By Libby George
LAGOS, Dec 8 (Reuters) - It was after midnight in Lagos on
Oct. 21 when Elisha Sunday said he got a call from his brother
Victor's phone: a stranger told him Victor had been shot dead by
soldiers at Lekki Toll Gate.
After a sleepless night, he said he went out to find the
body but roads towards the upscale neighbourhood were blocked
and he heard shooting so turned back.
Elisha, 24, said he later saw pictures of his 27-year-old
brother on Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), draped in a Nigerian flag and covered in
blood. After that, the trail went cold.
Protesters objecting to police brutality and demanding
wide-ranging reforms had held demonstrations across Nigeria for
nearly two weeks when witnesses in the Lekki district of Lagos
said soldiers and police opened fire on them on Oct. 20.
Rights group Amnesty International said 12 protesters were
killed in two districts that night, prompting the worst unrest
since Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999.
Both the military and police have denied the shootings. The
government ordered state governments to set up judicial panels
to investigate police abuse allegations. Witness testimonies to
a Lagos judicial panel said the bodies were trucked away.
Victor's best friend, David Friday, said Victor went to
Lekki because it looked fun, with food, drinks and a party
atmosphere; a gardener and amateur comedian, he was not
politically engaged.
"Right now, I am alone," said Elisha, a softly spoken
24-year-old. "There is nowhere to find him."
Few families have come forward publicly to demand answers
about their loved ones, and activists say some are too afraid to
reclaim the bodies of those killed that night, leaving them with
painful questions about their fate nearly two months on.
The Lagos state government has said those who lost family
members between Oct. 19 and 27 should go to Lagos State
University Teaching Hospital to try to identify their bodies.
Elisha said he was turned away from the hospital three
times, first for not having proper documentation, then because a
hospital doctor had not accompanied him to the mortuary in
nearby Yaba and finally because the chief doctor was not
available.
He said he fears retaliation from the government, but will
keep trying for the sake of his mother and three sisters in the
southeastern state of Akwa Ibom.
"My mother wants my brother, just to take him home and bury
him as we're supposed to do," he said.
Lagos State Health Commissioner Akin Abayomi said it was
standard procedure when anyone died in "unnatural circumstances"
for the state to keep bodies until relatives proved their
relationship.
He said he could not say how many were there, how they were
killed or how many families had collected their relatives'
remains.
State government spokesman Gbenga Omotoso said the deaths
were related to the "anarchy" around the Lekki incident,
including "acts of violence which the perpetrators used the
genuine protests to cover".
Whether Victor's body is there was between his family and
the doctors, he said.