The cameras that were removed at the Lekki Toll gates were not CCTV cameras but infrared cameras designed to pick number plates of cars passing through toll gate barriers, said Babatunde Sanwo-Olu governor of Lagos state.

In an interview with Arise TV, Sanwo said the decision was made by the company and he had not input in it. The company based on the directive of the government instituting a curfew, took out the infrared cameras but the CCTV cameras were still working, the governor said.

Sanwo-Olu also said the the concessionaire of the LED screen decided to disable it following the directive that a curfew has been imposed by the state and he had no communication with both companies.

The footage of disabled cameras on Tuesday contributed in fueling the anger of protesters who believed that the cameras were removed and the lights turned to pave the way for an assault by the army.

By this revelation, it would seem that the security cameras are still in place and could become a critical piece of evidence to determine what really happened on Tuesday night.

The governor also denied sending the army to confront the protesters saying the information about a shooting got to him through a phone call by a wife of one of his cabinet members.

Sanwo-Olu maintained that the government has yet to confirm deaths as a result of the attack on protesters.

Isaac Anyaogu is an Assistant editor and head of the energy and environment desk. He is an award-winning journalist who has written hundreds of reports on Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, energy and environmental policies, regulation and climate change impacts in Africa. He was part of a journalist team that investigated lead acid pollution by an Indian recycler in Nigeria and won the international prize - Fetisov Journalism award in 2020. Mr Anyaogu joined BusinessDay in January 2016 as a multimedia content producer on the energy desk and rose to head the desk in October 2020 after several ground breaking stories and multiple award wining stories. His reporting covers start-ups, companies and markets, financing and regulatory policies in the power sector, oil and gas, renewable energy and environmental sectors He has covered the Niger Delta crises, and corruption in NIgeria’s petroleum product imports. He left the Audit and Consulting firm, OR&C Consultants in 2015 after three years to write for BusinessDay and his background working with financial statements, audit reports and tax consulting assignments significantly benefited his reporting. Mr Anyaogu studied mass communications and Media Studies and has attended several training programmes in Ghana, South Africa and the United States

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