Lekki shootings: I saw corpse with bullet-torn head, protester tells panel

AN #EndSARS protester, Kamsiyochukwu Perpetual, has said she saw many dead bodies, including one with a bullet-torn head, following the alleged shootings at peaceful #EndSARS protesters by soldiers at the Lekki tollgate on the night of October 20.

In a petition she submitted to the Lagos State Panel of Judicial Inquiry probing the tollgate shootings by soldiers, Perpetual said she saw the dead body with bullet-torn head at Reddington Hospital, Lekki, when she went in search of injured protesters the morning after the shootings.

Perpetual said she visited the hospital in company with one Samuel Isah and another person identified as Seye, with the aim of collecting the data of injured protesters but doctors at the hospital prevent them until a media man; “World Rapper Man” intervened.

“We also requested to see the dead protesters who were brought in. The doctors refused us access to see the dead bodies. The media man intervened again and we could only see one of the dead bodies whose head was torn by (a) bullet fired to his head. He laid at the emergency unit. The doctor called the corpse ‘John Doe’.

“While at Reddington Hospital, dead and injured bodies were still being brought in. By evening when I returned to Reddington Hospital, one of the nurses informed me that the dead and the injured had been transferred from Reddington Hospital to an unknown hospital based on orders from above.

“We have the record of the names of 22 injured persons and one of the dead persons we were allowed to see,” Perpetual said in her affidavit on oath filed before the retired Justice Doris Okuwobi-led panel.

In her 28-paragraph affidavit, she gave the names of the 22 persons injured from the shooting incident as Abiola Esther, RFK, Lekan Williams, Felix Nandip, Adams Moses, Akinyele Damilola, Samuela Iordyom, Emmanuel John, Isaac Amede and Charles Uzoma.

Other listed were Raymond Simon Abah, Samuel Anthony, Andrew Ugochuckwu, Bobby Maduka, Moses Oyi, Emmanuel George, Nelson Andrew, Sheriff Akande, Chigozie Chukwujekwu, Damilola Adedayo and 12-year-old Bakare Michael.

While the Nigerian Army had insisted that only blank bullets were shot into the air, Perpetual in her affidavit maintained that soldiers shot at and killed protesters.

“I saw soldiers picking at least seven dead, limp bodies hit by bullet into their vans,” Perpetual said.