Kalu to NUJ: Despair not, your colleagues died fighting a good cause

A former Governor of Abia State, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, has told the leadership and members of the Nigeria Union of Journalists not to allow their spirits to be dampened by the death of three of their colleagues in a road crash on Friday.
Kalu said the late journalists and others who were wounded died fighting a good cause for which they would never be forgotten.
Kalu, in a statement issued on his behalf by his Special Adviser, Oyekunle Oyewumi, in Harare, Zimbabwe, where he is as a part of the African Union Election Observer Mission, said the late newsmen demonstrated uncommon commitment to their profession and welfare of their colleagues by attending a meeting in Abuja that was solely to consider the welfare of members of the NUJ.
It was on their way back that the accident occurred around Osu in Osun State on the Ilesa-Ife Road.
Those that died were Kafayat Odunsi of the Nigerian Television Authority, Adolphus Okonkwo of the Voice of Nigeria and Tunde Oluwanike of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria.
Kalu, the Publisher of Sun newspaper, said in the statement: “Your colleagues died fighting a noble cause.
“The issue of the welfare of journalists ranks high on my agenda not just as a publisher myself but as a Nigerian who feels that a labourer is worthy of his wages. And not just any wage at that. But quality wages that would be paid at the right time.
“This was what these men and women of honour went to discuss in Abuja before some of them died in the road crash and some were injured.
“I salute their courage.”
Kalu condoled with the leadership of the NUJ and urged the colleagues of the deceased and injured to take up the fight for a better welfare package, including insurance scheme, from where the late newsmen left it.
He equally commiserated with the families of the deceased and wished those injured quick recovery.