#EndSARS Protests: Presidency Tackles Amnesty International Over Misleading, Inaccurate Reports
The Presidency has accused the Amnesty International (AI) of churning out misleading and inaccurate reports on the recent #EndSARS protests and the resultant crisis that engulfed the country.
Faulting the global rights watchdog on Channels Television daily programme, Sunrise Daily, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, said Amnesty International’s report on the crisis misplaced facts and presented wrong information in most cases.A
Adesina accused AI of engineering the unfortunate narrative that the widespread chaos in parts of the country, which led to the killing of policemen and civilians, as well as burning of police stations, destruction of private and public properties looted, was precipitated by the shooting at the Lekki Toll Plaza on Tuesday, October 20, 2020
He said the narrative was quite misleading because the timeline of events showed that anarchic activities and carnage had begun ahead of the alleged shooting of protesters at the Lekki Toll Plaza.
The presidential aide insisted that the jail breaks in Benin and Oko; the attacks on police stations and murder of police personnel in different places, are pointers to the fact that the violent crisis that recently pervaded the country was not just as a result of the Lekki incident.
Also reacting to public opinion and suggestion that the looting was a fallout of the Lekki shootings, Adesina said: “You are not quite correct. You are falling for the narrative of Amnesty International. And Amnesty is wrong. Anarchy had broken loose before even Lekki.
“The prisons in Benin and Oko had been broken open before Lekki. Orile police station had been burnt before Lekki. Many policemen had been burnt before Lekki.
“So, you cannot say it was Lekki that precipitated all those things. Look at the timelines, look at when all those things happened. You will discover that it had happened before Lekki. So, you are falling for the gambit of Amnesty International.”
“Amnesty International does not have all the facts; they don’t run this country. They shouldn’t know beyond what they have been told. They shouldn’t know more than you and I should know as media people, as watchers of developments,” he said.
On the President’s thinking about the Amnesty’s report, Adesina said the organization has been known to always present unsubstantiated reports about Nigeria.
“Many times, the military had come out to dispute ‘facts’ brought out by Amnesty,” the presidential spokesman said.
Similarly, he disclosed that the President has ordered his ministers to submit within one week the reports of their engagements with stakeholders in their various states over the recent chaotic events that trailed the #EndSARS protests.
