The unlucky member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) serving with Channels Television, Precious Owolabi, who was hit by a bullet as the Police/Shiites clashed today in Abuja is dead.
The 23-year-old died of a gunshot wound he sustained while covering the clash between the Police and the Shiite protesters over the continued detention of their leader, El-Zakzaky.
The management and staff of Channels Television as well as several other Nigerians are greatly saddened by the untimely and unfortunate death of such a promising journalist.
According to Lanre Arogundade, a veteran journalist and frontman of International Press Centre, he described Owolabi’s death as “The RIP we shouldn’t be saying! I hate it, I just hate it whenever a journalist gets killed in the course of duty.
“I hate it the more when such death is caused by the lawlessness and indefensible intransigence of a few. Now in tears, I go to bed for Precious Owolabi, a youth corps member with Channels TV, is no more. Let those who justify impunity continue to do so. But they need to be reminded that when the bird precariously perches on the rope, neither the bird nor the rope can find peace. It would have been good, if it is only those who sow the wind that reap the whirlwind. From Precious to DCP Umar, suddenly there is a harvest of preventable deaths.”