17th May, 2012
Edo state chapter of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) was again thrown into mourning on Tuesday as a journalist with Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, (Bronze FM) Sashua Edeghagba was shot dead by gunmen suspected to be armed robbers.
He was allegedly hit by the stray bullet of the suspected robbers at about 7.30 pm along Dawson Street, Benin where he was said to have gone to repair his car.
Eyewitness accounts had it that Edeghagba who had finished repairing his car was playing around with friends at the mechanic workshop unknown to him that armed robbers were operating in a nearby house where a policeman lives.
The pandemonium caused by the robbery was said to have attracted residents of the neighbourhood who came out, but the robbers replied by firing sporadically and in the process, a stray bullet reportedly hit Edeghagba.
The policeman and a woman were said to have been shot by the armed robbers.
Edo State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Olayinka Balogun, who confirmed the death of the reporter, said the robbers were firing bullets while escaping when the bullets hit the journalist and the policeman, who was the target of the robbery.
“Both the policeman and the journalist were rushed to the hospital, but the journalist died. Apparently no one knew him in the area as a journalist. The robbers didn’t come for him,” Balogun said.
Edeghagba was said to have joined the services of Radio Nigeria in July last year.
His death brought to five the number of journalists that have lost their lives in Edo State in the last two months.
He is survived by a wife and three children.
—Jethro Ibileke/Benin