– By Ismail Auwal
The Federal Government has threatened to sanction Cable News Network (CNN) over its report on the alleged shooting of #EndSARS protesters by soldiers at the Lekki toll plaza.
The foreign media outlet had published its report on the incident, alleging that soldiers used live bullets on #EndSARS protesters who had converged on Lekki tollgate on October 20.
However, the government, in a press conference by Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, described the report as “irresponsible journalism.”
The Minister who described the event of October 20, 2020 as a “massacre without bodies” insisted that not a single body has been produced or a single family has come out to claim their family member was killed at the Lekki tollgate.
The Minister alleged that the CNN relied on social media videos without verification to produce its report. “This should earn CNN a serious sanction for irresponsible reporting,” Mohammed said.
According to him, some “unscrupulous persons” including celebrities circulated fake news on the social media that aggravated the violence that trailed the two-week demonstration.
