Former Director of the Nigerian Army Public Relations, Brigadier-General Sani Usman (rtd) yesterday in Lagos claimed that the bullets used by the soldiers at the Leki Tollgate shooting were Blank Bullets and not live ammunition.
Usman who disclosed this in an interview, maintained that soldiers used blank bullets as against live bullets propagated by many. He stated that blank bullets do not kill but can cause skin pigmentation.
He said that the military should be commended for avoiding “serious collateral damage” during the shooting.
His words: “People have decided to denigrate the military and to turn the military as the fall guy but evidence on ground does not support that assertion.
“Yes, there was the deployment of the military; to what extent and all that, it will be determined by the commission of enquiry.
“If you look at the canisters, they were blank ammo and blank ammo doesn’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.”
(C) Control TV 2020.
