NIGERIANS have criticized the testimony of Lekki Concession Company (LCC) during the Lagos State judicial panel of inquiry when the company’s managing director, Abayomi Omamuwasan, disclosed that the closed-circuit television camera (CCTV) at the Lekki toll gate did not capture the shootings of #EndSARS protesters on October 20. 

Omamuwasan who appeared before the panel on Tuesday, said the surveillance camera fixed at the Lekki Toll Gate plaza, where peaceful protesters were gunned down by officers of the Nigerian Army, stopped working at 8 pm, adding that the network was interfered with, causing the disruption.

“The surveillance camera didn’t capture the shooting. It stopped recording around 8 pm, when it was tampered with and stopped,” Omamuwasan told the panel.

The MD further told the panel that the LCC did not activate the audio recording of the camera because it is used for traffic and not security.

Omamuwasan’s response has met criticism on the streets of social media, with many commenters expressing disappointment that the footage promised to be made available by the Lagos State Government (LASG) is practically non-existent.

“These people take us for fools. LCC says the surveillance cameras stopped recording at 8 pm on October 20, 2020. Just about the time, the shootings at the toll gate began. If you ever doubted the intention to hide the truth, here it is in living colour,” a Twitter user identified as I_Am_Ilemona shared on his page.

Japheth Omojuwa, author and Chevening scholar also posted about it on Twitter, saying: “If LCC actually claimed that their camera didn’t capture the Lekki shooting that even the governor himself already admitted to, just close the judicial panel already. If you are telling a bad joke, better to keep it short, to save everyone’s time!.”

The CCTV at Lekki Toll gate has been a topic of discussion since the Lekki Shootings. At first, a picture of suspected personnel removing the camera from the toll plaza just a few hours before the gunfire started on October 20, was captured and circulated on social media.

But in defending the viral photo of the yet-to-be-identified man uninstalling the cameras, Jide Sanwo-Olu, governor of Lagos State said the uninstalled cameras were not surveillance but laser cameras for vehicles.

“Nobody ordered the removal of cameras at the Lekki tollgate. The MD of LCC said because of the curfew, they made the decision to take out installations. The cameras you saw are not security or motion cameras, they are laser cameras for vehicles,” the governor said.

However, several clips of the happenings of that day at Lekki toll gate have been widely shared on social media.

Bertram Hill, an open-source intelligence journalist with BBC, shared a video of military men shooting at protesters, disclosing the coordinates and exact location of where the clip was captured.

“Here’s the clearest view I’ve seen thus far of some of the gunfire at Lekki Tollgate. In this footage, men in camo uniform fire their weapons at 6.435886, 3.447423, 15m from the East side of the toll gate. Some of the #EndPoliceBrutalityinNigera protestors had sat down,” his tweet read. 

Meanwhile, Amnesty International, a human rights advocacy group said it has received ‘credible but disturbing evidence’ that security forces of the government killed peaceful protesters at Lekki toll gate area of Lagos on October 20.

“The Nigerian authorities must end their attempts to cover up the Lekki toll gate massacre,” Amnesty International said.

The group recently released a new timeline investigating the atrocity.