Lawrence Nwimo, Awka
Media Rights Agenda (MRA), has called on the Lagos State Government to comply with the order of a Federal High Court in Lagos directing it to ensure an investigation into the death of Mr. Pelumi Onifade, a 20-year reporter with Gboah TV.
Onifade was reportedly arrested by the Police while covering the #EndSARS protests in 2020 and was later found dead.
In a letter written on the organisation’s behalf by its lawyer, Mr. Kingsley Kenechukwu, of the law firm of Charles Musa and Co., dated August 22, 2024, and addressed to the State’s Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, MRA urged the police to identify and prosecute those responsible for the reporter’s death.
“Government should comply with the directives of the honorable court so that justice would be seen to be done and hope given to the common man that there is still justice in the judicial system.”
Mr. Kenechukwu reminded the Attorney-General of the July 19, 2024, decision by Justice Ayokunle Olayinka Faji, citing page 15 of the judgment where the court directed him to take “all necessary steps to see to the investigation of the circumstances of the death of Pelumi Onifade and to conduct a coroner’s inquest to ascertain the cause of the death.”
The lawyer also referred to paragraph 14 of a counter-affidavit dated March 20, 2023 filed in the suit by the Attorney-General in which he stated that he would prosecute anyone found to have a prima facie case established against him in relation to the death of Mr. Onifade.
Mr. Kenechukwu recalled in the letter that during oral arguments which took place on May 13, 2024, in the suit instituted by MRA against the Police and the Lagos State Government over the death of the journalist, Mr. A. Amu, who represented the Attorney-General, also indicated willingness and readiness of the Attorney-General to conduct an inquest into the death.
He said in the light of these, MRA is praying the Government to comply with the court’s directives in the interest of justice.
MRA filed the suit against the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, the Inspector-General of Police and the Attorney-General of Lagos State, asking the Court, among other things, to declare that Mr. Onifade’s shooting in Oko Oba in Agege Local Government Area of Lagos State, by policemen on October 24, 2020, in the course of his journalistic work as unconstitutional and a gross violation of his fundamental rights while his arrest and subsequent restriction on his liberty by the Police were unlawful.
Although Justice Faji held in his judgment that there was no evidence before the court to support MRA’s claim that the late journalist died in the custody of the Police after which his body was deposited at the Ikorodu Mortuary in Lagos, he, however, granted the organisation’s request to order an investigation and directed the Attorney-General to take all necessary steps to see to the investigation of the circumstances of Onifade’s death; conduct a coroner’s inquest to ascertain the cause of the death; and identify and prosecute those responsible for his death.
