It was with a swollen heart that every Nigerian received the news; this was because none knew what could befall him afterwards. The news crept in like a toddler struggling to crawl between the four walls of a cart.
Reactions that trailed it showed lucidly that it was incredible to the noses and the ears and the eyes of all that munched the morsel of melancholy – that our own Dele Giwa, the fearless investigator of all times, has crossed the bar with tides though!
And like another Mariama Ba’s epistle, what sent him to the voyage which returned back to the midst of grey hairs like him was uncertain, came to him unexpected but too early.
That letter was not addressed to a daughter in this case, it was to a beloved pen that wrote words of sagacity. As we all know, the letter was scribed by a known son of the soil that we did not know until the present hours. The question is: who killed Dele Giwa and why did they kill him? I might be wrong but believe me that I could answer the latter without any atmosphere of ambiguity; this is not the case with the former.
The question still lingers for three moons and half of a decade yet unanswered if responded to at all, it was not the right one. Who killed Giwa? Before I delve into supplying my own tales as I heard it from my fathers’ books of history, I need to give a pellucid picture of who he was to the younger heads with precocious hearts. In the words of Fisayo Soyombo, an investigative journalist, the decease of this man is perhaps the highest-profile assassination in the Nigerian journalism and it remains unresolved.
Even by the question of who killed him, Nigerians would ask you whether you mean the lead who actually gave the order of death or the unknown figure that delivered the parcel of pang and this conflicting area is a lamentable paradox in the whole story.
Sunmonu Oladele Baines Giwa rose to be the Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch in 1985, this was after he had vast working experience with New York Times and Daily Times when he finally relocated to Nigeria. I am not writing a biography so you don’t expect me to give his personal background, all I need to do is to emphasize that is a pen pusher like me and I have done that. Let us swim into another ocean, detailing how he met his dome of doom. Pray, I am telling this with a sad heart too.
Two days before his death, he had a troubling moment with the operatives of the State Security Service (SSS) who summoned him for assassination. Giwa faced fire for writing a story about the Second-Tier Exchange Market (STEM) if not for a clause in the article, where he opined his belief that the Babangida’s initiative might work, which saved his life before the brutal Togun but what ended it all? It was a planned assassination! One could not point out to the actual issue that led to his death because he was always in the net for one critical news or story, did you recall that he was accused of framing a social revolution with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) or another alleged weapons’ importation.
A wrapped parcel bomb was delivered to him by his own first son, Billy. If Kayode Soyinka had known, he would not have allowed him to take it. Even the young Billy could not recognize the character that brought it. It was brought during a morn meal: if it would have been a perfect breakfast had it been it was something ‘newsworthy’. This happened at his private residence, said to be 25 Talabi Street in Ikeja, the capital of Lagos State. If my memory works well, this was on 19th October, ,1986. It remained a year as at that time for him to attain the forty years of age.
Take it or leave it, the unknown man that came to Billy was one of the khaki boys that followed him around this. This is catapulting you into a kerfuffle right? Are you asking me who he was? We all know him, the truth we never know. I called him the Lampard of Looters, you might say he is a Maradona of Nigerian politics. I am glad that Gen. Muhammadu Buhari is alive, his gob, if this is still working, could render testimony to this. Or is it not this same man that dribbled the June 12 general elections against MKO Abiola? He is Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, the one crippled one who built the foundation of a new Nigeria on a bluish sea.
The trio of Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese and Yakubu Mohammed are kicking in one corner of this country, they should write against me. The suspicions against IBB are very strong. We don’t know because despite our awareness of it, we still did not have the heart to say it out loudly. IBB possibly arranged it all based on what I called a power game. If it escaped justice here, tell me it is unavoidable in heaven.
