‘No Man Should Lose His Life This Way,’ Presidency Reacts To Death Of Journalist, DCP

The presidency has reacted to the death of a youth corps member attached to Channels Television, Precious Owolabi and a Deputy Commissioner of Police, Usman Umar.

The duo were killed after protest by members of Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) popularly known as Shiites, turned violent yesterday.  

Reacting to the deaths, the presidency in a statement by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, said no man ought to lose his life in such manner.

Adesina, in an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, said he couldn’t get over the news because it reminded him of how he also started his career as a young journalist.

He said, “I couldn’t get over it. I started my career as a journalist, 33 years ago as a youth corp member at the Lagos Television and that is what he is doing…exactly the way I started is the way he is starting and I just can’t get over it.

“Imagine that as a youth corp member at a television station 33 years ago, I’d been killed in the field of duty.

“No man should lose his life that way. It is very sad and very dolorous for our country and this is what I call fratricide… brothers killing brothers. It need not happen, it should not happen,” he said.

Continuing, he said, “Let me start by condoling with Channels Television on the sad loss of the reporter, condoling with the police on the loss of the DCP and all those that have been lost earlier in these series of clashes and even with the Shiites group because life does not need to be wasted wantonly and that is what we have seen in this Shiite protests.

“If you are human, the death of anybody will diminish you”.