Nigerian counsel to the Cable News Network (CNN) Olumide Babalola, has called on Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, to eschew his pride and tender an apology to the medium for tagging it a fake news outfit after an investigative report carried out by the American media house on the killing of protesters at the Lekki Tollgate on October 20, 2020.
In a statement on Tuesday, Babalola said the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and other matters report had vindicated the CNN’s investigative report, titled, ‘How a bloody night of bullets and brutality quashed a young protest movement’.
“Alhaji Lai Mohammed should eschew his pride and apologise to the CNN if he has any integrity left.
“He has consistently claimed that the CNN’s report of massacre was false, but the panel has vindicated the CNN’s position on the gruesome and wanton killings at the Lekki Tollgate.
“Without necessarily saying more on this, since the same Minister had earlier called on the CNN to apologise for fake news, which has now been quasi-judicially proved to be true, one would think the honourable thing for Alhaji Mohammed to do, as an elder statesman and learned gentleman, is to apologise to the CNN especially.
“However, as we continue to wait on the Minister and the Federal Government’s next move, I sympathise with families of all the victims of Lekki massacre, while we pray for the souls of the departed and hope the government implements the report in full,” Babalola said.
He recalled that the minister had railed at the CNN over the report, which he tagged ‘fake news’ and threatened sanctions against the media house.
“In the light of the report by the judicial panel, Mohammed ought to eat the humble pie and apologise to the CNN,” Babalola added
