How would you approve N61m naira to bury 103 degraded bodies? - End SARS Lawyer quizzes Lagos govt

A leading #EndSARS lawyer, Adeshina Ogunlana questioned the Lagos State Government after a leaked document showed 61 million naira has been budgeted for the mass funeral of 103 victims of #EndSARS close to three years after their deaths.

Lawyer Ogunlana in an interview on Channels TV on Monday, July 24 said that the government is seeking to make profits from the mass burial of the corpses of the deceased.

The renowned lawyer who has been at the center of the fight for persons affected during the crisis in 2020 quizzed, "How can you imagine that? Something that a local government can do...A mass burial of just 103 people?"

His comments came after a letter from the Lagos State Public Procurement Agency confirmed a move by the state government to carry out a mass burial for 103 victims of #EndSARS close to three years after their deaths.

The letter dated July 19, 2023, and titled ‘Letter Of No Objection. Mass Burial For The 103. The Year 2020 EndSARS Victims’ was addressed to the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health and signed by the Director General of the Lagos State Public Procurement Agency, Mr. Onafowote Fatai Idow

The details of the killings that occurred during the 2020 #EndSARS protests in Lagos have been a subject of controversy, particularly the incident of October 20, 2020, at the Lekki toll gate where soldiers and the police killed an unspecified number of peaceful protesters.

Meanwhile, the letter confirms the award of N61,285,000.00 (Sixty-One Million, Two Hundred and Eighty-Five Thousand Naira) contract to TOS Funerals Limited for the mass burial for the 103 victims of #EndSARS protests. However, the letter did not state the number of people killed in Lekki or in any part of the state.

The letter reads, “We refer to your letter dated 13 July 2023 with Ref No: LSMH/G/NS/013-1/23 in respect of the above subject matter.

Lawyer Ogunlana said: "The people are dead but even now the government, the system of government we run in Nigeria is showing that we are even profiting - they want to proceed by the cruel loss of life. How would you say that you have approved 61 million naira to bury 103 degraded bodies in a mass grave?"

"People that are unidentified and unclaimed and all that - that is horrendous and that is part of the problem we can not recover back because we have leadership that is asking the poor to sacrifice and yet you are running and expensive, bloated government," he added.

"How can you imagine that? Something that a local government can do...Mass burial of just 103 people?"