As
Nigeria remembers popular and fiery journalist, Dele Giwa 30 years
after his brutal murder, Bayo Oluwasanmi has penned a glowing tribute to
the legendary figure, asking pertinent questions needing urgent
answers.
Dele Giwa
Today is the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Dele Giwa,
the unapologetically brash journalist, the founding editor of Newswatch
magazine.
Every October 19 Nigerians are forced to lock their eyes on screaming newspaper headlines: “Who Killed Dele Giwa?”
For a quarter of a century now, the same question had burned like
acid in our brains. The gory picture of a badly shattered body of Giwa
continued to plague our minds after 30years. And oddly enough, the
Nigerian judicial system had successfully tap danced around the
question.
Giwa was a flaming journalist with a fiery message of rebuke for
the oppressive military regime of Ibrahim Badamosi Babaginda (IBB). Giwa
was the pioneering journalist in Nigeria who blazed the path for
investigative journalism bottled in a weekly authoritative brand known
as Newswatch.
He was a watchman with bravura and strong moral fiber committed to a
strong sense of right and wrong. Giwa’s creative message and method
earned him reputation as a skilled writer, tough, and uncensored in his
style.
He had a knack for packaging stories that injected sleeplessness
and nightmares in the tyrants of his days. Needless to say, his fierce
and uncompromising style made him a natural target of IBB
administration.
Giwa writes with the supple grace of a swan and the boldness of a beaver.
Giwa, on that fateful day of 1986, had been extracted from our
midst through a parcel bomb. We all felt the ripples of the bomb and we
sobbed like milk-less baby.
The indefatigable legal surgeon, late Gani Fawehinmi was bent on
finding the killer (s) of Giwa. Fawehinmi literally armed with a
defibrillator as it were, relentlessly shocked back to life the
question: Who killed Dele Giwa?
Two days before the arrival of the death parcel, Giwa had been
accused by a senior member of the Directorate of Military intelligence
of “illegally importing and stockpiling arms and ammunition for the
purpose of staging a socialist revolution in Nigeria.”
In one of his columns, Giwa had criticized the Structural
Adjustment Program (SAP) which the government believed would recalibrate
the sagging economy.
To assuage Giwa of the trumped up accusation by the government,
Colonel Halilu Akilu a top security chief of IBB administration told
Giwa not worry of anything.
Furthermore, Akilu had told Giwa that he should expect a parcel –
an invitation- from the Commander-in-Chief for official function.
Sooner than later, a man with a parcel arrived Giwa’s house. The
parcel was received by Giwa’s son, Billy. Billy handed the parcel to his
father. The parcel “bore the seal of the Presidency, was marked: “To be
opened by addressee only.” Receiving the parcel, Giwa said “this must be from the Presidency.”
Giwa had placed the parcel on his laps while it was being opened.
The parcel exploded and torn Giwa into shreds. Giwa’s life expired on
the way to the hospital.
Who killed Dele Giwa?
The denial of Giwa’s death by his killer (s) had gathered such
velocity and punch to the extent that the rest of us have been rendered
helpless and powerless.
Who killed Dele Giwa?
IBB and his henchmen had before the act relentlessly breathed
threats and murder against Giwa. IBB the procurer of wickedness and
destroyer of our nation is of a deceiving spirit and doctrines of demons
full of lies and hypocrisy and with a conscience that has been “seared
with a hot iron.”
Who killed Dele Giwa?
“If one person tells you it’s a horse, “goes the adage, “may be it
is a horse, but if three people tell you it’s a horse- saddle up!”
Who killed Dele Giwa?
*****
- By Bayo Oluwasanmi
When News Breaks Out, We Break In. (The 2014 Bloggies Finalist)
