Two lawyers, Adekunle Augustine and Semion Akogwu, have asked a Federal High Court in Lagos to order the disbandment of the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry looking into complaints of human rights abuses by men of the now scrapped police Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).
It is also to investigate the alleged shooting of protesters at the Lekki tollgate by soldiers on October 20, 2020.
The Panel is headed by retired Justice Doris Okuwobi (rtd).
The lawyers, in a suit before the court, are asking the court to disband the panel and nullify all its proceedings so far.
According to the lawyers, given that the soldiers who allegedly shot at the #EndSARS protesters at the Lekki tollgate were invited by the Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the same governor cannot set up a panel to probe the incident.
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The lawyers are contending that the setting up of the judicial panel is in conflict with the provisions of Section 36 of the Constitution.
It is also the contention of the plaintiffs that the setting up of the panel by the governor is “tantamount to making the governor a judge in his own cause and ipso facto breaches the plaintiffs rights to fair hearing.”
Therefore, they are paying for an order of the court “disbanding the 3rd defendant (panel) and nullifying its proceedings and whatsoever actions taken thereby so far, to give way for a credible and independent commission of inquiry to be set up by the Federal Government to take over the mandate of the 3rd defendant as contemplated by its establishment abi nitio.”
The defendants in the suit are the Governor of Lagos State; Judicial Panel of Inquiry and Restitution for Victims of SARS-Related Abuses in Lagos State and Lekki Tollgate Incident; the panel’s chairman; and the Attorney General of Lagos State.
No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.
