A Lagos State District Coroner, Mrs. Temitope Oladele, investigating the death of Mr. Pelumi Onifade, a reporter with Gboah TV who reportedly died in Police custody during the #EndSARS protests in October 2020, has ordered the Medical Director of Ikorodu General Hospital in Lagos to provide the legal representatives of Media Rights Agenda (MRA) with hospital records relating to the deposit, release or current status of his remains within seven days of receipt of the order.
The investigating magistrate issued the order on August 8, 2025, following an application made by MRA’s lawyer, Mr. Monday Arunsi, leading Ms Jennifer Wala, of the law firm of Charles Musa and Co., who reported to the Coroner that the Medical Director had refused to release the information on the grounds that medical records are confidential.
The coroner’s inquest into the death of Mr. Onifade, who was reportedly arrested by policemen attached to a Lagos state taskforce while he was covering the #EndSARS protests in 2020, and later found dead at the Ikorodu General Hospital mortuary, where his body was deposited, was convened on the orders of a Federal High Court in Lagos following a wrongful death suit brought against the Police and the Lagos State Government by MRA demanding, among other things, an investigation into the late journalist’s death.
In his July 19, 2024 judgment in the suit, Justice Ayokunle Olayinka Faji directed the Attorney-General to take all necessary steps to ensure an investigation into the circumstances of Mr. Onifade’s death and to conduct a coroner’s inquest to ascertain the cause of death as well as identify and prosecute those responsible for his death.
During Friday’s proceedings at the Coroner’s Inquest, Mr. Arunsi, led Ms Wala on behalf of Mr. Onifade’s family and MRA, while Mr. Adebola Araba represented the Attorney-General of Lagos State.
Mr. Arunsi told the District Coroner, who is also a magistrate in the Lagos State Judiciary, that following her directive at the last session on July 8, 2025, he and Mr. Johnson Agbakaba of Charles Musa and Co visited the Ikorodu General Hospital on July 31, 2025, as ordered by the court and met with the Medical Director to request the hospital’s records regarding when Mr. Onifade’s body was brought to the mortuary and released or what its current status is.
But according to Mr. Arunsi, the Medical Director told them that the information they were asking for is confidential since it is a medical report and, as such, he could not release the records to them without being ordered to do so by a court.
Mr. Arunsi then made an oral application to the Coroner requesting her to direct the hospital’s Medical Director or any other relevant authority or person to produce the records regarding the deposit, release, or the status of the remains of Mr. Onifade, who allegedly died in October 2020 during the EndSARS protests and was brought to the hospital’s mortuary.
The Coroner granted the application and ordered that the Medical Director or any other person with the authority or in charge of keeping the medical records should disclose to the lawyers the records about the deposit, release or status of the body within seven days of receipt of the order.
She thereafter adjourned the matter to August 19, 2025, for mention.
When the matter came up on August 19, Mr. Arunsi told the Coroner that a litigation clerk from Charles Musa & Co had gone to the Ikorodu General Hospital on August 11, to serve the August 8 order but that the hospital declined service, insisting that the order must be served by the court itself, accompanied by a written note from the court stating that the hospital should respond directly to the court, after which the hospital would respond to the court.
He insisted that in all his years in legal practice or during the period he spent studying law in school and in all his reading about legal matters thereafter, he had never encountered or been taught about any legal requirement for an order of a court to be served with a written note from the court.
Agreeing with Mr. Arunsi, the Coroner stated that such practice of writing to an individual or organisation is unknown to the court and that an order of a court is never served with a written note.
She accordingly directed that the bailiff of the court should proceed to the hospital and effect service of the order.
Mr. Arunsi then applied for a short adjournment to enable the bailiff to serve the order.
The Coroner granted the application and adjourned further proceedings in the inquest to August 28, 2025, for mention.
