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.
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 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 death had 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. 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 forty 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.
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 40 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.
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 “Nigeria:
Why Looting May Not Stop” (available on Amazon) scruples2006@yahoo.com
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