Army used blank bullets during lekki shooting – Former spokesman Sani Usman reveals

Army used blank bullets during lekki shooting, Former spokesman Sani Usman.

Former Director Public Relations of the Nigerian Army, Brigadier General Sani Usman (rtd), said that blank bullet was used during the shooting.

Appearing as a guest on ARISE News today, Thursday October 29. He said that blank ammo was used to shoot at protesters at the Lekki toll gate on October 20.

He said that the ammo has little or no effect on its target because blank ammo don’t kill.

“If you look at the canisters, they were blank ammo and blank ammo don’t even kill. At a close range, l – maybe 100-metres – maybe it will have some pigmentation on your skin.

Remember the military are armed and by the nature of their training, they are trained to kill and I think the military in its wisdom instead of using live ammunition decided to use blank armour which is meant for training.

I think they should be commended for that otherwise there would have been serious collateral damage, but they were professional enough to have done that.” Usman said

Speaking on the timeline of the Lekki shooting released by human right group Amnesty International on October 28, he said the group has a long history of attacking Nigerian military.

“There was a time when I was the director army public relations, Amnesty International accused the Nigerian military of killing over 5000 people in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital.

Common sense would have told you that there was no hospital with the capacity to contain even 50 dead bodies or 100. This and many other spurious allegations have been going on against the Nigerian military by the Amnesty International,” he said.