Media Rights Agenda urges Lagos government to comply with court order

A civil society organisation has called on the Lagos State Government to comply with a Federal High Court order directing it to investigate the death of a reporter.

Pelumi Onifade, 20, died while covering the #EndSARS
protests of October 2020.

The Media Rights Agenda (MRA), in a statement by its communications officer, Idowu Adewale, called on the state government to probe the incident and prosecute Mr Onifade’s killers.

The statement said Kingsley Kenechukwu, a lawyer representing MRA, wrote to the state’s Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice to “comply with the directives of the honourable court so that justice would be seen to be done and hope given to a common man that there is still justice in the judiciary system.”

In the letter, Mr Kenechukwu cited Justice Ayokunle Faji’s judgement of 19 July, which directed the state’s chief law officer to take “necessary steps to investigate the circumstances of Onifade’s death and conduct a coroner’s inquest to determine the cause of death.

He referred to paragraph 14 of the counter-affidavit filed by the attorney-general on 20 March 2023, in which he stated that he would prosecute anyone who gas a prima facie case established against them in relation to Mr Onifade’s death.

MRA recalled that on 13 May, during oral arguments in the suit against the police and the state government over the death of the journalist, Mr A. Amu, who represented the attorney-general, also indicated the readiness of the attorney-general to conduct an inquest into the death.

The rights group asked the government to carry out the court’s directives in the interest of justice.

PREMIUM TIMES reported on 6 August the lawsuit filed by MRA against the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, the Inspector-General of Police and the Attorney-General of Lagos State.

Filed on 4 August, the suit asked the court to declare that the late Mr Onifade’s shooting in Oko Oba in Agege Local Government Area of the state by a police officer on 24 October 2020 in the course of his work is unconstitutional and a gross violation of his fundamental rights as guaranteed by section 33 of the 1999 Constitution (as
amended) and Article 4 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act (Cap A9) Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.

It implored the court to declare that the late Mr Onifade’s arrest and unlawful restriction of his liberty by the police on the same date in
the course of his work is unconstitutional and a gross violation of his fundamental rights as guaranteed by sections 35, 39 and 46(1) of the 1999 Constitution and Articles 5 and 9 of the African Charter.

It sought the court’s declaration that the constitutional and statutory duties of the respondents do not extend to unlawful detention of innocent individuals who have not been charged to court or found guilty of any offence by a competent court of law in Nigeria.

It asked the court to establish that the police commissioner and the IGP have an obligation to investigate crimes committed against Mr Onifade, a journalist exercising his right to freedom of expression as guaranteed under Sections 33 and 39 of the Constitution and Articles 4 and 9 of the African Charter.

The MRA also asked the court to issue three orders, directing the respondents to launch a transparent, impartial and independent investigation into the circumstances of the death of Mr Onifade, whose body was found in a morgue in Lagos, directing them to conduct a coroner’s inquest to ascertain the cause of his death; and to identify and prosecute those responsible for his death.

Mr Faji, a judge of the Federal High Court, in a ruling dated 4 August, had ordered the state government to conduct a coroner’s inquest to determine the cause of Mr Onifade’s death, identify those responsible and prosecute them.

Mr Faji said 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.

However, the judge granted the organisation’s request to order a probe of the circumstances of Mr Onifade’s death.

According to him, in response to the court’s question on what the attorney-general did about the matter since being served with the court processes, the lawyer submitted that the attorney-general was ready to conduct an inquest.

Mr Faji stressed that the attorney-general was not alleged to have known about the alleged unlawful killing of the late Mr Onifade and is also not accused of being involved in the killing, but that, as stated by MRA, he has a duty to conduct an inquest into the circumstances of the death.

Onifade

The late Mr Onifade was a second-year student of the Department of History at the Tai Solarin University of Education, Ogun State, and a reporter with Gboah TV, an online television channel, at the time.

He was covering the #EndSARS protests in Lagos when officers of the Lagos State Taskforce arrested him on 24 October 2020.

His body was later found at a mortuary in Ikorodu, sparking concerns about police brutality and the safety of journalists in Nigeria.