Nigeria Lekki toll gate shooting: Devastated mother reveals horror of finding dying son at protest site

We have additionally withheld her son's identify at her request.

"We got there around 5 or 6 am," she stated in her first sit-down interview. "We saw a lot of people. There was a child holding a Nigerian flag lying dead, there was a bullet wound on the side of his body.

"He was a small boy and there have been so much of individuals there," she told CNN from a makeshift wooden structure where she ekes out a living selling cold beverages.

'He died in my arms'

As Adesola surveyed the scenes of chaos and stepped over the hastily discarded belongings of panicked protesters, she spotted a familiar figure lying in a pool of blood on the ground, wearing just one shoe.

"When I noticed my son, I shouted and held him... The blood was an excessive amount of, there was a bullet wound on his chest. His garments have been torn and the bullet had come out of his again," she said, weeping as she recounted the painful moment.

Despite his injuries, she discovered her son was still alive.

"I noticed different individuals carrying their family members, so I attempted to hold him as a result of he was nonetheless respiratory at that second. I known as for assist and folks got here to assist me put him in a automobile," she said.

"He was trying at us whereas we have been carrying him. He was simply screaming 'ah, ah,' in ache."

They tried desperately to revive him in the car, but he didn't make it, she told CNN.

"He died in my arms," Adesola said. "I used to be shouting and I could not preserve calm."

Her son was buried almost immediately in line with Muslim burial rites.

He was 32 and left behind two children, 14 and nine, who had also lost their mother in undisclosed circumstances a few years earlier.

No official death toll

Adesola says she is thankful she was able to find her son's body. Others were not so fortunate.

Witnesses advised CNN that ambulances have been stopped from coming into by Nigerian authorities.

Eyewitnesses told CNN they saw the army remove a number of bodies from the scene.

The CNN investigation pieced together what happened when the Nigerian army and later the police opened fire on civilians as they protested police brutality.

It used time stamps, video data, and geolocation to analyze hours of video shot by protesters -- tracking the army's movements to the Lekki toll gate where protests had been taking place for almost two weeks.

The Nigerian Army's account of what happened has shifted over time.

On November 14, during a judicial inquiry into the shooting, army representative Brigadier Ahmed Taiwo (who has since been promoted to the rank of major general) admitted that the soldiers at the scene had live rounds but continued to deny that anyone was shot.

"There's no means officers and males will kill their brothers and sisters. I repeat no means. We have those that always search to drive a wedge between us and between the residents of Nigeria...," he said at the time.

Protesters and witnesses posted several videos in which bullet casings were displayed which they say were recovered from the scene.

At the time of the incident, police denied shooting anyone.

CNN has made renewed attempts to obtain comments for this latest report from the Nigerian armed forces, police, and the federal government, but has received no response.

A protest movement silenced

Angry young Nigerians took to the streets, blocking major roads across cities in Africa's most populous nation, in largely peaceful protests. They marched in tens of thousands chanting "Enough is Enough" against police brutality and violence.

Their initial demands were for a notorious police unit known as the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, or SARS, to be shut down, but the marches morphed into protests campaigning for police reform and an end to bad governance in the oil-rich country.

During the protests, participants erected tents and DJ booths at various sites across the country and held multi-faith prayer sessions as well as a "competition of lights," to honor the victims of police brutality, held at the now-infamous Lekki toll gate.

Adesola questions why the protesters have been dispersed with such brutal drive that evening.

"Even if the federal government needed to chase them from the place, they weren't speculated to shoot. They might have requested them to cease and never shoot. Everyone might have discovered their means."

Adesola says her son took part in the protests as "a involved Nigerian," and in what would be their final phone call, he described a scene of calm where people were protesting peacefully and had come prepared to camp overnight.

"All his mates had been going there and when he got here again from work on that day, he stated he was going to affix his associates. When he received there, he known as me and stated so much of individuals have been there. Some have been sleeping there with their mattress and had introduced their cooking gasoline. If the troopers didn't come, issues would have gone nicely with none issues," she said.

No accountability

One year on from the Lekki toll gate shootings, and no one has taken responsibility for what happened that night, nor has anyone been held to account.

In a short report released Tuesday, titled "Nigeria: A Year On, No Justice for #EndSARS Crackdown," Human Rights Watch said: "The prospects for accountability stay inconclusive and bleak. Nigerian authorities ought to take concrete and decisive steps to make sure that these implicated in abuses in opposition to protesters are held accountable."

"Nigeria's authorities ought to take efficient steps towards accountability to indicate victims that their loss, ache, and struggling just isn't in useless," said Anietie Ewang, Nigeria researcher at Human Rights Watch.

"Anything much less will worsen mistrust of the federal government and reinforce the notion that the lives of residents don't matter."

Many Nigerians believe the issues that drew the protests 12 months ago still persist -- and those who were there that fateful night are still seeking justice.

DJ Switch, a local musician whose real name is Obianuju Catherine Udeh, was at the protest and live-streamed much of the evening on her Instagram page.

A year later she recalls how she thought they were all going to die. "I assumed it was the tip for all of us there. You know, I imply whenever you sing the nationwide anthem and wave your flag, your Nigerian flag, and the taking pictures would not cease, you solely have one thought left in your thoughts," she said.

"Justice is there ready to be finished, who's going to do it? Young persons are asking day-after-day for accountability, who's prepared to be accountable -- to take accountability," she said.

Now Adesola is picking up the pieces after her eldest son's death.

Asked what she would say if she could talk directly to the Nigerian government, she said: "I'll say to them the identical factor I'm saying to you.

"I cannot be lying about my child's death. I will show them his grave."