By Tayo Alabi
The Presidency, Thursday rejected the report of Amnesty International alleging that the report on the Lekki shootings was skewed.
The Presidency said the Amnesty International cannot have more facts about things happening in the country than the President.
According to Vanguard report, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Chief Femi Adesina, spoke at the Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme where he disputed the allegations that the looting and rioting were not caused by the military shootings, insisting that there was already violence in some parts of the country before the Lekki incident.
Fielding question that the looting was a fall out of the Lekki shootings, Adesina said, “You are not quite correct. You are falling for the narrative of Amnesty International. And Amnesty is wrong.
“Anarchy had broken loose before even Lekki. The prisons in Benin and Oko had been broken open before Lekki. Orile police station had been burnt before Lekki.
“Many policemen had been burnt before Lekki. So, you cannot say it was Lekki that precipitated all those things. Look at the timelines, look at all those things. You will discover that it had happened before Lekki. So, you are falling for the gambit of Amnesty International.
“Amnesty International does not have all the facts, they don’t run this country, they shouldn’t know beyond what they have been told. They shouldn’t know more than you and I should know as media people as watchers of developments.”
Asked if it was the President’s thinking that Amnesty’s report was wrong, Chief Adesina alleged that Amnesty International was in the habit of making unsubstantiated reports about Nigeria.
According to him, “Many times, the military has come out to dispute facts brought out by Amnesty.”
