Lagos #EndSARS: 99 corpses deposited at mortuary, three from Lekki –Pathologist

Lagos #EndSARS: 99 corpses deposited at mortuary, three from Lekki –Pathologist

The Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry probing the alleged killing of #EndSARS protesters at the Lekki tollgate on October 20, 2020 has called for the record of all 99 corpses deposited in the mortuary of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital between October 19 and 24 last year.

The panel chairman, retired Justice Doris Okuwobi, made the order on Saturday after LASUTH Chief Pathologist, Prof John Obafunwa, gave testimony before the panel and presented autopsy reports and pictures of three out of the 99 deposited corpses.

Obafunwa told the panel that of the 99 bodies deposited at the mortuary, he was told that only three came from Lekki, hence, the decision to present three autopsy reports and pictures, showing corpses with varying degrees of injury.

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

According to him, the other 96 deposited corpses were said to have been recovered from different areas of Lagos.

But one of the counsel representing #EndSARS protesters before the panel, Adeyinka Olumide-Fusika (SAN), disagreed with Obafunwa on the claim that only three corpses came from Lekki.

Olumide-Fusika asked the panel to order LASUTH to bring forward the records and autopsy reports on the entire 99 bodies deposited.

Ruling, the panel chairman ordered LASUTH to produce records on the 96 other corpses in addition to the three presented on Saturday.

The panel adjourned till June 19 for further hearing.

While the Nigerian Army has repeatedly denied shooting at or killing any of the #EndSARS protesters at the Lekki tollgate on the night of October 20, 2020, a number of persons with injuries have appeared before the panel insisting that they were shot at the tollgate and that they also witnessed the death of others.

At one of the previous proceedings, a trauma and orthopaedic surgeon with Reddington Hospital in Lekki, Lagos, Dr Babajide Lawson, had narrated to the panel how the hospital received and treated “a large number” of injured persons, including those with bullet wounds, on the night of October 20, 2020.

Lawson said the Lekki facility of the hospital was “literally overwhelmed” by the crowd wounded persons, who were presented at the hospital at the same time, and that some had to be transferred to the Victoria Island branch of the hospital.