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News Editor Gruesomely
Murdered in his Home
On
September 20, 2009 at about 6.52 a.m local time, Mr. Bayo Ohu, an
assistant news editor with the private daily, The Guardian newspapers
was gruesomely murdered in his home in Egbeda, a Lagos suburb by a gang
of about six men who riddled his body with bullets. The assassins took
away his laptop and mobile phone. No other flat or house in the area was
attacked.
The men
came in a white Toyota Camry saloon car, wearing white flowing gowns
with matching skull caps
Ohu was
reported to be getting ready to attend Church service after seeing off
his wife, Ochuko, and sister-in-law, to the early morning service when
he heard someone knocking on his door. The moment he opened the front
door to attend to the person knocking, the gunmen shot him point blank
at short range with a volley of bullets. As he staggered back into the
house screaming for help, the assailants followed him inside and rained
more bullets into him. One bullet that hit him on the right side of his
chest came out at the left side and tore through his arm. They took only
his laptop and mobile phone handset.
One of Bayo’s children
reported that from her hiding place she heard one of the assailants
shouting out jubilantly to his colleagues: "Olori buruku o ti ku (the
fool is dead)."
His neighbours who could
muster courage came to his rescue after the assailants left took him to
a nearby hospital as they noticed he was still breathing, but the
hospital staff on duty insisted on a Police Report before they can
administer even first aid on him. The neighbours then decided to take
him to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital in Ikeja but the
doctors pronounced him dead on arrival.
The
Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) and civil society stakeholders,
including Media Rights Agenda (MRA) met in Lagos on 21 September 2009 to
deliberate on the assassination. On 22 September they called a press
conference addressed by the NUJ National President, Mallam Garba
Muhammed at which they expressed their pains over the gruesome murder.
They noted among other
things that journalists have become targets of assassins; that Nigerian
journalists work in an environment where there is no insurance for the
enormous risks they face in the discharge of their duties; that the
security agencies are unable, unwilling or incapable of unraveling the
several deaths of journalists.
They therefore, decided to
send a protest letter to the Inspector General of Police, Ogbonaya Onovo
to get to the root of the gruesome murder and called for full coroner's
inquest of his death while also asking government to set up panel of
inquiry to unravel those responsible for the gruesome murder, among
others. |
