Practicing Journalists in Edo
State now live in fear following the killing of the crime reporter of the
Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, FRCN, Mr Joshua Edeghagba.
Edeghagba who was killed on Tuesday night, brought the total
number of journalists killed in the last one month to five.
The slain journalist was felled in the cross-fire between men of
the Nigeria Police and gunmen who were engaged in a robbery operation.
He was allegedly shot by the gunmen who shot sporadically
into the air in a shootout with policemen after a robbery operation the Lagos
Street end of the busy Dawson Road, Benin City.
Sources said the journalist was caught in the scene after
he left his mechanic’s workshop on the same road, where he had gone to drop the
car he bought two weeks ago from the mechanic with complaints of major faults.
He was said to have heeded the advice of the mechanic to bring
the vehicle to his shop and actually did so but was on a motorbike heading home
when he met his untimely death in the hands of the dare-devil gunmen.
Edeghagba, a father of three who was employed in 2011 with the
Bronze FM, a federal government-owned broadcast station, was reputed to be
abreast of crime reporting.
Meanwhile the Edo State Police Commissioner, M. Olayinka
Balogun, who confirmed the incident, said the journalist was killed in
crossfire between the gunmen and the police who were alerted by the residents.
This brings to five the number of journalists that have
died I the state in the past one month,three from Esama of Benin Gabriel
Igbinedion lost three,AIT one and Radio Nigeria one.