Again, who dunnit? It is sad that the question remains unanswered 40 years after
Dele Giwa, the founding editor-in-chief of the authoritative ‘Newswatch’ Magazine might not have inspired my being a journalist, his passion for the job, nonetheless, played an active role in sustaining me in it.
I met Giwa for the first time at a function held at the Nolchem Building on Marina Road, Lagos Island, sometime in 1984, which we, the final year students of the Department of Mass Communication of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), were invited to.
Of course, before then, the name Dele Giwa had become a household name in journalism in Nigeria, although the ‘Newswatch’ that was the icing on the cake of his journalism career was founded in 1984.
But Giwa had been building the brand long before the founding of ‘Newswatch’. His Parallax World” (later renamed “Parallax View”) on Page Seven of the then influential ‘Daily Times’, later fused into “Parallax Snaps” in the ‘Sunday Concord,’ (1980–1984) that he edited, made his name ring a bell across the country.
Giwa was every avid newspaper reader’s delight.
So, when during the introduction at the Nolchem ceremony his name was mentioned and he stood up to be recognised, many of us were more than excited to meet a man of such stature in person. Here was Dele Giwa, ebullient and irresistibly handsome. He was a man many ladies would be scrambling to own any day.
That is in the lighter mood!
For those who did not know, the Nolchem building was the corporate head office of the then National Oil and Chemical Marketing Plc (NOLCHEM), a major Nigerian petroleum and chemical marketing company that was later privatised and rebranded as Conoil Plc. It was a place many students would love to be. BuyMaps
I can’t remember if I ever set my eyes on Giwa again until he was blown up through a bomb that reportedly came in a parcel purportedly sent from ‘the seat of power’ on October 19, 1986. That was in the General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida era.
Of course, like millions of Nigerians, I was devastated by the news, which the newspapers at the time feasted on. Characteristically, ‘The Punch’ Newspaper where I was then was the one that drew the ire of the military authorities most for its damning headline: “Dele Giwa blown up”. In truth, that was what happened but the then government picked on ‘The Punch’ for that predictable audacity to tell it as it was.
In such dark moments in the country’s annals, truth was not sacred once it embarrassed the junta.
I had made up my mind to study mass communication as far back as my form three days in the secondary school; long before Giwa came into the picture in the early 80s. So you can better understand what I meant earlier on.
Even though I didn’t know what Mass Communication entailed at the time I fell in love with it, it gladdened my heart when I realised it was all about my dream career — journalism.
People like the Late Tunji Oseni, Alhaji Alade Idowu Odunewu of the “Allah De fame”; Olusegun Osoba, celebrated as a reporter’s reporter, etc. were some of my core inspirational models in journalism. I was fascinated by their columns and couldn’t wait to join their league of privileged people that could hold the government to account. Then, it never occurred to me that it could also be a deadly adventure.
It is significant that some of these my early models worked in regional and provincial newspapers in the country at the time, like the ‘Daily Times’ (national), ‘Daily Sketch,’ in Ibadan, ‘The Herald’ in Kwara, ‘The Observer’ (Mid West), to name only a few. All of them were owned and managed by the state military governments but many still distinguished themselves with their audacious columns and news stories, which some of the military governors sometimes found distasteful.
But Dele Giwa started to matter to me in the strict sense of the word after graduation.
Indeed, as a demonstration of my admiration for him and ‘Newswatch’, I always bought the magazine every week even as a youth corps member in those days at Yola, capital of the then Gongola State (now Adamawa). The vendor always reserved my copy whenever the magazine arrived, sometimes one or two days late.
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That was the extent of my love for the man and his colleagues at ‘Newswatch’.
You can therefore imagine my anguish when news filtered into town that he had been letter-bombed in one of the most merciless ways one would not even wish for an enemy.
Unlike some of us who had some sort of subtle or hard pressure from our parents (my dad, in my own case) who might have been happier if I had read Law after my Higher School Certificate education at the Federal School of Arts and Science, Ondo, Dele Giwa did not have any such pressure.
His trajectories in life were exactly what he wanted for himself, except, perhaps, the letter bomb experience. After working briefly at the then Barclays Bank upon finishing secondary school, it quickly dawned on him that he had absolutely no passion for mathematics, figures, or banking.
Then came what aspects of his personal record referred to as ‘The New York Times’ break. This was his hiring as a news assistant by the influential newspaper while still a student at Fordham University in New York, following his boldness to point out an error in one of the newspaper’s articles. And that was the beginning of what was to be a chequered journalism career, cut short at noon by agents of darkness in Nigeria.
One thing that stood out in all of Dele Giwa’s chequered journalism career was his passion for the job. This is something no amount of money can buy.
When I remember how some of my mates were pressured to study courses other than those for which they had passion, I remember how Dele Giwa and someone like me were lucky not to have such pressures that would drive down our oesophagus what we would ordinarily not want to taste.
But my own father too only let go when he was convinced that my 12 points from my three Advanced Level subjects I sat for at a sitting were more than enough to give me admission into the Law faculty at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) then. At least he knew at that point it was a question of passion and not lack of capacity. Then, it was tougher to gain admission into the Mass Communication Department than the Law faculty in the university.
It was good my dad respected my wish. I wonder if I would not have crashed out if I had been forced to read Law, given the vicissitudes one had encountered even in journalism.
But this is a big lesson to parents, some of whom still think their children that are of university age can still be made to look in their own image. That is why they commit all manner of frauds to get them admitted into universities. What such parents conveniently forget is that in the course of the children’s progression in life, the only thing that would sustain them when all else fails, is passion.
But for his passion for the job, Dele Giwa ought to have ‘chickened out’ long before the parcel bomb came. May be he would still be alive; but the question of whether he would have been as famous as he was if he had chosen another career path would have remained a conjecture.
Regrettably, that has so far not been the only thing left to conjecture 40 years after Dele Giwa’s assassination. The weighty question of who killed him, is still lying in the same womb of conjecture. This is not good enough.
We must salute the courage and efforts of people like the Late Chief Gani Fawehinmi, who acted as Giwa’s friend and legal adviser. Fawehinmi initiated 38 separate legal actions and made more than 200 court appearances before 24 judges all in his efforts to get Giwa’s suspected killers arrested and prosecuted.
And Abu Bakar, a retired Commissioner of Police who pointed out how powerful state entities frustrated investigation into the murder.
We also must thank Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese, and Yakubu Mohammed: Giwa’s co-founders at ‘Newswatch’ magazine, as well as Nosa Igiebor and Sam Amuka, publisher of ‘Vanguard’ Newspapers, all of whom testified before investigative panels, and kept public pressure on successive governments to address the assassination.
Born Sunmonu Oladele Giwa on March 16, 1947, in Ile-Ife, Osun State, his ancestral family home was Ugbekpe-Ekperi, in present-day Edo State.
Giwa attended several schools both home and abroad.
If soldiers could not unravel his killers, and understandably so, there is no reason why civilian governments should not.
Newswatch’ may have lost an essential part of its soul with Giwa’s death, his gruesome murder was not enough to let the others, ‘chicken out’.
Thank God, many have refused to. One of Ekpu’s little children who initially wanted to be a journalist like his father, changed his mind immediately after Giwa’s murder. But, in spite of everything, Ekpu is still sustaining his link with journalism. At 78 years, and 40 years after Giwa’s gruesome murder!
Agbese left active journalism only in 2010 (24 years after Giwa’s death). Yakubu Mohammed too was not deterred. Passion kept him in active journalism for years after Giwa’s death, and indeed he remained in touch until his death on January 23, this year.
I remember even my own parents who knew they couldn’t persuade me to leave the job then urged me to be cautious after Giwa was killed.
But the truth is that the source of courageous journalism will die if people can so brutally cut down journalists without consequences.
