Five Heartbreaking Years On: Amid Overwhelming Evidence, Ex-Minister Lai Mohammed Clings to Denial, — No Protester Died at Lekki Toll Gate

In a statement that pierces the heart like a fresh wound, former Minister of Information Lai Mohammed has doubled down on his painful insistence: lives were indeed lost in the 2020 #EndSARS protests, but not one fell at the bloodstained Lekki Toll Gate.

Even as the nation mourns and evidence mounts, he claims the Federal Government never denied the broader toll of those anguished days.

Speaking Tuesday on Channels Television’s Politics Today, Mohammed’s voice echoed unchanged after five agonizing years.

He acknowledged security personnel among the dead but dismissed protester fatalities at the toll gate with chilling finality.

“At no point did the government ever say that lives were not lost during #EndSARS,” he uttered, as if words alone could erase the screams etched in collective memory.

Mohammed revealed he stayed in tense contact with top military brass, even before soldiers descended on Lagos.

Yet, in a claim that deepens the betrayal felt by grieving families, he pointed to silence from supposed victims’ kin: “Five years after, nobody has come out today to say, ‘My ward went to the toll gate, and he didn’t come back.'”

Tinubu commissions series of projects in Borno, lauds Zulum’s exceptional performance

The absence of public claims, he argues, vindicates his stance, ignoring the fear, threats, and shattered lives that silence many.

He scornfully rejected the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry’s damning verdict labeling the incident a massacre, insisting he wasn’t part of that government and decrying the report’s “inconsistencies.” Soldiers, he claimed, fired only

Delta Govt Dismisses Gbemre’s Claims, Reaffirms Oborevwori’s Commitment to Peaceblanks, a hollow defense against videos of bodies slumped in pools of blood.

Justifying the troops’ deployment, Mohammed described it as a necessary shield after “hoodlums” hijacked peaceful cries for justice.

But for the families forever scarred, the Lekki Toll Gate remains a gaping wound, one of #EndSARS’s most gut-wrenching chapters, fueling endless debates, courtroom battles, and tearful annual remembrances that demand truth amid the fog of denial.