Exactly 23 years after Dele Giwa, founding editor-in-chief of Newswatch magazine, was killed at his breakfast table on October 19, 1986, through a parcel bomb, the police say the case has not been closed.
When NEXT got in touch with the Police at the weekend to find out the status of the investigation into the murder, Emmanuel Ojukwu, Police spokesperson said: "The (Dele Giwa) case is not closed.... We will go ahead with it if we have any new thing."
On the said date, Mr. Giwa's house on number 25, Talabi Street in Ikeja, Lagos was rocked to its foundations by a violent blast. When the dust cleared, and the debris was sifted, the news emerged that the foremost journalist had been ripped to shreds by a parcel bomb.
He was known for finesse in both his craft and the art of dressing, and was credited with breaking news stories that never failed to rattle Nigeria's military regimes.
His last words were quoted as; "they got me." His death through a parcel bomb was the first of such an incident in the country.
A case muffled by red tape
Two weeks and a day after his death, Mr. Giwa's friend and lawyer, the late Gani Fawehinmi formally requested the Lagos State Director of Public Prosecution, J.A. Oduneye, to commence the prosecution of Halilu Akilu and Ajibola Kunle Togun, both senior military officials, in connection with the death of the journalist. Also implicated in Mr. Gani's notice were Ibrahim Babangida, who was protected by immunity, as he was then president and commander-in-chief.
Mr. Akilu, a colonel and then Director of Military Intelligence (DMI), and Mr. Togun, a LT. Col. and then Deputy Director of the State Security Service, had interviewed Mr. Giwa just days before his murder.
Mr. Fawehinmi insisted he be allowed to stand in as prosecutor should Mr. Oduneye's office fail to take up the role.
On November 19, 1986, Mr. Fawehinmi's application was dismissed in the courts. The Court of Appeal followed suit and also momentarily put paid to Mr. Fawehinmi's efforts three months later, on February 23, 1987.
By the first anniversary of the killing, pressure on Mr. Giwa's associates had become sizeable. The State Security Service agents stopped the launch of Born To Run, a book written by two young journalists, Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo and Dele Olojede, on Giwa's life. Prior to this, the offices of The Guardian newspapers, which had started a campaign on unearthing Mr. Giwa's killers were threatened with bombing. The campaign was stopped. But Mr. Fawehinmi at the Supreme Court in December 1987, was backed by an unanimous decision by the seven justices of the Court who ruled that a private citizen had a right to prosecute, if those charged with the authority to do so would not.
But that victory was short-lived.
As the case progressed, verdicts in February the year after would state there was insufficient evidence to support the charge of murder against Mr. Akilu and Mr. Togun. By December 5, 1988, the Supreme Court reversed its earlier decision, and declared that only the Police have the right to investigate and prosecute murders.
The Oputa Panel
Twelve years after, the case came back to the public glare. On October 23, 2000, Olusegun Obasanjo who was in 1999 sworn in as an elected president set up a human rights investigation panel to probe rights abuses under past military administrations.
The panel was headed by Chukwudi Oputa, a retired Supreme Court justice.
The panel was fashioned after South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission established to hear cases of human rights violations during the Apartheid era. The panel summoned Mr. Babangida on December 4, 2000 over Giwa's murder, but four days later, citing risk to personal security, Mr Babangida, Mr. Akilu and Mr. Togun secured an order preventing the panel from compelling them to appear before it.
At the panel's sitting on December 11, 2000, Mr. Fawehinmi, before the panel, displayed life-size photographs of Mr. Giwa. On his left, he held a picture of the handsome journalist with his trademark afro and bow-tie, while on the right were images of Mr. Giwa's mangled torso with splashes of blood and bits of debris. Weeping, the eminent lawyer, now late, testified for four hours,also seeking the payment of ₦2 billion as compensation to the family of Mr. Giwa.
Again, on July 2001, he was in Abuja seeking the attendance of the men he accused as being culpable.
On the October 31, 2001, two weeks after the Commission's final sitting, the Court of Appeal ruled that the law backing the operations of the Commission was unconstitutional.
On May 21, 2002 the panel submitted an interim report to Mr. Obasanjo, and a week later, submitted its full report. A few days after the submission of the final report, Mr. Babangida filed a suit before an Abuja High Court seeking to stop Mr. Obasanjo "from considering and/or accepting observations and recommendations" of the panel and "from implementing any recommendations, report or white paper arising from the report of the Oputa panel as they affect the plaintiffs, pending the hearing and determination of the suit." And on the February 3, 2003, the Supreme Court weighed in with a verdict that said "the 1999 Constitution made no provision for tribunals of inquiry." Seven years after its submission, the seven-volume panel report has never been officially published by the Federal Government, but is widely available in the public domain, courtesy of the Civil Society Forum, a coalition of Nigerian civil society organisations.
Oputa Panel recommendation
The Oputa Panel's report, states that: "As for the case of Dele Giwa, we are of the view that beyond the legal technicalities that some of the key witnesses hung on to, the Federal Government should be encouraged to re-open up this case for proper investigation."
The report also goes on to state that; "on General Ibrahim Babangida, we are of the view that there is evidence to suggest that he and the two security chiefs, Brigadier General Halilu Akilu and Col. A. K. Togun are accountable for the death of Dele Giwa by letter bomb. We recommend that this case be re-open for further investigation in the public interest." Ojukwu, the police spokesman, says the force "will go ahead with it if we have any new thing".
Additional reporting by Ruona Agbroko
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