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Nigerian Minister, Festus Keyamo says #EndSARS Panel “was an illegal panel”

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The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Festus Keyamo, has faulted the judicial panel of inquiry set up to investigate cases of police brutality and SARS-related abuses across the country.

“I will not answer this question as a sitting minister,” he said on Channels TV’s Sunday Politics. “I will answer this question as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and so, I am entitled to my own opinion. This is not the Federal Government’s position.

In his response to a question about the position of the government specifically regarding a leaked report by the Lagos judicial panel, the human rights lawyer described the panel as illegal.

He stated, “For me, that panel was an illegal panel”.

His comments come days after the leaked report by the panel indicted the operatives of the Nigerian Army and Police, saying they indeed shot at unarmed protesters.

The Nigerian army had, however, denied shooting live rounds at protesters, telling the judicial panel that only blanks were used.

End SARS is a decentralised social movement, and series of mass protests against police brutality in Nigeria. The slogan calls for the disbanding of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a notorious unit of the Nigerian Police with a long record of abuses. On the the 20th of October 2020, in the wake of the protest, Nigerian soldiers were deployed to the Lekki tollgates shooting at unarmed protesters who sang to the National Anthem and waved the Nigerian flag..

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