The management of the Lekki Concession Company Limited (LCC) says the closed-circuit television system (CCTV) from the Lekki toll gate is intact. On
The management of the Lekki Concession Company Limited (LCC) says the closed-circuit television system (CCTV) from the Lekki toll gate is intact.
On Tuesday, officers of the Nigerian army fired live bullets at unarmed #EndSARS protesters who gathered at the Lekki toll gate, leading to wide condemnation and a breakdown of law and order in Lagos.
Nigerians had accused LCC of aiding the action by disrupting power supply and removing its CCTV hours before the shooting.
The Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, said that security cameras captured the shootings of #EndSARS protesters at the Lekki toll gate. He said the footage would be submitted to the judicial panel on police brutality, extra-judicial killings and extortion.
The governor said this during a live programme on ARISE TV on Thursday. He said this when asked why the cameras capturing the protest was removed before the shootings of #EndSARS protesters at the Lekki toll gate. In his response, he noted that the CCTV cameras have footage of what happened during the protests. Sanwo-Olu also explained that the footage would be given to experts to analyse.
He said, “I will just speak up the truth on what actually happened. There are security personnel of The Lekki Concession Company on the ground. I had called the Managing Director that night when I saw the pictures. What he said to me is that because of the curfew that has been announced, they took a decision that they will take out installations that are critical to them. That camera that you saw is not a security camera or a motion camera. The camera is a laser camera for vehicles. It picks the tag on cars and number plate.
On its part, the LCC said the picture of its staff removing equipment circulating online is part of its equipment recovery exercise to ensure the safekeeping of its equipment.
“LCC has cooperated with the protesters from the onset, identifying with the cause and need to end the police brutality. We provided lights, toilets among other items to the youth as a show of solidarity,” the statement read.
“As the protests progressed, our tolling equipment was being looted. We recovered items daily with the help of some of the protesters. Such items included air conditioners, violation alarm bells, monitors, keyboards, etc. On the 20th of October, we received feedback that some of the tolling equipment were being pulled off, hence we went into the lanes to recover more items including an analogue BOSCH tolling devices used to monitor transactions carried out in the toll lanes.
“The perimeter closed-circuit television system(CCTV) are Mobotrix digital cameras. They were not removed and are still installed in the lanes even now. There was no instruction from anyone to remove the perimeter CCTV cameras. Removing them will require the use of machinery to reach the heights that they have been installed and are still installed.”
Explaining the power outage, LCC said it withdrew staff from all its office locations hence they could not switch on the backup generators when power was interrupted. LCC receives power from the IPP grid, the power albeit stable is taken from time to time.
“At such times, LCC relies on the backup generators for power supply, however, following the declaration of the curfew by the state governor, LCC withdrew all her staff from the office locations. This is the reason why the lights could not be restored when the mains from IPP went off temporarily. This is verifiable.”
