BMO: Amnesty International, Transparency International bankroll $750,000 distortion of #EndSARS investigative panel

By Tunde Opalana

Two international organisations; Amnesty International and Transparency International have been accused of funding a set of Nigerians to the tune of $750,000 (N360,000,000) to set up a parallel investigative panel to prove the recent #EndSARS protest and the alleged October 20 shooting of protesters at the Lekki toll gate, Daily Times gathered.

In so doing, the two bodies were accused of plans to set up a separate panel , to  distort facts presented at the ongoing Lagos judicial panel and disparaging the nation before the international community.

Mr. ‘Niyi Akinsiju, Chairman, Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) levelled the allegations  at a Press Conference he addressed in Abuja on Tuesday.

 The BMO said it is necessary to expose the antics of the “Amnesty International and its local collaborators with intent at destabilising the country under the guise of setting up a parallel investigative panel on what they have described as human rights violations encountered, witnessed or heard during the recent EndSARS protests”.

Akinsiju said these local collaborators, operating under the guise of Coalition for Survival of Covid-19 and led by a prominent human rights lawyer, are bent on discrediting the judicial panel investigating the alleged Lekki shootings and the defunct SARS’ alleged brutalities.

 Insisting that a new investigative panel is unnecessary when the Lagos panel and different panels in at least 30 states of the Federation , the chairman said “these individuals who should have used the open platform of the judicial panel in Lagos to prove their claim of massacre at the Lekki toll gate on October 20 are now colluding with Amnesty International which is still struggling to manufacture evidence of its allegations of a massacre that night by soldiers.

 “Gentlemen, we have reasons to believe that this investigative panel which they intend to run parallel with the States’ Judicial Panel,  is nothing short of a charade paid for by Amnesty International and Transparency Initiative to smear the image of the Nigerian Army with contrived testimonies.

“A substantial fund running into US$750,000 (N360,000 000) has been provided and paid into an account outside the country. The information at our disposal is that the organisers are still expecting more funds for the hatchet job they have signed up for.

“Their modus operandi will include using people who will be identified as military men, with their faces masked, to present damaging ‘testimonies’ against the Army authorities.

 “We also have it on good authority that the United States’ Cable News Network (CNN), which blatantly refused to appear before the Lagos panel on its so-called investigative report on the Lekki incident is bracing up to give full coverage to the gathering.

 “We invite Nigerians to see how some of our countrymen have descended to the level of dragging their own country for wads of dollars, and advise Nigerians to reject these enemies of the nation and their self-serving mission.

 “We also urge security agencies to be alert to the antics of these lackeys of foreign bodies who rather than use their coalition for the purpose of galvanizing Nigerians to survive the negative impacts of Covid-19 and ensure equity is served through the ongoing public sittings of the judicial panels across the country, are more interested in helping their paymasters sustain the lies that they have been unable to prove for weeks”.

 With what it described as a deliberate campaign of distortions and confusion that this parallel investigative panel would create, the media organisation said the Nigerian collaborators have jettisoned patriotism and nationalism.

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