Hunted and killed for journalism’s sake

Over the years, the number of journalists killed in the line of duty in Nigeria and elsewhere around the world has continued to swell.
Yet there are no corresponding investigations detailing the causes of their deaths. Continued violations of journalists’ rights through attacks, arrests and abductions, according to human rights reports, have also continued unabated. And practitioners are getting worried.
On Thursday, June 20, 2016, Yomi Olomofe, 47, Publisher of Prime Magazine, was attacked at the office of the Nigeria Customs and Excise, at the Nigeria-Benin border in Seme while trying to investigate a matter. The journalist was thoroughly battered during the encounter.
Tife Owolabi of the Reuters International News Agency, on February 14, 2015, had his home in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, ransacked by armed agents of the Department of State Services. After the invasion that lasted for about four hours, his computers, cell phones and working tools, including external hard drives and memory cards, were allegedly removed. He was accused of espionage.
Nigerians would not forget in a hurry the 1986 murder of the Editor-In-Chief of the Newswatch magazine, Dele Giwa.  He was brutally killed through a letter bomb. Perpetrators of the dastardly act still remain unknown.
In 1990, two Nigerian journalists, Tayo Awotunsin of Champion Newspaper, and Krees Imodibie of The Guardian, disappeared in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital while on official assignment. It was during the Liberian civil war.
In 2009, 45-year-old Bayo Ohu, an assistant editor with The Guardian was shot dead in his home. Members of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) believed Ohu was killed for his political and investigative reporting.
Also, journalists such as Enenche Akogwu, Abayomi Ogundeji and Godwin Agbroko were all gruesomely killed. Also killed were Bagauda Kaltho of The News, Tunde Oladepo of The Guardian and a female journalist, Bolade Fasasi.
On the global scene, in 1984, the editor of the Hind Samachar group in India, Ramesh Chandra, was killed. He was shot dead and doctors were later to count 64 bullet holes in his body. Another journalist, 40-year-old Sandeep Kothari in Madhya Pradesh was abducted and burnt alive. 
read more http://sunnewsonline.com/hunted-and-killed-for-journalisms-sake/