Lagos #EndSARS panel ends sitting without treating Pelumi Onifade’s killing

When the family of Pelumi Onifade heard about the End SARS Judicial Panel of Inquiry set up by the Lagos State government in October 2020 to hear cases of Police brutality, they had high hopes and believed it would solve their misery and bring justice to their 20-year-old son reportedly murdered by Police and dumped in a mortuary.

Although the family could not afford the service of a lawyer, their church hired one for them to ensure they got justice.

At its final sitting on Monday, October 18, 2021, the panel announced the award of N128.2 million as compensation to 24 victims of police brutality, but Pelumi, one of the most devastating stories out of the 2020 End SARS protests, was not one of them. His case was never treated.

His parents Olatunde and Abosede Onifade, told Neusroom at their residence in Lagos on Friday, October 29, 2021, that they attended several sessions of the panel from February till October, but Pelumi’s case was never called.

“At the last sitting we attended on Friday, October 15, our lawyer had a heated argument with one of the panel officials when they didn’t call our case, but the official told us he would notify us when our case would be treated and told us not to come on Saturday,” his father said. “We were planning to go on Tuesday, October 19, 2021, only for us to hear that the day had been declared a public holiday. Unknown to us, the panel had also shifted its final sitting to Monday, but the official never informed us.”

Olatunde said it came to them as a shock when a journalist called their lawyer that Pelumi’s case was called at the final sitting on Monday, October 18, 2021, because the panel would not sit on Tuesday, October 19. 

“We were not notified of a sitting on that day because ordinarily, the panel didn’t sit on Mondays. Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays were their sitting days,” his father said.

Now that the panel has rounded up its activities, Pelumi’s parents said their hope of getting justice for their slain son looked unrealistic.

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Now they just want to have their late son’s body and bury him “so that his soul can rest.”

Pelumi, a 200-level History student of Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED), Ijebu-Ode, was an intern journalist with Gboah TV covering an attack on a government facility in Agege, said to be housing COVID-19 palliatives, when he was reportedly shot and taken away by the Police, on October 24, 2020.

Despite eyewitness accounts indicting the Police, they denied knowing the whereabouts of the journalist. His family found his corpse at the Ikorodu mortuary after about 10 days of searching for him.

It’s been a year since his gruesome murder, and the Police are yet to take responsibility for the killing.