A Nigerian lawyer to the Cable News Network (CNN), Olumide Babalola, has asked the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, to tender an apology to the medium for tagging as fake an investigative report by the American media house.
The information minister had tagged an investigative report of the massacre at the Lekki Tollgate, Lagos, in the hands of the Nigerian Army on the night of October 20, 2020, by CNN as fake news.
However, a report submitted by the judicial panel set up by the Lagos State government had declared that nine persons were killed while at least 24 others were injured during the military attack on the protesters that night.
In a statement, released on Tuesday, 17 November, titled ‘How a bloody night of bullets and brutality quashed a young protest movement’, the lawyer said the report had vindicated CNN.
The statement reads: “Alhaji Mohammed had consistently claimed the CNN’s report of the massacre was false but the panel has vindicated CNN’s position on the gruesome and wanton killings at the Lekki Tollgate
“Without necessarily saying more on this, since the same minister had earlier called on CNN to apologize for fake news, which has now been quasi-judicially proved to be true, one would think the honorable thing for Alhaji Mohammed to do, as an elder statesman and learned gentleman, is to apologize to CNN especially.
“However, as we continue to wait on the minister and FG’s next move, I sympathize with families of all the victims of Lekki massacre while we pray for the souls of the departed and hope the government implements the report in full.”
