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Dele Giwa:
20 Years After
By
Sunny Awhefeada
culled from GUARDIAN, October 23,
2006
Sunday October 19, 1986 was like
any other day in the somnolence of Evwreni countryside. The tall rubber
trees that seemed to form an impregnable fortress round our dwellings stood
where they were, firm and stolid, but occasionally swaying to the lulling
breeze that usually blew now and then. The cassava vegetation, shrubs and
tall elephant grass also must have rustled. It was October, the season when
the sun shines with a lulling and enchanting caress in the morning and
gradually metamorphoses into a haunting intensity at noon. We went about our
domestic and farm chores as we prepared for the new school week. Then,
Evwreni was nature and nature was Evwreni. The ambience was almost edenic.
But somewhere in Lagos, at 25
Talabi street Ikeja, the atmosphere was an agonising contrast with the
idyllic Evwreni scenario. At 25 Talabi Street, there was wailing,
lamentation, grief, confusion and other indices that the fiends of hell
were visiting. A substantial part of the house that bore number 25 had
been shattered and charred by a bomb explosion. A television set,
louvers, chairs, a table, breakfast set and other domestic appurtenances
were blown apart and charred. In the midst of that midday Armageddon was
also the bruised and bloodied body of Sumonu Oladele Giwa, style-named
Dele Giwa. In the throes of indescribable pain, Dele Giwa moaned
agonizingly and sustained the refrain "they have got me!". Dele Giwa was
at home having a late breakfast with a colleague, Kayode Soyinka when a
postman brought a parcel addressed to him. The parcel was delivered to
his eldest son, Billy; then 19 years old. Billy handed the parcel over
to his father. The latter looked the parcel over and commented "this
must be from the president", because it bore the seal of the President
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Dele Giwa tried to open the parcel
and lo, it emitted a deafening and deadly explosion! The parcel was a
letter bomb meant to blow Dele Giwa out of existence. The bomb badly
lacerated Dele Giwa's body, but he didn't die immediately. He was rushed
to the hospital and he sustained the refrain'they have got me!". He gave
up the ghost.
Dele Giwa was, at the
time of his death, the editor-in-chief of Newswatch magazine,
Nigeria's, and probably Africa's, most prestigious news magazine.
The son of a washerman, Dele Giwa, through dint of hardwork, grit
and courage rose from obscurity to celebrity. After a chequered
adolescence and early adulthood in Nigeria, he left for the United
States of America in search of the proverbial golden fleece. He
studied English and Communication Arts at the University of Brooklyn
and achieved the rainbow tinted dream when he bagged the Bachelor of
Arts and Master of Arts degrees respectively. His star shone when he
was employed as a journalist with the prestigious New York Times and
he left no one in doubt that he was a journalistic thoroughbred. He
soon became a highflier.
In 1976, he returned
to Nigeria on invitation to work with the Daily Times group,
then Africa's most prestigious newspaper. He excelled at Daily
Times and by the early 1980s the business mogul turned
politician, Late Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola invited him to join in
starting the Concord Group of Newspapers. Dele Giwa edited the
Sunday Concord and the paper became an instant hit. At the
Concord, Dele Giwa's image was larger than life just as he was
gradually becoming a household name in Nigeria. Soon,
disagreement crept into the relationship between Dele Giwa and
his employer, Bashorun Abiola. He soon resigned and became part
of the quartet that founded Newswatch the first news magazine
solely owned by journalists in post-independence Nigeria.
Dele Giwa's
journalism career was exciting and it reads like the stuff
of which fairy tales are made. He was an enchanting prose
stylist and a fearless and committed investigative
journalist. He represented the best of his chosen
profession. Dele Giwa took on the authorities, his pen
through his column PARALAX SNAP flayed those twerps who
retarded Nigeria's growth and foisted a regime of
socio-economic inequity on the people. He was a thorn in the
flesh of incompetent rulers and for that he suffered
frequent harassments including detention by government.
Having known what it was to be poor, Dele Giwa saw
journalism as a tool for social reformation. Dele Giwa loved
life and lived it to the full even though his life was cut
short at youthful 39. He loved women and wine. He was also
debonair. He loved excellence too. He, together with Ray
Ekpu, Dan Agbese and Yakubu Mohammed took Nigerian
journalism to avant gardist heights and conferred
respectability on the profession. The emergence of their
brainchild Newswatch revolutionised, repositioned and
redefined Nigerian journalism. The quartet mentored a
generation of intrepid journalists who are today maestros in
every sense of the word. Dele Giwa loved journalism which
brought him fame and fortune. He enjoyed the fame and its
attendant connections which made him to be too close to
power. His breathtaking biography Born to Run written by
Dele Olojede and Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo points to the fact that
Dele Giwa cherished and prided his romance with men of
power; a factor which made sensitive state secrets
accessible to him. This was his undoing. The powers that be
had thought that Dele Giwa knew too much, and that was
dangerous. He had to leave and not live to reveal what he
knew.
Dele Giwa's
death was by no means fortuitous. He saw it coming. Days
to his earthshaking exit, he was physically and
psychologically harassed by Nigeria's topmost security
chiefs. They accused him of gun-running and plotting a
socialist revolution. Dele Giwa had asked his attorney,
Chief Gani Fawehinmi to sue the security chiefs before
death was delivered to him through the parcel bomb.
After Giwa's death, Fawehinmi was unrelenting. He
pursued the killers of Dele Giwa as far as to the Oputa
Panel in 2000. Unto this day, the police have not been
able to answer the question that made the headlines 20
years ago "Who Killed Dele Giwa?"
Dele
Giwa's death signaled Nigeria's descent into the
Hobbessian state of terror where life was short,
nasty and brutish. Since then there have been scores
and scores of murders whose causes remained
unresolved. But Giwa's spirit is resilient, it will
not die. It lives in poems, books, essays he wrote
and those written about him as tributes. Dele Giwa
shall never be forgotten. This was the theme of the
madrigal by school pupils at Ugbekpe-Ekperi, Dele
Giwa's native soil and final resting place 20 years
ago. In a tune reminiscent of "Beast of England" in
George Orwell's Animal Farm the pupils had sang:
In Nigeria, West Africa
There was once a journalist
On the 19 of October
When they killed our journalist
Dele Giwa, Dele Giwa
Dele Giwa you are gone
Dele Giwa, our
journalist
We shall never
forget you!
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Awhefeada
teaches
literature
at
the
Delta
State
University,
Abraka.
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