Five years after the EndSARS protests, former Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, has once again dismissed claims that a massacre occurred at the Lekki Toll Gate on October 20, 2020, insisting the narrative was fuelled by “fake news” circulating on social media.
Speaking on Thursday during an interview on ARISE News at the launch of his new book, Headlines and Soundbites: Media Moments That Defined an Administration, Mohammed said the alleged massacre remained “one of the most persistent falsehoods” his office confronted while in government.
“EndSARS was unfortunate and tragic, but the claim that there was a massacre at the tollgate is fake news,” he said. According to him, the absence of families publicly reporting missing relatives linked to the incident reinforces his long-held position. “Five years on, nobody has come out to say: ‘My son or my ward went to the tollgate and didn’t return,’” he argued.
Mohammed also criticised international coverage of the incident, singling out CNN for relying on what he described as “second-hand information.” While acknowledging that fatalities occurred in other protest hotspots such as Abuja, Lagos and Kano, he maintained that no mass killing took place at the Lekki Toll Plaza.
Mohammed also defended the government’s 2021 Twitter ban, describing unregulated social media as a national security threat and a key driver of misinformation. His new book chronicles the administration’s battles with what he characterised as false narratives, from COVID-19 rumours to the controversies surrounding EndSARS.