“There was no massacre in Lekki Toll Gate” – Lai Mohammed

Former Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has once again stirred controversy after insisting that no “massacre” took place at the Lekki Toll Gate during the 2020 EndSARS protests.

Speaking in an interview on ARISE News while promoting his new book, Headlines and Soundbites: Media Moments That Defined an Administration, the former minister said the Lekki shooting narrative was driven by fake news and unverified social media reports.

According to him, fighting misinformation was one of the biggest challenges of his tenure, especially during the height of the EndSARS movement.

“EndSARS was unfortunate, it was tragic, but that there was a massacre at the tollgate is fake news,” he said.

Lai Mohammed also argued that in the five years since the incident, no family has stepped forward to officially report a missing relative linked to the protest.

Using a proverb, he added:

“If a man has a goat and the goat does not come home one night, he will go out and look for that goat. Now, five years on today, nobody has come to tell us that my son or my ward went to the tollgate and didn’t come back.”

His comments have reignited public reactions and reopened one of Nigeria’s most sensitive national debates.

Lai Mohammed’s remarks have once again divided public opinion, as Nigerians revisit the events of October 2020 and the continued debate surrounding what truly happened at the Lekki Toll Gate.