By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
“Death is…the absence of presence…the endless time of never coming back…a gap you can’t see, and when the wind blows through it, it makes no sound” – Tom Stopard
*Late Dele GiwaIn the morning of Monday, October 20, 1986, I was preparing to go to work when a major item on the Anambra Broadcasting Service (ABS) 6.30 news bulletin hit me like a hard object. Mr. Dele Giwa, the founding editor-in-chief of Newswatch magazine, had the previous day been killed and shattered by a letter bomb in his Lagos home. My scream was so loud that my colleague barged into my room to inquire what it was that could have made me to let out such an ear-splitting bellow.
We were three young men who had a couple of months earlier been posted from Enugu to Abakaliki to work in the old Anambra State public service, and we had hired a flat in a newly erected two-storey building at the end of Water Works Road, which we shared. My flat-mate, clearly, was not familiar with Giwa’s name and work, and so had wondered why his death could elicit such a reaction from me. But later that day, as he interacted with people, he realised that Giwa’s death was such big news, and by the next couple of days, he had become an expert on Giwa and his truncated life and career. Across the country, Giwa’s brutal death dominated the news not just because of the pride of place he occupied in Nigerian journalism practice and but more because of the totally novel way his killers had chosen to end his life.Indeed,
death is an appointment which every human being must keep. While we are on
earth, we reserve the right to reschedule or even cancel our day-to-day
appointments. But in the matter of birth or death, any cancellation or
rescheduling of appointments remain the exclusive prerogative of the Creator.
Although death is unavoidable, yet, no man has any right to arrogate to himself
the role of bringing forward any other person’s appointment with death. In
fact, it is abominable to even use one’s hands to hasten one’s own appointment
with death. Laws of God and man fiercely abhor such an action. So, murderers,
suicide bombers and their sponsors and supporters should get it into their
heads that they have no mandate whatsoever from the Creator of man to take even
their own lives let alone that of other people, no matter the motivation.
Indeed, no normal person wishes to die. Deep
down the heart of every man and woman, and beyond the facade of all apparent
fearlessness and bravery, lie this cold loathing and resentment for death. The
survival instinct is always there and there is always this desire and care to
avoid danger, to postpone one’s date with death, temporarily at least, hence
the constant struggle at many a deathbeds.
No doubt,
Mr. Giwa was not expecting his own appointment with death when it came calling
on Sunday, October 19, 1986. His friends say he loved life, was full of life,
and wanted to make the best out of life. He had also worked hard to excel in
his chosen career – journalism. But on that Sunday morning, as he had a late
breakfast in his study in the company of Kayode Soyinka, the magazine’s London
Bureau Chief, a parcel was handed to him. On it was written: “From
the Commander-in-Chief” with an instruction that it must be opened only by the
addressee.
“This
must be from the president”, Giwa was reported to have said.
But
unknown to him, in that seemingly innocuous parcel, was the cold, callous agent
of brutal death, intent on accomplishing the abominable mission of hastening
his appointment with death. Conceived by man, prepared by man, sent by man and
delivered by man, this lethal instrument had only one mission: to bomb out the
young life of Dele Giwa. And it did precisely that with chilling exactitude,
tearing his flesh, wasting his blood, talent, usefulness to his himself, his
family, Newswatch magazine, Nigerian journalism and the
Nigerian nation.
Giwa had
written in “Sunday Concord” newspaper of June 8, 1980
that “Death looks for a happy home where it can turn happiness into
grief and ensure that for days the household will have nothing to discuss but
the blow of death.” He was the pioneer editor of Sunday
Concord. By writing this, he unwittingly wrote his own elegy.
“They got
me!” That was Giwa’s last words at First Foundation Hospital, Ikeja where the
Chief Medical Director, Dr. Tosin Ajayi and his doctors battled to see how they
could save his life. Earlier, on their way to Hospital, Giwa was saying to his
wife, Funmi, in Yoruba, “Nwon ti pa mi”, meaning: “They have
killed me.”
Who are
these “they” that were so heartless, so senseless, so callous, so fiendish and
irremediably inhuman? How can a human being elect to do such a horrifying
damage to another person? Giwa’s flesh was reportedly shattered, with some
pieces (some of which were discovered many days later) scattered about in his
study. The autopsy report performed by pathologists at Lagos University
Teaching Hospital (LUTH) said that Giwa suffered from “multiple blast injuries
with 25 percent burns, mutilated thighs with fractures of femoral bones and
avulsion of femoral vessels”.
This is
indeed horrible. The first reaction at the news of such horrendous tragedy
would be to ask like Banquo in William Shakespeare’s play, “Macbeth” whether
we, as a people, had “eaten on the insane root that takes reason prisoner?”
Dele
Giwa’s death was a very slow painful death. The damage on his body was massive.
The pictures of his shattered body which late Chief Gani Fawehinmi displayed
during the sitting of the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission of
Nigeria (also known as Oputa Panel) set up in 1998 and headed by late Justice
Chukwudifo Oputa could have passed as horror images of the goriest type,
showing man (Giwa’s killer) at his basest, most bestial and fiendish worst.
“They
have killed me”, Giwa moaned while writhing in indescribable pain, begging Dr.
Ajayi to do all within his power to save him.
Again,
who are these “they”? Who are these cowardly bestial lot, these direct
descendants of the first murderer – Cain? For more than
three decades now they have been hiding, afraid of the
inevitable fall-out of their satanic deed, haunted and tormented by their
dirty, murky, slimy conscience. Even if they eventually manage to
escape the judgment of man, they cannot escape the judgment of the Almighty God
which is much more dreadful. As we all know, they will surely serve their
indescribable punishment forever. That will surely be the case unless they
repent of their hideous deed and do the necessary restitution!
Giwa’s
had death plunged a broad spectrum of the Nigerian population into clearly
unprecedented, monumental grief and fear. People were afraid to open parcels
sent to their homes and offices. The public outcry and loud condemnation was
deafening. Indeed, Giwa was right. He had written in his highly
regarded column, “Parallax Snaps,” some months earlier,
that “One Life Taken In Cold Blood Is As Gruesome As Millions Lost In
A Pogrom.” The reaction that followed his death vindicated the
truth of this assertion.
A lot of
accusing fingers pointed at the government of the day. It was believed that
only a special panel could unravel the mystery that seemed to attend the gory
affair and unearth the unseen hands that perpetrated the spine-chilling murder.
In fact, Newswatch Board of Directors called for a
three-man Judicial Commission of Enquiry headed by a retired judge of high
repute, with an archbishop and an Imam as members, to probe the murder. But the
General Ibrahim Babangida regime insisted that it was the police that should
investigate the murder. And as would be expected, public skepticism
about the likely outcome of investigations undertaken by the Nigerian police
was widespread.
In its
editorial of October 28, 1986, The Guardian newspaper disagreed
with the Babangida regime’s insistence that the investigation into Dele Giwa’s
murder should be left for the police, despite widespread calls for a Commission
of Inquiry to be set up to probe it.
Said The Guardian: “The
police have been signally inept in solving much simpler crimes, and the public
is justifiably unimpressed by their investigative ability and seriousness...
The government has very little choice but to appoint a special prosecutor...
[which] will be a dramatic demonstration by government that it has nothing to
hide, and is as interested in discovering Giwa’s assassins as the public is...”
A year
after Giwa’s murder, when the police predictably “found” nothing and “caught”
no one, Ray Ekpu, Newswatch’s then new editor-in-chief in a
letter to the police reminded them that any murder which remained unsolved
could only mean “added insecurity to the living.”
But Lagos
lawyer and human rights crusader, late Chief Gani Fawehinmi, SAN, vowed to
catch Giwa’s killers. His attempt to dock Babangida’s two security chiefs,
Brig-Gen Halilu Akilu and Col A.K. Togun, brought him in direct confrontation
with the Babangida regime which made no pretense of its intention to not allow
any probe more penetrating than the unserious, shallow, perfunctory thing the
police was doing. A day before Giwa’s assassination, Akilu had reportedly
phoned Giwa’s house to enquire about the address of the house from
Giwa’s wife, Funmi, explaining that Babangida’s ADC was to stop by to deliver
an item for Giwa at his house. And less than twenty-four hours after
this call, a letter bomb was delivered at Giwa’s house, could that have been
mere coincidence?
After
Babangida’s military dictatorship expired, Gani took the matter to the Oputa
Panel. And this once more caused the lingering question to ring out
louder: Who killed Dele Giwa? Who was such a devil
that would make a fellow human being pass through such a harrowing, painful,
horrifying tunnel to death? Until his death in September 2009, Gani had been
unrelenting in his determination to ensure that the people he had continued to
accuse of the murder since 1986 were brought to justice.
It is now
thirty-four years since Giwa’s murder shook Nigeria to her foundations. Several
other mysterious assassinations of journalists and other outspoken public
figures have also followed. Maybe, if Giwa’s murder was solved and the
perpetrators exposed and punished, it might have deterred other murderous
characters from going ahead to kill the other victims that were assassinated
afterwards.
Even when
Babangida and the two security chiefs who had served under him were summoned by
the Oputa Panel following Gani’s petition, they refused to show up. They
instead sought a restraining order from the court to frustrate any attempt by
the Panel to compel them to appear before it. Their argument was that the
Nigerian president lacked the powers to set up the Panel. Although the Supreme
Court later agreed with their submission in a ruling that was delivered long
after the Panel’s report had been submitted, what has remained clear is that
despite the court judgment, unanswered questions about the gruesome murder have
continued to linger in many minds, which the Oputa Panel would have provided
them an amazing platform to convincingly address.
Interestingly,
Col. A. K. Togun, in chat with airport correspondents in late 1986, gave some
very instructive illustrations that appeared to have thrown some light on the
circumstances surrounding Dele Giwa’s murder. Permit me to reproduce
the details of the encounter as reported in the Newswatch edition
of November 10, 1986:
“Ten
days after he interrogated Giwa, Togun surfaced at the local terminal of
Murtala Mohammed International Airport Ikeja, on Monday, October 27,
1986. He told journalists at the airport that the press was
‘shouting for a crucifixion’ without hearing the other side of the
story. He said that at a seminar on security organised in Lagos,
October 9, for media executives and the security agencies, a compromise was
struck that editors would inform the SSS of any story they consider damaging to
the government interests, and the security service would then decide what to do
about it.
“‘I
mean we came to a real agreement and one person cannot just come out and
blackmail us. I am an expert in blackmail’, he said.
“He
then illustrated his point by saying thus: ‘If a motorcycle man suddenly dashed
in front of a car and the driver kills that motorcycle man, another motorcycle
man who was there would not say that the motorcycle man that dashed in front of
the car was wrong. He would say the driver deliberately killed him,
not knowing that he killed himself’…
“Togun
sternly warned the journalists that he would deal with them if their newspapers
published the accounts of their encounter with him and if he lost his job in
the process. ‘If you allow them to take away my uniform ... I will
deal with you people and go to any length to even the score with you,’ he
warned, but added that ‘Dele was my friend’”.
When
asked what he thought about Col. Togun’s revelations during his airport
encounter with reporters, the then Deputy Inspector General of police, Mr.
Chris Omeban, who was in charge of the investigations into Giwa’s murder
reportedly replied that the police does not go into proverbs.
And when
police investigations into Giwa’s death eventually yielded no results, Gani
said: The police have failed to find Giwa’s killers because they know
the killers!
After 34
years, the gory story of Giwa’s gruesome murder has refused to go
away. The greatest honour that can be accorded to his name now is to
insist that his killers be found. It is not yet late to set up a reputable
Commission of Inquiry as favoured by many Nigerians to reopen the case,
reexamine the various narratives that have continued to trail the murder and
really get to the root of the tragedy, especially, now that most of the
witnesses and even those that have been consistently fingered are still alive.
While
accusing fingers are still pointing to the direction the Babangida regime and
its security chiefs whose names have remained reoccurring items in the gory
event, they, too, have been trying to present their own sides of the story, and
even attempting to return the accusation at the doorstep of the Newswatch executives.
In a
recent interview, Togun, who is now a retired general, tried to advance some
theories to suggest that the Newswatch London Bureau
Chief who was at the breakfast table with Giwa when the bomb exploded (and who
miraculously escaped being wounded, although he reportedly suffered severe
hearing impairment for quite sometime) may have some more explanations to
volunteer on the murder. All these accusations and counter-accusations and all
the other occurrences around the murder, including the contents of Gani’s
petition, are what an Independent Commission of Inquiry can thoroughly examine
and solve this murder that shook the nation when it occurred.
Other
cases of assassination which have also been shrouded in mystery need to be
revisited too. Until Nigeria demonstrates a capacity to solve murder cases,
especially, high profile ones involving people critical of government policies
and actions, potential murderers would always derive incentive from the conviction
that they can always eliminate anyone in Nigeria and get away with it. And that
“anyone” can be anybody! Somebody can be in government today and surrounded by
heavy security, but tomorrow, such a person might be out of office and become
as vulnerable as the next man out there. Leaders go all out to make society a
safer place, not just because of others, but also, for them and their
relatives.
As
murderers continue to be allowed to circulate within the bounds of civilised
ambience, and eliminate people with utmost impunity, they not only constitute a
threat to hapless, decent and hard-working citizens, their vile activities go
further to stifle critical thoughts that are very essential in influencing the
evolution of responsible governance which fosters progress and development.
They may, however, continue to hide from man due to government’s inability or
unwillingness, or both, to fish them out, and bring them to justice, but they,
certainly, cannot hide from God. Their day with divine judgment will surely
come! And as the African-Caribbean writer, George Lamming, said in his classic
novel, In The Castle Of My Skin, “God can see the
blackest ant on the blackest piece of coal on the blackest night.”
*Ejinkeonye, a public intellectual, is
the author of the book, “Nigeria: Why Looting May Not Stop” (scruples2006@yahoo.com)
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