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
In 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, but more because of the totally novel way his killers had chosen to end his life.
Although
death is unavoidable, yet, no man has any right to arrogate to himself the role
of bringing forward another 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, including suicide
bombers, 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.
Now, 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 to him 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 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, late Dr. Tosin Ajayi and his doctors had battled to see how
they could save his life. Earlier, on their way to the hospital, Giwa was
saying to his wife, Funmi, in Yoruba, “Nwon ti pa mi”, meaning:
“They have killed me.”
Now, 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 a 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 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.
For more than
three decades now Giwa’s killers 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 make the necessary restitutions!
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 condemnations were deafening.
Indeed, Giwa was right when he wrote 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
reactions 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 have attended the gory affair and unearth the unseen hands that perpetrated the spine-chilling murder. In fact, ‘Newswatch’s 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 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.”
On his part, 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 its correct address from Giwa’s wife,
Funmi, explaining that Babangida’s ADC was to stop by to deliver an item to Giwa at his house. And less than twenty-four hours after this call,
a letter bomb was delivered at Giwa’s house!
Until his death
in September 2009, Gani remained 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-five 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 had 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
everyone fingered an amazing platform to convincingly address.
Interestingly,
Col. A. K. Togun, in chat with airport correspondents in late 1986, made an interesting illustration, which according to some analysts, 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 statement 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 35 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,
Mr. Soyinka, 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 some time) 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 writer and journalist, is the author of the book, “Nigeria: Why Looting May Not Stop” (scruples2006@yahoo.com)
Incisive, as always!
ReplyDeleteI hope the Nigerian Government can draw back and consider this point of view- “anyone” can be anybody!
ReplyDelete