Discondant tunes from the Federal Government over the submitted ENDSARS report of the Lagos State panel to the state government is causing anxiety in the polity.
Besides, the development is seen as capable of of heightening the already tensed country faced with killings and abductions on daily basis.
To some stakeholders, it portends worrisome signals in a federal system of government.
Specifically, President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday was said to have explained why his administration would not speak on the report by the Lagos Judicial Panel of Inquiry on EndSARS just yet, noting that government would allow the system to exhaust itself before making any pronouncement.
Speaking while receiving Antony Blinken, United States Secretary of State, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, President Buhari said the Federal Government would wait for pronouncements from state governments which set up panels to probe police brutality in the country.
A statement issued by Femi Adesina, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, quoted President Buhari as saying: “So many state governments are involved, and have given different terms of reference to the probe panels.. “
According to some analysts, Buhari’s response was an indication that his government regards the report as credible.
Also, the fact that Lagos State government had set up committee to study it and come out with recommendations lends credence to the credibility of the report.
But Buhari’s minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has however dismissed the report of the panel as fake news.
Addressing a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday, Mohammed said the report submitted to Lagos state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu is a rehash of already circulating fake news.
Mohammed maintained that instead of sitting for one year, the panel should have just compiled social media reports and wound up.
The minister alleged that the report is ridden with discrepancies, innuendos, inconsistency and errors.
He wondered what the panel meant by its conclusion of “massacre in context,” declaring that it can only be a “phantom massacre.”
The minister remarked that the report did not make any recommendations for innocent victims killed in Lagos, saying that it cannot be relied upon.
But, the questions on the lips of most Nigerians are, “Has the Federal Government allowed the system to exhaust itself before making any pronouncement; has Lagos State government come out with its own white paper; who is Mohammed speaking for and how does Mohammed feel the state government and the youth of this country would regard the response of the federal government,?.“
