THE Lagos State House of Assembly has begun a three-day public hearing to compensate the victims attacked during EndSARS protests.
On Wednesday, residents of the Lagos Central Senatorial District were given audience to by the Assembly Committee headed by the Deputy Speaker, Wasiu Eshinlokun-Sanni.
Mudashiru Obasa, the Speaker of the House had on October 26 set up a nine-man Ad-Hoc Committee to investigate the level of destruction of properties and loss of lives with a view to determining compensation for the victims.
Residents of the other two Senatorial districts, East and West are expected to come between Thursday and Friday.
Eshinlokun-Sanni said the terms of reference of the Committee include interfacing with the victims, relevant stakeholders and community leaders and to ascertain the level of destruction.
Eshinlokun-Sanni noted that the Committee has sent across forms to victims of the destructions across all the constituencies and is accepting submission of the forms, which will be the foundation of the Committee’s consideration.
“We shall be leveraging on the knowledge and experiences of the experts we have invited (such as architects, insurance etcetera) in assessing the details and making decisions on how to assuage the pains of our people,” he said.
He added that the committee would also determine the level and value of compensation and restitution and where necessary, make recommendations towards preventing future occurrence of such incidents in the state.
On the similarities and differences between the House’s Committee and the Judicial panel set up by Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the Governor of Lagos State, Eshinlokun-Sanni said the panel is focused on unravelling the brutality meted out to Lagosians by the security agents before and during Lekki toll gate attack.
“The work of our committee is to see how the events after the Lekki shootings affected our people and how we can put them back to work so that they will not suffer more losses. Already, we had COVID-19 Pandemic in the nation and in the state during the year.”
He added that when such an incident occurred there could be a reduction in foreign direct investment into the country and in the state due to the alleged unsafe environment.
Hoodlums had hijacked the ENDSARS protest against police brutality that cut across many states in the country which resulted in attacks on private and public properties.
The hijack follows the killing of peaceful protesters by men of the Nigerian Army, which the authorities have denied.
Lukman Abolade is an Investigative reporter with The ICIR. Reach out to him via labolade@icirnigeria.org, on twitter @AboladeLAA and FB @Correction94