Nigeria has not had closure on Dele Giwa. Each time a reminder distorts the truth of that gruesome murder — any aspect of it — it rubs Nigerians on the wrong side. Such was Chris Omeben’s reminiscence on his 80th birthday. He was a deputy inspector general of police. He says he conducted the investigations. And that his principal suspect was Kayode Soyinka?
Well, 29 years ago, no one really thought there was any real investigation. There were no rustlings, no background noise of any kind except the anecdotal plants — the swearing of the then Nigerian President, Gen. Ibrahim Babaginda, made to reassure a distraught Prof. Wole Soyinka, that the killers would be found in a matter of weeks, if not days.
Dele Giwa could have died in a car crash. He was a fast driver. He could have been struck by lightning. Like anyone could be. He could have passed on in numerous different ways. But his killers chose a spectacular method hitherto unknown in the country – the parcel bomb – in broad daylight to make a mince meat of Nigeria’s most glamorous editor.
Everyone knew the Nigerian Press was in a kind of trouble when the security high command organized a seminar on national security for editors the week before. It was co-ordinated by one of Nigeria’s extraordinary editors, Chief M.C.K. Ajuluchuku, now of blessed memory. His presence was reassuring yet the atmosphere in the room was so tense, you could cut it with a knife. I will forever remember that when it ended I approached a colleague, the late Ben Onyeachonam, then the editor of the National Concord, and asked him if “they (the military) are bringing back Decree No. 4.” He, too, wasn’t sure what was up.
The editors and their hosts, agreed on almost everything about the country and its challenges and opportunities. There were minor disagreements on the propriety of sending “advance” copies of newspapers to security chiefs which was prima facie censorship. There were some significant disagreements on the military people’s insistence on conflating “national” security and “regime” security and the editors’ view that they be separated. For what it is worth, these are age-old issues in all climes.
Now when these same security chiefs invited Mr. Giwa and levied treasonable accusations of gun running and attempting to be a catalyst of a violent revolution, they rook it a notch higher. With those accusations, they could lock him up and throw away the key, but what a mess it would be because no one who knew Mr. Giwa would believe them.
He would gleefully report a revolution or gun running. He would never be part of the story.
An investigation of Dele Giwa’s murder which did not start from Dele Giwa’s testimony from the grave would fail. That testimony was contained in his letter to his lawyer, Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN), of blessed memory. He wrote that letter immediately he left the security chiefs. The tone of that letter tells any reader that Dele Giwa’s instincts had told him that he was a condemned man. He sensed his death, he felt it, and crafted that SOS letter to the one man whom he knew would move heaven and earth to save him. |When he died as he had feared a day or two later, it was easy to see why Chief Fawehinmi was ready to put in everything, even his life.
And Chief Fawehinmi did move heaven and earth. But the realm controlled the earth and all that is in it. The realm knew how to do what Fela Anikulapo Kuti called “government magic.” The realm frustrated Chief Fawehinmi at every point and covered up its gruesome deed. I watched almost in tears as the chief laboriously urged the Supreme Court to do the impossible – reverse its judgment — which a few days earlier had set the security chiefs free.
But as we all know, the Supreme Court is final not because it is infallible, it is infallible because it is final, as Americans would say. I still remember that one of the concurring justices berated Chief Fawehinmi for being excessively litigious as if the judge would have preferred bomb-throwing to litigation.
The lead judgment, I still remember, was written by Justice Adolphus Karibi- White who soon after got a cushy job at The Hague. Mercedes-Benz limousines were soon distributed like toys to their lordships.
The Dele Giwa case damaged Nigerians’ faith in the judiciary. That faith has not been fully restored. It may never be restored until the nation has some closure on Dele Giwa.
Now back to the investigations, what did the ballistics experts reveal to Mr.Omeben? Every bomb has a fingerprint. Whose was this? Chief Fawehinmi challenged the Police to publish that report more than once. The man who built the bomb was rumored to be a doctor of science in physics who said he didn’t know for what purpose the bomb was ordered. To him, of course, it was just business for which he received N800,000, which in 1987 was a tidy sum.
We all remember the Supreme Court’s judgment that every Nigerian is his brother’s keeper and so the right of private prosecution should be sacrosanct. Two weeks later, the Lagos State Attorney-General amended the Criminal Procedure Law of Lagos to the effect that there would be no private prosecution in the state of Lagos except for perjury.
Mr. Giwa received three phone calls from one of the security chiefs who asked for the direction to his house. He called a second time to confirm that direction and a third time to re-confirm that direction. Giwa has been told that something was coming for him from their boss. |Which was why, when he received the parcel, he quite naturally exclaimed: “this must be from the president.”
It is probably true Mr. Omeben was prevented from speaking with a man who bore “a resemblance to the person that delivered the bomb.” Mr. Omeben, should spare Nigerians the aggravation of referring to Mr. Kayode Soyinka as principal suspect. That just churns the stomach.
Source: Sun Newspapers
