circulating on social media, without verification.
The minister said while the Lagos Judicial Panel sitting works to unravel what really transpired at the Lekki Toll Gate, available evidence so far points to the world’s first case of “Massacre without Blood or Bodies”.
Aligning with the testimony of Nigerian Army’s Brig-Gen, Ahmed Ibrahim Taiwo before the panel, the minister said “soldiers were deployed all over Lagos, including Lekki Toll Gate, after the other security agencies were overwhelmed on Oct. 20th 2020, upon the request of the state government”.
“Before deployment, the soldiers were briefed on the Rules of Engagement, which they adhered to all through.
“Soldiers at Lekki Toll Gate fired blank ammunitions into the air. Blank ammunition cannot do any damage to the flesh, not to talk of killing anyone.
“Firing live ammunition into the crowd, as some have alleged, would have led to mass killing, which never happened,” he claimed.
The minister claimed the purveyors of fake news and disinformation succeeded in deceiving the world that indeed there was mass killing in Lekki, even when, till date, according to him, no single body has been produced nor a family or relative come out to say their child or ward was killed at the place.
“More surprising and irresponsible is the fact that some people have been calling for sanctions against Nigeria or against Nigerian government officials on the basis of a hoax,” he said.
He reiterated government’s satisfaction with the role played by the security agencies, especially the military and the police, all through the EndSARS crisis.
“We insist that the military did not shoot at protesters at Lekki Toll Gate. They fired blank ammunition in the air. Again, anyone who knows anyone who was killed at Lekki Toll Gate should head to the Judicial Panel with conclusive evidence of such,” he said.
The minister also took a swipe at the human rights organisations, whom he said “became suspect after they simply ignored the brutal killing and maiming of security agents during the crisis, as well as the orgy of violence that left 57 civilians dead, 269 private/corporate facilities burnt/looted/vandalised, 243 government facilities burnt/vandalided and 81 government warehouses looted, and instead continued to dwell on the bodiless and bloodless ‘massacre’ at Lekki Toll Gate”.
He also berated Obianuju Catherine Udeh (DJ Switch), one of the alleged leaders of EndSARS protest, and advised she should quit peddling falsehood but present her case, with verifiable evidence, to the Judicial Panel.
Although he said Udeh is not being hunted by government, and has no reason fleeing or seeking asylum anywhere, he stated that she would be “exposed for what she is, a fraud and a front for divisive and destructive forces”.
He also justified the sanctions imposed on some broadcast media organisations by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) for reports on the EndSARS protests which he said were in clear breach of the Broadcasting Code, as stated by the Commission.
