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ENDSARS: Nigerians react to how Falana picks, discards US reports as circumstance dictates
Human rights lawyer Femi Falana has discredited the US and its investigation report of the October 20 police-protester violence at the Lekki Toll Gate, Lagos, and urge the media to not treat Nigerians as colonial slaves by celebrating the report.
“Why should I rely on the very unreliable report compiled in Washington on the genocidal attacks on unarmed protesters by soldiers from the Barracks who were illegally deployed by the immediate past Chief of Army Staff, General Tukur Buratai?” he stated in a press statement
Falana said this in a press statement where he revealed a snippet of his Alliance on Surviving Covid-19 and Beyond findings on the Lekki incident.
He has more than surprised many with his frontal rejection of the report, which they believe he really anticipated to pan out in favour of his effort and other ENDSARS activitsts’ at nailing the Nigerian government to what he called a genocide.
After all, this is not the first report the US will release on Nigeria—which Falana could have accepted one way or the other.
The SAN accepted the US report on religious tolerance, which particularly indicted President Muhammadu Buhari’s government because of its clampdown on the Shiite (Islamic Movement of Nigeria)
The movement is one of Falana’s high-profile clients over the years.
Falana also accepted the US report on former V.P. Atiku Abubakar—as a wanted man in the US over financial corruption.
He made a point of the US report in an interview on Channels TV in March 2019 after Atiku lost the 2019 presidential election.
Even if he claims it was an indirect statement, Falana still echoed, “Atiku is under investigation by the US government.”
Except he is really an oddball, Falana and other Nigerian lawyers have always pointed at the US as paragon of rule of law and freedom.
They and their conscious groups, pro-government analysts say, petitioned and protested at embassies of the Western countries in the wake of violence, retweeting President-Elect Joe Biden warning to the Buhari government.
But as far as the US report goes, the jury is still out.
The Department of State only said it has no evidence yet to establish a massacre at the Lekki Toll Gate.