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A security expert, Ben Okezie, tells OLALEYE ALUKO that it was standard practice that the Nigerian Army went to the Lekki Tollgate protest with live ammunition.

Do you think it was appropriate for the army to have gone to the scene of the October 20 Lekki tollgate protest with live ammunition as was later revealed?

In the first place, there is no security personnel that will go out and not be armed, in anticipation of a reprisal. Security personnel, when going out for an operation such as that, must have been briefed about the situation on the ground; and they must also go with the ones (ammunition) meant for exigencies and self-defence. It is a common practice all over the world that the army cannot just go to a scene. The military is the military; the military is not the police. That is what we don’t always understand in this country. Once you deploy the military, it means you understand they are not coming to do civil-military engagement. When the military is asked not to engage in certain actions during this kind of operation, they usually have a backup in the event that they are attacked. Look at what is happening in the Boko Haram enclaves. The terrorists know that they cannot face the army; that is why they put landmines across the roads, which most times, cause the casualties.

But the government is not taking care of our security agencies; that is also why we have these problems. But back to your question, there is no way you expect the military to go there and just sit down like chicken. Even the EndSARS protesters don’t all know one another. They just gathered. They don’t even know the motive or intention of one another. They don’t know if the others have ulterior motives. Maybe one or two may have good intention, but how about the others?

Some Nigerians are saying the threat level at the Lekki tollgate area on that day was not sufficient enough to have the army’s presence. Some say that the police were not exhausted before the military option. Do you agree with this belief?

Earlier in the day on October 20, there was a directive from the Inspector-General of Police asking that all the mobile policemen should be deployed in all the sensitive areas of the federation. Do you remember that? That was during the day; then during the night. For the fact that the governor called the army commander in the night, only God knows what the governor told the commander that made him mobilise that number of soldiers.

So, it is the governor that should be called to account. Once during an interview, I watched the governor not as a Nigerian but as a security analyst with experience spanning 40 years; I saw some measure of palpable fear in him. The governor was not composed, which means that something was missing. What information did he pass to the army and how did he describe what was happening in Lekki that warranted the army to accept to intervene? Perhaps he may have told them that he could not get the police, and since the army is the last resort, they would oblige him since he is the Chief Security Officer of the state. So, the governor must be made to give account for what really happened on that evening.

Since the army has admitted that the soldiers indeed went with live ammunition, do you think it was possible that none of the live ammunition was fired?

On the issue of whether the army fired live ammunition or not, nobody can comment on that until investigations have been concluded. This is because the investigators are doing a thorough job and security experts are also part of the investigators. I was watching a television station covering the Lekki tollgate shooting. When a gunshot is fired, the microphone amplifies it. It made it to look as if there was a war-front situation. Moreover, with the size of the military, there was no way you would not see some of the protesters taking to their heels when they sighted the soldiers.

How do you explain the injuries some of the protesters claimed to have sustained during the shooting?

In the course of that commotion, you have to understand that they could have hit their bodies against some objects, entered the gutter and so forth. If you put these things together, you would see that the fear of the military alone could have led to the confusion we saw. I don’t think that the Nigerian soldiers can see a crowd of Nigerians and shoot at them. It is very rare before you see them shoot in public places.