There have been counter claims against the evidence showing soldiers and therefore police officers opening fire against unarmed protesters at the Lekki Tollgate on October 20 who had gathered to call for an end to police brutality in the country. The incident led to multiple injuries and loss of lives.
However, the Nigerian army had issued statements in denial, saying the men in uniform ordered were thugs, dubbing it “fake news.” It later retracted the statement saying blank bullets were shots in the air and not live rounds to wade off protesters. Denial and attempted coverup, CNN therefore embarked on an investigation to fetch out facts from the shootings.
CNN spoke with an eyewitness Elisha Sunday, whose brother, Victor, was killed during the October 20th shooting incident amid Federal Government’s claims of ”No casualties.”
The global cable network also tracked the bullets shells seen at the scene of the massacre which showed that they were purchased by the Federal government from Serbia in 2005.
According to CNN: Evidence of bullet casings from the scene match those used by the Nigerian army when shooting live rounds, according to current and former Nigerian military officials. Verified video footage — using timestamps and data from the video files — shows soldiers who appear to be shooting in the direction of protesters. And accounts from eyewitnesses establish that after the army withdrew, a second round of shooting happened later in the evening.
Testimony from dozens of eyewitnesses and family members interviewed by CNN and a forensic examination of hours of video and dozens of photographs captured before, during and after the two shooting incidents show how a fledgling protest movement was all but extinguished by the very thing Nigerians were demonstrating against.
Less than three hours after the original curfew time came into effect, army trucks left the Bonny Camp barracks on Victoria Island and headed towards the toll gate plaza and the protesters, according to videos reviewed by CNN.
In several of the videos, reviewed and verified by CNN, some of the protesters can be seen carrying bodies, the flashlights on their phones the only thing illuminating the darkness as the sound of ambulance sirens wail in the background. It is not known whether these were dead or injured protesters.
In another, there are several injured people, some on the ground bleeding while defiant protesters continued to wave Nigerian flags, CNN wrote in part.
