The Lagos State Government, says the 103 #EndSARS victims to be buried are not from the Lekki Tollgate shooting.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Dr. Olusegun Ogboye in a statement issued Sunday, urged the public to disregard rumours that mass funerals will be held for Lekki tollgate #EndSARS victims in 2020.
He said those responsible for the memo are troublemakers.
Ogboye said: “The attention of the Lagos State Government has been drawn to some social media publications about a purported mass burial plan for casualties of the 2020 #EndSARS incident.
“Peddlers of the news are deliberately misinterpreting and sensationalising a letter from the Lagos State Government Public Procurement Agency titled: Letter of No Objection — Mass Burial for the 103, the Year 2020 ENDSARS victims, to misinform the public, stir public sentiment and cause public disaffection against the Lagos State Government.”
Ogboye added that while the State government would not have dignified the mischievous elements peddling such news with a response, it considered it appropriate to set the records straight and draw the attention of well-meaning citizens to the antics of some unscrupulous elements who are hell-bent on disrupting the peace and tranquility of the state with distorted news and half-truths about the letter.
He pointed out that it was public knowledge that the year 2020 #EndSARS crisis that snowballed into violence in many parts of Lagos recorded casualties in different areas of the State and not from the Lekki Toll Gate as inferred in the mischievous publications.
Ogboye said for the records, the Lagos State Environmental Health Unit (SEHMU) picked up bodies in the aftermath of #EndSARS violence and community clashes at Fagba, Ketu, Ikorodu, Orile, Ajegunle, Abule-Egba, Ikeja, Ojota, Ekoro, Ogba, Isolo and Ajah areas of Lagos State, including a jailbreak at Ikoyi Prison.
According to him, The 103 casualties mentioned in the document were from these incidents and NOT from Lekki Toll-gate as alleged. For the avoidance of doubt, nobody was retrieved from the Lekki Toll Gate incident.
Ogboye stressed that in the aftermath of the #EndSARS violence, the office of the Chief Coroner invited members of the public through public adverts and announcement who had lost loved ones or whose relatives had been declared missing between 19th and 27th October 2020 from various clashes as mentioned above, to contact the department of Pathology and Forensic Medicine of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) to help with identification of these casualties deposited in State-owned mortuaries.
He said relatives were to undergo DNA tests for identification purposes.
The permanent secretary said it was important to state categorically that nobody responded to claim any of the bodies.
He noted that after almost three years, the bodies remain unclaimed, adding to the congestion of the mortuaries.
Ogboye said this spurred the need to decongest the mortuaries, a procedure that follows very careful medical and legal guidelines in the event that a relative might still turn up to claim a lost relative years after the incident.
He stressed that decongestion of public morgues is a periodic and regular exercise approved by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to free up space in mortuaries that have a large number of unclaimed bodies.