Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu said on Thursday that no order was given to dismantle the lights and cameras at the Lekki Toll Gate on Tuesday.
The Next Edition had reported Seyi Tinubu, owner of Loatsad Promomedia, managing the billboard at the Lekki Toll Gate saying on Wednesday that the billboard was switched off on the orders of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
He had spoken in response to media reports accusing him of complicity in the shooting of #EndSARS protesters at the Toll Gate on Tuesday night after the billboard had been turned off.
However, speaking on Thursday in an interview with Arise News Television Morning Show crew, Sanwo-Olu maintained that nobody ordered the removal of cameras at the Lekki toll gate.
“The MD of LCC said because of the curfew, they made the decision to take out installations.
“The cameras you saw are not security or motion cameras, they are laser cameras for vehicles.
“The security cameras are still available, and we are using them for our security investigations,” he stated in the interview monitored by The Next Edition.
Sanwo-Olu also disclosed that he has not heard from the President, Muhammadu Buhari since the shooting on Tuesday.
This, he said is in spite of placing two phone calls to the President.
Responding to a direct question on whether he had spoken to President Buhari to brief him about the situation in Lagos state, Gov. Sanwo-Olu responded: “I made calls to the President twice yesterday (Wednesday) but firstly, I was told he wasn’t in office and the second time he was said to be at the FEC meeting; I haven’t spoke to him directly but I have reached the Chief of Staff to the President.
“He was actually the one that asked the Chief of Defence Staff to call me and I think it was when he got my message because when the Chief of Defence Staff called me, he said to me, it was the President that asked him to call…so I have not spoken to him directly.
“So maybe sometime later today that might happen. I don’t have a report to say this was what he said or anything because we haven’t spoken.”
Sanwo-Olu also reiterated his position that he did not know who ordered the military to the Lekki Toll Gate where they killed protesters.
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He disclosed that the Chief of Defense Staff and Chief of Army Staff both called him on Wednesday “to find out what was happening on ground and to say that if I need the military to come out they will deploy them.”
On the way forward and what his message to Lagos state and Nigeria at this point, the Governor said: “This is time as a people, as a state to come together more that ever before.
We need to bring ourselves together, we need to heal several wounds we created for ourselves.
We need to know that the stronger we are together the better we’ll remain as a country.
“In Lagos we need to preserve the state.
We need to end any form of anger, any form of protests, we need to end any form of bleeding, confrontation and then start with healing process because this is not what Lagos is.This is a place we do not discriminate your color, skin, religion or the ethnic nationality, we are one.”
