A journalist in Lagos State, Nigeria, was gunned down on Saturday in an unexplained killing.

Edo Sule Ugbagwu, 42, worked as the judiciary correspondent for the Mushin-based newspaper, the Nation.

Ugbagwu was shot dead by two gunmen who came to his home around 7pm on 24 April. The Nation’s own report about the murder says he had just left his home

with his wife on Saturday when he received a phone call.  Ugbagwu then asked his wife to wait while he returned home to “get something,” the Nation quotes his wife Mariam as saying. After the occupants of a passing car stared suspiciously at Mariam, she returned home to find her husband lying in a pool of blood, the Nation reported.

Ugbagwu’s brother, who was at the house at the time of the killing, said that two armed men had entered the house and demanded “the money,” Nation reporter and Ugbagwu’s friend Joseph Jibueze told IPI by phone from Lagos State. The brother reportedly asked, “What money?”

When Edo Ugbagwu told the men to leave, they shot him.

In the hour before his murder, Ugbagwu received three phone calls from the same telephone number, which he attempted to call, news reports say. Further, Ugbagwu’s wife believes that she heard her husband describe their home to the caller directly before he was killed, she was quoted by This Day online newspaper as saying.

“It has raised a lot of questions,” Jibueze told IPI. He also said he is not aware of any work that his colleague could have done to result in this killing. Jibueze added that the police have said they will need more time for their investigation.

The management of the Nation has called for an investigation into the murder, urging the police to “fish out the perpetrators of this dastardly act.”  The paper reported today that members of the Lagos State Police Command have yet to determine what the motive was.

“We send our condolences to Mr. Ugbagwu’s family and colleagues, and call on the Lagos State authorities to quickly investigate this brutal crime,” said IPI Deputy Director Alison Bethel-McKenzie.  “The police should establish whether Mr. Ugbagwu was killed in connection with his work as a journalist, and must ensure that the killers and the mastermind behind this murder are brought to justice.”

Ugbagwu is the second journalist to be killed in Lagos State in the past year. In September 2009, Bahu Oyu, an assistant news editor at the Guardian newspaper, was shot dead in his home as he prepared to attend a church service. The killers took only his laptop and cell phone, fuelling suspicion that his death was linked to his reporting. His murderers have not yet been found.