Members of the Lagos Judicial Panel on EndSARS were stopped for about 30 minutes from entering the Military Hospital in Ikoyi by soldiers on Friday.
The panel paid an unaware visit to the morgue for some assessment.
The judicial team is investigating the shooting at Lekki tollgate where 15 protesters were reportedly killed.
Witnesses of the Lekki shooting accused military officers of taking away the bodies.
The panel, however, met resistance as it got to the gate of the hospital.
Soldiers deny Judicial Panel of Inquiry and members of the press access to the Military Hospital in Ikoyi, Lagos. This is another stop on the Judicial Panel's tour of sites crucial to their investigation. pic.twitter.com/fzNQbayZ56
— ARISE NEWS (@ARISEtv) October 30, 2020
A member of the panel, Ebun Adegboruwa, told the soldiers that the panel came to the hospital because it had intelligence that might help with its investigation.
“The facility is relevant to our investigation. We have a pathologist. We are here on the authority of the president, not only the governor,” he said.
“We are following due process, and it is important we visit the mortuary as it will help our findings.
“If we are not allowed access, we will go back and take other actions. We won’t force ourselves in. We have confidential information that the military hospital here is relevant in the investigation of the Lekki event. We heard this hospital is controlled by the 65 battalion and under the 81 division. We are also taking steps to reach military authorities.”
Adegboruwa said though the panel does not have evidence that there are bodies of those killed at the tollgate in the hospital, it was at the facility to investigate claims that there are.
His words “We are exercising our mandate on behalf of the governor of Lagos State under the tribunal of inquiry laws.
“We have already inspected the Lekki toll gate today and we decided to pay an unscheduled visit to the mortuary of the Military Hospital because we have confidential information concerning certain events that took place in the hospital here.
“We are waiting for them to grant us access to inspect the mortuary because we have reasons to believe that that facility is relevant to our investigation.
“We don’t want to make any conclusions yet until we have access to that mortuary to inspect it.
“We have a pathologist with us who is here to help us conduct medical examination of bodies we may find in the mortuary.”
It would be recalled that about five bullets were discovered at Lekki Tollgate today.
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