#EndSARS: Again, Lagos Panel Gets Three-Month Extension

The tenure of the Lagos State Judicial Panel on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and other matters has again been extended for another three months.

The Chairman of the panel, Justice Doris Okuwobi stated this while hearing petitions on Friday.

This means that the panel will now sit until October 19, a day before the October 20, 2020 shootings at the Lekki toll gate.

Recall that the Lagos State judicial panel was inaugurated by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State on October 27, 2020.

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The panel was set up to last for a period of six-month in response to the government acceding to the five-for-five demands of the #EndSARS protesters with a mandate to look into abuses by security agencies and the now-disbanded SARS unit of the Nigeria police force and to make recommendations to the authorities for restitution to victims of abuses.

The initial six months sitting of the Lagos panel expired on April 27, 2021, and the panel was granted a three-month tenure extension which is supposed to expire on Monday, July 19 but as of June 29, the panel had sat for 97 days and only heard 126 petitions out of the 235 petitions it received.

Since the commencement of the hearing, 37 had been concluded while 109 petitions remained unheard necessitating the request for an extension of time.

At Friday’s sitting, the panel heard eleven petitions. It reserved its decision in six petitions after counsel in the matters adopted their final written addresses.