The Cable News Network, CNN, has demanded an apology from the Nigeria Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed for calling its investigative report on the Lekki shooting on October 20, 2020, a fake report.
This is coming as the media’s lawyer in Nigeria, Olumide Babalola, in a statement on Tuesday asked the Minister to apologise for his action.
The CNN lawyer, while reacting to the panel report, said it confirmed the report by the CNN as authentic. The report was titled ‘How a bloody night of bullets and brutality quashed a young protest movement’.
The lawyer said, “Alhaji Mohammed had consistently claimed that the CNN’s report of massacre was false, but the panel has vindicated the 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 the CNN to apologise for fake news, which has now been quasi-judicially proved to be true, one would think the honourable thing for Alhaji Mohammed to do, as an elder statesman and learned gentleman, is to apologise to the CNN especially.
“However, as we continue to wait on the minister and the Federal Government’s next move, I sympathise 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.”