Investigations at the Lagos state Panel of Inquiry on Police Brutality and the October 2020 #EndSARS protest took a different turn today September 10 when a forensics company, Sentinel Forensic Limited, disclosed that bullets expelled from firearms during the #EndSARS protest in Lagos on October 20, 2020, were from the Nigerian Army.
Reports had it that the company’s representative, Joseph Kayode Funsho, while testifying before the panel said the live ammunition (bullets) were discovered to have been registered to the Nigerian Army. He, however, said the blanks didn’t match the records from the Nigerian Army’s inventory.
The company’s findings, however, seem to contradict the claims of the Nigerian Army. In November 2020, Commander of the 81 Military Intelligence Brigade, Brigadier Ahmed Taiwo, while testifying before the panel insisted that only blank bullets containing gunpowder were fired at the Lekki Tollgate on October 20.
He also insisted that the military only fired into the air and not directly at the #EndSARS protesters.
While explaining that the blank bullets used, cannot cause any damage to the flesh, Brigadier Taiwo said if real bullets were indeed fired, one bullet had the potency to kill three persons at one shot.
After the testimony of the forensic expert was heard, the panel of inquiry adjourned the hearing till Saturday, September 11.
