 Ammunition presented by the Army matches bullet shells recovered at the Lecky Toll Gate, says an expert, while civil society group cries out that 300 Lagos en-sars protesters are suffering in detention. And name terrorism sponsors to clear your name, Middle Belt Forum challenges federal government. All this is plus politics, and I am Mary Anacorn. A forensic expert, Joseph Coyote, has told the Lagos Judicial Panel of Inquiry in the investigation of the Lecky Toll Gate shooting incident that the samples of the ammunition presented by the Nigerian Army are the same caliber as those retrieved at the scene. He gave this explanation while giving the ballistic reports of the forensic investigation conducted on the ammunition presented by the Nigerian Army and those at the panel. Meanwhile, a civil society group, New Nigerian Network, has asked the Lagos State Government and other authorities to release the 300 en-sars protesters in detention, unconditionally, or take them to court. The co-convener of the group, Adishina Ogulana, said that during a visit to the prison by members of the group, they saw en-sars protesters wasting away in prison. Well, joining us to discuss this is Inibar Efion, he's a human rights lawyer. Jonathan Abang is a journalist, and Michael Nketea is an international relations and political analyst. He's joining us from Ghana. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for being part of the conversation. Thank you. Have a nice one. Great. I'm going to start with you, Inibar, because you are one of those who have been very vocal about this en-sars campaign, which turned into a protest. And then, of course, the aftermath. And now we have been talking about the outcome of the panel, the investigative panel. And here we are today talking about this particular ammunition. Now, we remember that during the panel sessions, the army at first claimed that they were using blanks. And then, at another sitting, the army admitted to having some ammunition that was not necessarily blanks. But this particular expose is saying that the ammunition that was used matches the one that the army was given or was using on the day at the toll gate. So the big question on everybody's mind is, so what then? What now happens? Now that we have this information, because it seemed like everybody went to sleep, but now this has literally opened a new kind of warmth. So where do we go? Marianne, for me, there is nothing surprising in the testimony by the ballistic experts. I was before the Legos Judicial Panel of Enquiry, the Commission of Enquiry on the day that General Thay would testify. I was part of the team of lawyers who represented some of the protesters at the toll gates. And it was very obvious to us, but very clear to us, that the military authorities were lying to the public, were lying to Nigerians. And that they were not honest with their role at the toll gates, with the things that they did at the toll gates. There were never doubts about the fact that the military invaded the leaky toll gates, that they attacked unarmed protesters, that people were killed in that process. These things have not been proven, but they have been a chain of lies. Both by the governments, the Legos State Government, the Federal Government, and the military authorities on their role in the matter. From denying outrightly that they were never present at the toll gates, they were then forced to admit that soldiers were there. They subsequently said, oh, they never fired a shot, nobody was targeted. And of course, they subsequently admitted that indeed people were targeted, that they had fired a shot, but that nobody was killed. But don't forget that even the governor of Legos State did admit, it did admit that at least two persons, he confirmed that at least a few persons were killed. So when we cross-examined him, the truth came out at the Commission of Enquiry. It is unfortunate that we still have to even debate whether people were murdered or not. The reality is that people were killed at the toll gates. And I have also seen some of the victims. I have interacted with witnesses who were present at the toll gate on that date. So this revelation order, it is only for the substance shapes what we have always known. There is nothing strange, there is nothing unusual in the evidence given by the ballistic experts. But you know the saying that if you do not have proof, you do not have facts, then you cannot push a particular, let's say for you, you said you already knew that they were lying, but then of course anybody can say that the army is lying except you have proof. And now we do have proof because I remember there was a time when even the army was asking that if they indeed killed anybody or there were victims, we should produce those victims or the protesters should produce the victims. So I am asking again, this is a panel that is not necessarily empowered by the law to prosecute or go forward, they are just listening, they are just investigating and they are hearing. So now that we have proof, I am asking again, what are the legal steps that need to be taken? Because I am asking this because this situation seems to have taken a back burner because maybe for some reason there was not enough proof evidence to take the army up or maybe take even the federal government up on this particular issue. But now we have enough proof, so what is the way forward? What I want you to, what I think I am trying to make to you is that I was present during the form of the sittings of that panel, particularly on the day that the military gave their evidence. The evidence that the military itself did that was evidence that implicated them. The armed evidence implicated them. They also made series of admissions against interest. That is where somebody is considering the facts that is not in the interest of that person, that goes to show that that person had the bad keys. So even by the evidence of the military itself, it was clear that contrary to what they had said earlier, that they were present at the two gates and that they targeted civilians, unarmed civilians. There was never evidence that those people at the two gates were armed. They even admitted, the military admitted, they admitted that the protestants were not armed. Now to your question, I don't want us to be overoptimistic about what is going to be done by these findings. At Genome Day, the judicial commission of inquiry will submit its reports and make recommendations. Whether those recommendations will be implemented is a different thing entirely. But given the antecedents of this regime, I am convinced that it is very unlikely that any of those soldiers will ever be caught, martial law put on trial. Because this is the regime that has shown itself unwilling to abide by the rule of law. A regime that has shown continuous contempt for human life. A regime that does not have any respect for international best practices and rules of engagement. So you don't expect that regime, a regime that has lied on record about the activities at the two gates to now take a summer salt and implement whatever finding this commission is going to make. Let us wait and see. I am just telling us that we shouldn't be overoptimistic. At the end of the day, let us hope that even the panel will have the courage to make far-reaching recommendations. Because on the basis of what we know alone, it is sufficient for actions to be taken. But because of the country we have this culture of always setting up commissions of inquiry on issues, that is why we keep having committee after committee, panel after panel, judicial inquiry after judicial inquiry. At the end of the day, very little is done in terms of implementation, in terms of sanction, in terms of consequence for people who have committed infraction against the law. That is why I am saying that Nigeria should not be overoptimistic. About this panel, do not forget that even the military at the point we drew from participating in this commission of inquiry, they refused to honor certain someone that we issued on them. That is not the government, that is not the regime that you would want us to believe is going to pay attention to the outcome of this inquiry. As far as I am concerned, the event that I have taken place, even while this panel is sitting, the freezing of the account of insiders' protesters, the persecution of some of the protesters, including those who are being placed on watch list, the target on NGOs who are involved in this, but all this goes to show you the sincerity of the government, the fact that nothing has been done about police reform to date, the fact that policemen are still killing people across the country. Look at what is going on. That clearly shows you that this is not the government that has even taken the fact that that protest took place seriously. So do not expect much. We should not expect much from this commission of inquiry in terms of implementation. Well Jonathan, I am going to toss it to you because you are a journalist. I am sure that you are one of the people who covered this story over and over again. The journalists were front and centre during the protests after and of course the stories that came following it. So anybody is giving us a somewhat of a doom and gloom expectation. In fact, it is saying that we should not be overly optimistic as to the outcome of this. But as a journalist, where the fourth estate of the realm is supposed to push for these kinds of stories or push for these issues to be attended to and get both the public and government's attention for justice to be meted on those who deserve it. So if, for example, anybody is saying we shouldn't be optimistic, where does the media come in? How do you deal with a situation such as this? Thank you very much. The problem where I have come to discover with Ninjas is that the attention span is really very short. And it is terrible because you find yourself in a situation where you go all out and try to get a perspective from the different people that make up the story, the different angles to it. And at the end of the day, someone will just ask you why you want to stress yourself. It is not far from the truth. In fact, he's actually telling the truth. Because when you look at what happened with the report submitted by the National Human Rights Commission to the Inspector General of Police, to the Attorney General of Infigration, who just sat down and looked at it and it's like, well, there's nothing much here. And pushed it back to the Inspector General of Police to hear the investigation again, which is rather funny. When you go around the country, the states where they have set up these judicial panels of inquiry, about two or three have wrapped up and none of the recommendations have been made public. Fake Foresters in Cross River State, it's over four months now since the judicial panel of inquiry into police brutality and other related matters ended. There is no information as to when the recommendations will be made public and if they will ever be made public and what have you. So I think what we have to do as journalists deliberately, like from my video outfit, we have continued dug in after the use of members of these judicial panels of inquiry to find out from them exactly when they are going to make this recommendation public. And aside from that, we also have to hold the Chief Executive of State Executive Councils, the governors who set up these judicial panels. In fact, when you look at, apart from probably Lagos and I think River State, other states say it was just the governors at their Whims and Caprices setting up these panels whosoever they felt like in Cross River State, some people were chosen and no one knows how they were chosen. There was no female representation. There was no gender balance. The youth representation was really minimal and what have you. There was nobody from the civil society, nothing like that. So it's actually a very gloomy picture. But as journalists are due to, of course, continue asking questions. And of course, people usually come up and say, okay, the problem with journalists is that there are very few investigative journalists out there and if you go, they'll tell you, okay, you move from one story to the other. But we need to start questioning the answers we receive from public office holders and what have you to ensure that people really get justice. But believe me, this issue from my analysis is going to take like two plus years and probably by the third quarter of next year, people will even just forget about it and be focusing on 2023 because that's what we'll be selling at that point in time. You just literally played into what I was going to ask next because I hear people say all the time, they say it to me, they say it to other journalists, that we play a part in bearing some of these stories. We don't follow up, that's the word. There is no follow up, for example. We only jump on stories when they're hot and they're sensational and right after that it dies down, we forget about it and we wait for the political parties of the politicians to make the news for us to report on it. And so we play a part somewhat, maybe, in killing these stories. And I'm wondering, let's not forget that as we speak about this protest, it's also one of the reasons why we do not have Twitter in Nigeria right now. I remember the Information Minister saying that Jack was sponsoring somewhat these protests to try to topple the government. So these two are connected. Now, nobody's also talking about the fact that Twitter has been banned for 100 plus days. Nothing has been said, no going forward. We don't even know what, you know, if there's ever going to be Twitter until this administration is over. And so obviously it means that the government does have an interest, but we, the media, are not trying to push for further questions to be asked. I'm wondering why that is. There are a couple of reasons, of course. It spans from ownership, influence, the bias of a mission, the bias of selection, you know, house stars and of course repressive, when you have a repressive regime like the one we have right now, it becomes terrible. In the past two years, I've been in court about three, four times. I've had about 12 leaders written to my office and addressed some to me, some to my publisher and some to my colleagues, you know, accusing us of libel and what have you, and you know, after we published stories. So it's a whole lot. Not so many journalists will want to really dug after the heels of our people to ask questions and then even question the answers that they receive. But beyond that, now, let me put this way. Now, imagine plus TV Africa is talking about this now, plus politics, right? What's the time span you have to really discuss these issues? The program is 24 hours, right? So at some point in time, you have to balance because you are not just focusing on the human interest story. You have to go politically. You have to do agro. You have to do the healthcare sector. You have to do education as well. There are some states who have even postponed the resumption of schools across the country. So it's a whole lot. And then you look at the newspaper, for instance. So the newspaper has worked for two pages. The publishers take two pages. They need some certain adverts of the tourists to stay afloat. And what have you? So all these things, a whole gamut that really causes this. So you're telling me that the hands of the media is tied under democracy. A government that we call a democracy. You're saying that our hands are tied because we still go cap and hand to these politicians to be able to pay salaries and fees. That's what you're saying. That's what I'm saying. It's quite unfortunate. But I'll leave it there. Let me go to our international relations expert. Now, Michael, I know that you've been watching from the outside to see all that's been playing out in Nigeria. The whole world saw what happened on October 20, 2020. And the aftermath of that protest at the Lecky Toll. You and I spoke a couple of days ago and you expressed some dissatisfaction as to how the issue has been handled so far. But judging from what you've heard from our two guests, where do you think this is all going? Well, thanks again for having me on the show. It is said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And it needs emphasizing that the ability or the willingness of the Nigerian youth and the Nigerian population to win back the confidence of the country's military, police and other security forces would be very critical in the security agency's response to the Lecky Toll Boots scandal or let's say massacre. I'm very surprised and it is quite an embarrassment for the Nigerian Army that the shell case that they presented for live ammunition do not match with that that was picked by the panel 10 days after the incident at the Toll Boots and this clearly demonstrates that there is some form of covert attempt to massage or determine the outcome of the sitting of the panel by presenting what appears to be a deliberately created false evidence or materials to sway public outcome or influence the outcome of the panel or committee's sit-ins. It is quite unfortunate what happened at Lecky Toll Boots with all certainty to international law constitutes crimes against humanity firing at unarmed protesters and going beyond that, beyond the killing, trying to present false evidence to sway public perception to change the outcome. And there were even instances where the Army appeared to suggest that the innocent protesters rather fired at the military men. Initially there was a denier that there were no military men, nobody was shot, nobody was killed. We fired only blank ammunition and then later on there is an admission that we fired live ammunition. This clearly tells us that from day one there has been a deliberate attempt by the Nigerian Army to cover up the Toll Boots, the Lecky Toll Gate incident and it is in the interest of the Nigerian government to apologize to the Nigerian people, to apologize to the youth. And as a matter of urgency, free the innocent people that have been incarcerated to date, those views human rights continue to be violated by constant harassment by state security agents on the sole basis that they participated in the demonstrations. If people should be arrested and jailed, it should be the military men and other security agents who shot at the unarmed civilians. The protesters only demonstrated because they sought for a better Nigeria where the youth would be free from oppression and intimidation by state security agencies. At the basis of security, at the basis of state security is the concept of assurance. Every manner of security is supposed to provide some form of assurance to the citizens and populace that regardless of where you are, no matter the time that you are, you should be safe in your own country and if citizens are not safe in their own country then it is a big problem for any government. Already Nigeria is battling with the insurgency of militants of jihadists, of terrorists. Today I read in the news that there's been another attack on a jail or a prison somewhere in Nigeria. Guards have been killed, inmates have been set free. You read so many horrifying stories coming out of Nigeria. If the government wants to really, really address the insecurity in Nigeria, first it needs the goodwill and support of the people. The government should not antagonize the very people that are supposed to give it the right moral backing and support to address the country's insecurity. The Nigerias Army, police, whatever the Department of State Security if they have anything worthy of doing to guarantee the sovereignty of the state by providing security for every citizen of Nigeria then they should channel their energy and resources in tackling the rampant abuse of militants, jihadism, activities of terrorism, brutality, the kidnapping of innocent schoolgirls and schoolboys. But Michael, from all that you... Yes, you're reading these things on the pages of newspapers but we're the ones who are experiencing it. In the past, in fact, in the past few months even into the year before now there have been all kinds of bills that have been passed to either try to limit the media and now you also know about the fact that Twitter has been put down obviously. This is a venting place for most Nigerians. This is where most people find their voices to speak about the things that are happening and the injustices that we're experiencing in the country. Now how do we going forward? Because again, I keep emphasizing that we're in a democracy, we're not in a military dispensation, we're in a democracy supposedly. And the rights, the voices, the displeasures of the average Nigerian is not being heard by our leaders and for every time the people decide that they want to protest because this is the only tool that you can use to get the attention of those who lead you, especially if you are displeased with how they're leading. That particular right is being trampled upon as it is right now. Protests seem to be somewhat banned in this country even though there's no legal backing to that but every time Nigerians try to go out to protest the police shows up and arrests people. How do we want to get development? How do we want to move forward? Because you've mentioned that the government needs one way or the other to be in the good books of the average Nigerian but that is not happening. We have a government that's not listening to us. Where do we go from here? Well first, I believe that it is in the interest of the Nigerian government to allow the youth to vent their anger on social media than for the youth to breathe their anger internally. It is very dangerous when these angers explode because when people keep things inside them and they definitely get to a breaking point at the limit, it becomes difficult to contain them and any explosion, any lighted explosion by the Nigerian youth would be very difficult to detail. However, I would urge the Nigerian citizen not to give up on his demand for a better Nigeria not to give up on the demand for the expression of basic human rights. It is your fundamental human right to free expression and any government that is afraid of the descent of its own very people, even on social media should be extremely worried. Because listen, this is a country with over 172 million population. Majority of this population is its youth and the basic medium where the youth communicate all over the world today is social media and that one popular platform that they use to communicate their grievances, we are taking that platform from them. Basically what you are doing is that you are denying them the opportunity to even express descent and this anger is likely to degenerate or escalate to a boiling point where the Nigerian army may not be able to contain. Quickly, Michael, because we're almost out of time so I can get a few last words in from the other guys. As we speak, the United States Senate put a pause on the sale of military equipment to Nigeria. Now, one of the reasons why, in fact the biggest reason why they have paused that sale is because they're pointing to human rights issues, human rights abuses, they're talking about high-handedness by the army and here we are talking about the army owning up to what happened at the Lekitaw You've mentioned about us having to deal with insecurity. Will we ever get to the point where we can really fight insecurity in our country if the people who are supposed to help us in fighting that insecurity do not trust our army to fight insecurity without human rights issues arising maybe for the obtuse time? Well, I believe that there can be a way for Nigeria to address insecurity like you earlier raised. You see, that is a problem with high-handed governments. Currently, the Nigerian government needs these weapons to confront rising jihadism, militancy and the threat of Boko Haram and because he decided to use these weapons on its own citizens, there is a ban by the US government on the sale of weapons. Although Nigeria can get these weapons from the international markets, obviously they can buy from the Russians, the Chinese. However, it affects the country's credibility and international standard and prestige. A government that unleashes violence, intimidation, treachery on its own citizens when jihadists and militants are terrorizing the country in other parts. These are some of the issues that needs to be addressed and I believe that for Nigeria to really resolve this issue of insecurity it needs the collaboration of all stakeholders those seeking to secede from Nigeria should be brought to the drawing board. You should not arrest the leaders of the succession movement. I'm an international law practitioner. I'm against any group of people or any people hoping to secede from a country but if you really want to achieve peace in your country, you don't arrest the leaders of the succession movement. Bring them to the negotiation table. Try to understand them from their point of view if they are expressing sentiments of underdevelopment of economic deprivation try and extend development to their respective regions or states. These are some of the things these are the fundamental things that can bring Nigeria back to a state of security. Address religious tensions enough of the religious conflicts between Christians and Muslims they divide between the north and south. Address these fundamental issues. Once you are able to address these issues you have a forum of people to move on with for a common Nigeria. We have to go unfortunately this time it's not on our side but I want to say thank you Michael Kecia is an international relations and security expert and of course Jonathan Abang is a journalist. Thank you gentlemen for lending your voice to this conversation. Thank you, thank you. We will take a short break thank you all for staying with us when we return. The federal government has been encouraged to reveal the sponsors of Boko Harau Who are they? We'll get to find out after this break.