Human rights lawyer and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana, has commended the Lagos State Government after its judicial panel tendered the report on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and Other Matters, calling it one of the best ever produced.
Falana made this call on Thursday, November 18, during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, three days after the panel said nine #EndSARS protesters were killed at the Lekki tollgate on October 20, 2020.
After a leaked version of the report indicting the operatives of the Nigerian Army and Police, was circulated on social media, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu set up a committee to review the panel’s report, which is yet to be released officially.
“The panel gave everybody fair hearing, bent over backward to accommodate those who should have been sent packing, did a thorough analysis of the evidence and arrived at recommendations that tallied with the findings.
“It was a thorough-going exercise, one of the best reports ever produced; by a judicial commission of inquiry in Nigeria,” Falana said.
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The senior lawyer however faulted the leakage of the report; of the Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and Other Matters.
Falana added, “A judicial commission of inquiry was set up, it has concluded its assignment; and submitted the report to the government, including the recommendations. The government will have to study the report and recommendations; and issue a white paper which should contain the directives of the government on each of the findings.
“So the government could not have released the report; and the government should not have released the report because it has to. A committee has been set up now; and that committee should have been allowed to carry out its assignment.
“It is after that committee has concluded its own assignment; that the government will then release the report via a white paper.”
