A former spokesman of the Nigerian Army, Brigadier General Sani Kukasheka Usman (rtd), has said that the bullets the Nigerian used on protesters at the Lekki tollgate on October 20th, were not live bullets.

General Usman stated this on Thursday, during an interview with Arise TV.

He said contrary to the reports been propagated by Nigerians that the army used live bullets to disperse the protesters, the soldiers used blank bullets which do not kill but can cause skin pigmentation..

“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,” the retired General said.