MRA asks Lagos to obey order to probe reporter’s death
The 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-old reporter with Gboah TV, who was reportedly arrested by the police while covering the #EndSARS protest […]
media rights agenda (mra)
The 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-old reporter with Gboah TV, who was reportedly arrested by the police while covering the #EndSARS protest in 2020 and later found dead, and to identify and prosecute those responsible.
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 government to “comply with the directive of the 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.