Legal practitioner, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa (SAN), has raised an alarm over what he described as “vicious attacks” on members of the Lagos Judicial Panel of Enquiry on Police Brutality following the group’s submission of its report.
“Since the submission of the EndSARS Panel Report to the Governor of Lagos State on November 15, 2021, members of the Panel have become the subject of vicious attacks by those suspected to be agents of the government, ” Adegboruwa, a member of the panel, said in a statement he issued on Thursday.
“All manner of allegations has been heaped upon Panel Members, some of who have been called unprintable names.”
He restated that members of the panel were appointed on merit, debunking reports that they lobbied to get into the position.
“As a matter of fact, in my own case, His Excellency, the Governor of Lagos State, appealed to me to accept my appointment, which I saw as a call to national service,” he added.
“The primary reason the Governor gave to me then was that he wanted men and women of integrity, independent and not subject to manipulation, to be on the Panel.”
Adegboruwa described a report credited to an unnamed counsel to the Lagos State Government that members of the panel took bribes as “unfair, ungodly, and least expected of the government and its lawyers”.
According to him, the panel is waiting for the Lagos State Government’s white paper on the report submitted by the panel but decried the “mindless propaganda upon Panel Members”.
While calling on the Lagos State Government to “call its agents and lawyers to order so as not to provoke aggravated responses,” he said members of the panel deserve better treatment from the government.
“I should not become a victim of unwarranted attacks just because I accepted to serve the government and the outcome of that assignment did not favour the expectations of the government,” Adegboruwa, further noted.
“Suffice it to mention that I worked with men and women of unblemished integrity and I’m proud to be associated with them all.”