Police took my son’s press ID, before killing him on duty – Single mother of 20-year-old journalist laments

Bose Onifade, the grieving mother of the Gboah TV reporter Pelumi Onifade who was killed while covering a story about a warehouse where COVID-19 palliatives were stored in Agege/Gegetu area of Agege LGA of Lagos said Police took his press ID before killing him.

Speaking in a chat with Punch, Onifade recounted how the sad incident happened.

In her words: “On Saturday, October 24, he went to work. He was a journalist. There was no fighting here. Suddenly, the police arrived in a Black Maria, got out and started throwing bottles and shooting. He was a young man and had never experienced that kind of thing before, so he ran. The house he ran to had been locked so he ran back. That was how they grabbed him and shot him. They carried him away. We were looking for him all over the place till Saturday, October 31, when I got the news that his dead body was found at a mortuary in Ikorodu, Lagos State. They had removed the press identity card on his neck. He was taken all the way from Abattoir area, Agege to Ikorodu.

“The person who told me works with Gboah TV, where Pelumi also worked. Also, elders in our church had been looking for him for one week. On that Saturday, he went to work and in the evening, I heard he hadn’t returned, so everyone started looking for him. They kept looking for him until Thursday with no success. When I didn’t hear anything from them, on Thursday, I went out on my own. I went to Ikeja but didn’t see him. The same thing happened on Friday. Then they told me that they had heard about his death since Monday but didn’t want to tell me. They wanted to be sure that he was dead because he went out alive, so how could he be dead? Then on October 31, they told me they saw his body at the mortuary in Ikorodu. They had removed the press ID from his neck”.