The Lagos State coroners’ court in Ikeja has given a two-week deadline to the chief medical director of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) to provide the autopsy results of an unidentified body believed to be linked to the death of Pelumi Onifade, a Gboah TV journalist killed while covering the #EndSARS protests in 2020.

The coroner issued the ultimatum on March 3 after the hospital failed to comply with an earlier order issued in November 2025, which addressed only the facility and did not hold any specific medical officer accountable.

Alimi Adamu, Monday Arunsi, and Somto Afulukwe, counsels for Media Rights Agenda (MRA), pushing for justice in the matter, said the hospital, despite confirming receipt of the order, became lackadaisical because it was ambiguous and did not instruct any hospital staff to take action.

MRA lawyers prayed the investigating magistrate, Temitope Oladele, to issue a fresh order addressed specifically to LASUTH’s chief medical director.

The magistrate, according to a statement by MRA, ordered the teaching hospital’s chief director “to give a report of the body with the tag number 1385 said to have been received on behalf of LASUTH on 3rd November 2020 from Ikorodu General Hospital within fourteen (14) days of receipt of this order.”

MRA had previously sued the police and the Lagos State government at the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court, seeking a coroner’s inquest to allow Nigerians to understand the condition and location of Mr Onifade’s corpse and to establish a connection between the unidentified body and the deceased journalist.

In his July 2024 ruling, Justice Ayokunle Olayinka Faji directed the attorney general of Lagos State to carry out a coroner’s inquest to determine the cause of death and investigate the circumstances leading to Mr Onifade’s death, as MRA had requested.