Fashola Invited Soldiers to Lagos, NSA Insists

This Day

21 January 2012

Fashola Invited Soldiers to Lagos, NSA Insists

The National Security Adviser, General Andrew Owoeye Azazi, has insisted that it was the Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola that invited soldiers to man strategic places in Lagos.

Azazi told newsmen at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos yesterday that the Lagos governor in October 2010 wrote to the federal government, requesting for the deployment of military personnel to assist the police in combating crime.

He said it was the same contingent of soldiers that were deployed last Monday to man Gani Fawehinmi Park and other open places "to forestall access to them and to abort escalation of the protests against the removal of subsidy on petrol."

On January 16, Fashola in a broadcast criticized the deployment of the soldiers in the state and berated the federal government for that action.

But on Thursday, the Minister of Defence, Mohammed Bello alleged that it was Fashola that requested for the soldiers.

The NSA told journalists that there was nothing unusual about the deployment of soldiers.