The man who started the assault on a photojournalist with LEADERSHIP newspaper, Mr. Benedict Uwalaka, last Thursday has been arrested by the police. He showed up at a Lagos police station yesterday morning after the police launched a manhunt for him.
The assailant has been identified as Bayo Ogunshola, son of the owner of Lekan Ogunshola Memorial Morgue, the concessionaire to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) morgue, Mrs. Taiwo Ogunsola.
Ogunshola and six others are presently under interrogation at Area F Police Station.
Meanwhile, LASUTH has invited Mr. Uwalaka to an investigative panel set up to look into his maltreatment by workers of the morgue.
According to a letter made available to LEADERSHIP, the panel will hold its sittings at 11am on Friday, August 17, at the psychiatry head of department’s office.????
Ogunshola presented himself before men of the Area F Police Station, Ikeja, at about 10am and was immediately ushered into the office of the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in charge of the station, Mr. Alabi Abiodun, where he reportedly wrote a statement explaining his role in the assault.
As the time of filing this report at about 4pm, DPO Abiodun told LEADERSHIP in a telephone chat that Ogunshola and six others were still undergoing interrogation concerning their roles in the incident.??
Meanwhile, Ogunshola, in a chat with our correspondent, admitted seizing his victim’s camera but denied joining others in beating him that day contrary to what the photojournalist said.
Meanwhile, the morgue management, in keeping with directive by the state governor, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, failed to produce the other culprit believed to be a member of staff of the mortuary who inflicted bodily injuries on the photojournalist has yet to show up.
Efforts of the victim to recognize the other culprit known as Idowu was abortive as the management said there was no one called by that name in its employ, prompting the police to order seven suspects, including Debayo, to write statements as the police begin its investigation.
There was a mild drama as Mrs. Ogunshola knelt down before Uwalaka, begging him, on behalf of her workers, not to press charges and for the matter to be settled amicably.
Apart from the parties, a director of the Office of the Public Defender, Lagos State Ministry of Justice, Mrs. Ola Rotimi, told our correspondent that the victim reserved the right to either proceed with litigation or settle the matter out of court.
She said that her office was interested in brokering peace as she would want the management of LEADERSHIP and that of the mortuary to mediate after which, if it was unsuccessful, the case could go to court.
“This is an option and he has a choice to accept or reject,” she said.
Meanwhile, the leadership of the national body of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) yesterday said the NUJ would seek legal action against LASUTH over the assault and also will hold a mass protest in Lagos to protest the incessant abuses, intimidation, brutality, illegal arrest and detention of journalists in the country.
The National President of NUJ, Mohammed Garba, at a press briefing enumerated several incidences of assault on journalists, saying it had become imperative for the NUJ to deal with the perpetrators of these acts to serve as a deterrent to those who may harbor the intention of molesting journalists in future. He added that journalists are being attacked because of their independence, impartiality and their insistence on always insist on telling the truth.
“We are? constrained to once again raise alarm over? the rampant harassment of journalists while carrying out their legitimate duties. These cases include those of of Rasak Gawat of NTA Lagos, who disappeared mysteriously last month and his whereabouts till date is yet unknown, while the family lives in fear; Tunde Ogundeji, a photo journalist with Compass who was beaten by thugs allegedly sponsored by fraudulent railway staff when trying to take photographs of an illegally overcrowded train, and the recent assault on Ben Uwalaka of LEADERSHIP Newspaper.?
“While NUJ has accepted the apology of the Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola, on the cases of Uwalaka, we insist that the perpetrators must be made to face the full wrath of the law and all other incidences be duly investigated,” he insisted.??
As the heat generated by the assault on the LEADERSHIP photojournalist, Mr. Benedict Uwalaka intensify, a group, Arewa Youth for Peace and Security, has called on LASUTH to, as a matter of urgency, compensate the victim.
The spokesperson of the group, Salihu Dantata Mahmud, told LEADERSHIP in Abuja, yesterday, that it was wrong and unacceptable to allow this kind of act to happen in Nigeria any longer.
?“Every now and then, media men are assaulted; if such issues are not tackled in the proper way, they will continue to happen. Besides, LASUTH authorities should be made to pay compensation to Uwalaka, because the security personnel are under their authority and it was their duty to have called them to order,” Mahmud said.
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