Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu
Suspension of planned End Sars mass burial in Lagos. The Lagos State Government has announced that the scheduled mass burial of the 103 bodies retrieved in the aftermath of the #EndSARS protest in October 2020 has been postponed.
Mr Gbenga Omotoso, the Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, told The PUNCH on Monday that the planned mass burial had been postponed due to the controversy created by the announcement in July.
According to The PUNCH, the state government stated in a leaked memo dated July 19, 2023 that it will arrange a mass funeral for the 103 victims.
This has caused consternation among human rights activists and civil society organizations.
A human rights organisation, Amnesty International, and a group under the aegis of the Coalition of #EndSARS Protesters and Supporters had demanded that the state government should suspend the planned mass burial.
In addition to the suspension demand, Amnesty International had asked the government to “also carry out transparent coroner inquest and autopsies on the 103 #EndSARS victims.”
In its reaction, the state government through the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Mr Gboyega Akosile, exclusively told The PUNCH that the government would “conform to global best practices” in carrying out the mass burial.
When asked for an update on the matter on Monday, the Commissioner for Information and Strategy said the planned mass burial “remains suspended to give people ample time to identify their relatives that may be among the corpses.”
“It is to allow more time for identification as suggested when it was disclosed that the government was planning a mass burial for them,” Omotoso said.
He stated further that “up till now, nobody has shown up to identify any of the corpses. But the government has decided to give people more time.”
He added that the planned burial would “be carried out soon, but because of the controversies around that time, it was suspended. People now have the time and ample opportunity to see if their relatives are there.”