- Former Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has reiterated his rejection of claims that a massacre occurred at the Lekki Tollgate during the October 2020 #EndSARS protests, describing such reports especially those amplified by CNN as “fake news.”
- Speaking on ARISE TV on Wednesday, December 10, he argued that CNN relied on indirect information and lacked on-ground verification.
- Mohammed clarified that the government never denied that deaths occurred during the nationwide protests, but contended that no family has come forward to claim a relative died specifically at the tollgate.
Former Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has once again denied claims of a massacre at the Lekki Tollgate during the October 2020 #EndSARS protests, dismissing the reports as “fake news.”
Speaking on ARISE TV on Wednesday night, December 10, Mohammed maintained that his disagreement with international media, particularly CNN, was due to a lack of firsthand verification.
The former Minister clarified his government’s position on the deaths:
“Nobody ever said nobody died during #EndSARS. People died in Abuja, they died in Lagos, they died in Kano. But what we said was that CNN was not at the toll gate. CNN relied on secondhand and third-hand information.”
He challenged the narrative by questioning the lack of claims from bereaved families, stating: “Five years on, nobody has come forward to say, ‘My son went to the toll gate and didn’t return.”
Mohammed stressed that while the protests were “unfortunate and tragic,” branding the Lekki incident a massacre was misleading. He cited the loss of security personnel: “Massacre is fake news. Thirty-seven policemen were killed, six soldiers were k!lled. This is what I kept saying.”
Mohammed also revisited the controversial 2021 suspension of Twitter operations in Nigeria. He insisted that the decision was not triggered by the deletion of President Buhari’s tweet, but by broader security concerns.
“Honestly, that was not the reason. I went to President Buhari and told him, ‘Sir, we need to suspend the services of Twitter.’ He asked me why. He even asked if it was because they deleted his tweet. I said no, and I gave him instances and examples.”
He argued that Twitter had become the platform of choice for those who were destabilizing the country.
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