The retired Justice Doris Okuwobi-led Lagos Judicial Panel of Inquiry on the Lekki Toll Gate incident has rejected a request by the operators of the toll gate, Lekki Concession Company (LCC) to take back possession.
LCC made the request through its counsel, Rotimi Seriki on Tuesday.
The company prayed the panel to allow it take back possession of the toll gate so it could evaluate the level of damage for the purpose of insurance claims.
This followed a similar request by LCC’s Managing Director, Abayomi Omomuwa.
Omomuwa said that the company has not had access to the toll gate since the Tuesday, October 20 alleged shooting of peaceful #EndSARS protesters by soldiers except when he led members of the judicial panel to the toll plaza last Friday.
The LCC boss bemoaned the level of damage at the toll plaza, saying what he saw last Friday showed it could take as much as six months to fix the toll plaza.
Saying that the damage was unquantifiable, Omomuwa appealed to the panel to grant LCC access to the toll plaza so that the company could “process insurance”.
Re-echoing the company boss’s plea, Seriki said, “My humble request is that if the tribunal doesn’t have further need to visit the plaza, the LCC should be permitted to take back possession of the toll plaza for the purpose of evaluation of the damage and commence the process of carrying out necessary repairs.”
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In her short ruling, retired Justice Okuwobi held that the request could not be granted at the moment as the panel might need to revisit the scene of the alleged incident.
Okuwobi ruled that although the panel was not opposed to LCC’s request to evaluate the damage done to the toll plaza, “but we will not grant that access yet. The need may arise for the panel to revisit.”
She said the the company was free to make the request again after the second visit has been conducted.