Nigerian general dismisses bloody Lagos protest videos as fake

By Alexis Akwagyiram
LAGOS, Nov 21 (Reuters) - A judicial panel investigating
claims that Nigerian soldiers shot dead peaceful protesters in
Lagos viewed videos on Saturday appearing to show people hurt or
saying that they were being fired on, but an army general
dismissed the footage.
Brigadier General Ahmed Taiwo, who heads the army's 81st
Division in Lagos, also said soldiers had been deployed to the
protest with both live rounds and blanks, having previously told
the panel only blanks were used.
The panel is looking into allegations that the army and
police last month opened fire on and killed people protesting at
the city's Lekki Toll Gate against police brutality.
The protests were largely peaceful but triggered some of the
worst civil unrest since Nigeria's return to civilian rule in
1999. They climaxed in the events of Oct. 20, in which the
rights group Amnesty International said soldiers and police had
killed at least 12 protesters in two districts.
Both the army and police have denied killing demonstrators.
The panel on Saturday watched surveillance camera footage of
events at the toll gate on the evening of Oct. 20 as well as
videos submitted by others.
One video, supplied by the army, appeared to show a person
lying in a pool of blood. "We discovered it was a fake video,"
Taiwo said, adding that the footage had been found online.
The panel viewed other videos including one where a voice,
amid the sound of gunfire, said: "They are shooting at
protesters". Another showed a crowd, where a woman shouted:
"They are shooting at us!"
Taiwo said: "Many of these videos there were manipulated."
In his testimony last week, Taiwo said soldiers had fired
blank rounds only, into the air, to disperse protesters. But on
Saturday, he said soldiers had been sent with live rounds too.
"The soldiers would be given both live and blank bullets,"
he said. "We saw that these protests had been infiltrated by
some hoodlums. That is why they were armed with blank ammunition
in addition to the live they were carrying."