Legislature

#EndSARS: Lagos State begin hearing to compensate looting victims

Published

3 years ago

2020/11/18

The Lagos State House of Assembly has begun a three-day hearing to compensate victims of lootings that followed the recent EndSARS protests.

Recall that on October 26, the Speaker of the House, Mudashiru Obasa created a nine-man Committee to investigate and compensate victims of the lootings of properties and loss of lives that happened when the EndSARS protests were hijacked

Following the procedure of the Committee, victims from the Lagos Central Senatorial District were attended to at Wednesday’s sitting.

Residents from other Senatorial Districts, East and West will be answered on Thursday and Friday.

While speaking at the hearing, the Chairman of the Committee, and Deputy Speaker of the House, Hon. Wasiu Eshinlokun-Sanni stated that the committee had started assessing the damage that happened during the violence and they have opened communication with victims.

He said that the Committee has sent out forms to the victims and the forms will direct them on the steps they take with individual victims.

Eshinlokun-Sanni described the committee functions as an interface with the victims, relevant stakeholders and community leaders and to ascertain the level of destruction.

Others are to determine the level and value of compensation and restitution, where necessary, make recommendations towards preventing future occurrence of such incidents in the state.

He said that the violence had a negative impact on the state but Lagos will rise up once again.

“We are gathering to display our indomitable resilience. The character of Lagos is to be undefeatable.

“We have shown this character before, it’s in our genes, we will show it again. Even in the heat of being in the opposition for 16 years, Lagos didn’t falter, instead, we rose and shone. This is another phase, another challenge, another setback, Lagos State shall rise again and shine brighter than ever,” he said.

“We shall be leveraging on the knowledge and experiences of the experts we have invited (such as architects, insurance etcetera) in assessing the details and making decisions on how to assuage the pains of our people.”

“After the Lekki incident, we cannot leave our people, we should find ways and means of mitigating their losses. The primary purpose of the government is the security of lives and properties. When such happens, the government must take control and mitigate the suffering of the people.

“The work of our committee is to see how the events after the Lekki shootings affected our people and how we can put them back to work so that they will not suffer more losses. Already, we had COVID-19 Pandemic in the nation and in the state during the year.”

He added that when such an incident occurred “there would be a reduction in foreign direct investment into your country and in the state due to the alleged unsafe environment. There would also be a capital flight from the nation. What we are trying to do is to bring confidence into our people.,” he stated.