Newswatch (Lagos)
Tobs Agbaegbu
18 December 2000
Lagos — The controversial and unresolved murder of Newswatch founding editor-in-chief goes before the Oputa panel.
Who killed Dele Giwa? That is the big puzzle which security op- eratives in Nigeria have failed to resolve, 14 years after the founding editor-in-chief and chief executive officer of Newswatch was murdered through a parcel bomb in Lagos.
Emerging facts now indicate that those who killed Giwa that afternoon of October 19, 1986, may never even be publicly known unless the federal government bows to pressures from well-meaning Nigerians to reorder a thorough investigation into the gruesome murder. The Oputa commission is to hear two petitions on Giwa's murder December 11. Newswatch had reported that the military made deliberate efforts to cover up and frustrate official investigations into how Giwa died.
Abubakar Tsav, former commissioner of police in Lagos State, first blew the lid open in an exclusive interview with Newswatch last year. As the police officer in the force crime investigation department, CID, then, he was assigned the job of investigating Giwa's murder. Tsav told Newswatch he pursued the job with enthusiasm because it was a novelty in the country. "It is Giwa today, but tomorrow, it could be anybody else," he reasoned.
Two weeks after commencing the job, he said he wrote a preliminary report indicating that he had come up against a stone wall on all leads and would want next to redirect his search to the military. He said he directed his report and request to his boss then, Christopher Omeben, a deputy inspector-general, DIG, who was then in-charge of the Crime Investigation Department, CID.
Tsav said Omeben did not pass back the file to him. And he did not summon the courage to find out why there was silence from the DIG, for as he explained, in the police force, "when you write a report and submit to your boss, you don't go and ask him questions particularly in that case."
Tsav said he had genuine reasons for wanting to extend his search in the direction of the military. He told Newswatch: "During the cause of investigation, we were told that the envelope that was brought and handed over to Dele Giwa had Nigeria's coat of arms on it. So, it was generally believed that that must have come from the state house or probably a fake." Aside from this fresh angle, Tsav said he reached a dead end on other suggested clues.
Incidentally, some of the clues discarded were suggested by officials of the military government who accused the press of "sensationalising" Giwa's death. Duro Onabule, chief press secretary to Babangida then, accused the press of obsessively focusing attention on one direction (the government) and suggested that journalists should probe several options, including possible international connections.
The so-called international connections revolved around the Johnson Mathey Bank, JMB affair and wheat scandals, which Newswatch reported in a cover story and a Nigerian lead story in its editions of January 13 and October 21, 1986 respectively. Also mentioned was the hard drugs, - particularly the cocaine-syndicate, with its veritable international connection, operating in the country.
The JMB affair is the generic name for the series of scandalous business transactions involving Nigerians and foreigners, mostly Asians, who duped Nigeria of more than six billion naira in foreign exchange between 1980 and 1983. The British press first broke the story before Newswatch did an in-depth report on it.
But the wheat scandal told a story of foreign exchange rip-off perpetrated by wheat importers in Nigeria, which involved millions of dollars. None of the leads made sense after Newswatch directors punctured every argument linking Giwa's death to them.
While the various theories were being bandied about, the government of Babangida then, totally foreclosed the establishment of a judicial commission of enquiry, or the appointment of a special prosecutor, to probe the murder. Tony Momoh, information minister then, told Dodan Barracks correspondents on Thursday, October 23, 1986 that such a commission would not serve any useful purpose. He argued that a judicial commission would not get anything more than the facts already known. That statement contradicted Momoh's earlier announcement that government would probe the dastardly act.
Newswatch directors had earlier called for a judicial commission comprising a retired judge, a bishop and an imam, to probe the murder. The Newswatch stand was informed by the need for objectivity, candour and resistance to undue influence in the drive to find out those behind the murder. The directors also called for the arrest and detention of the principal characters involved in the sequence of official events immediately preceding Giwa's murder.
Soon after Tsav submitted his interim report, two things happened, confirming fears that the police authorities were only window-dressing the matter. First was a conscious effort to divert Tsav's energies and attention on the matter. He was assigned the new job of investigating the case of Lawrence Anini, a notorious robber from Edo State whose activities made the government of General Ibrahim Babangida restless. Secondly, the matter was reassigned. The new group chosen, according to Tsav, comprised "people they could just dictate to."
Babangida confirmed Tsav's revelation in an exclusive interview with Newswatch in July. He said the police submitted an inconclusive report and planned to continue with the search. He told Newswatch that the investigations were still open when he left office.
What the retired general failed to disclose, however, was why the police stopped where they did. Leads, arising from circumstances of the murder had created impressions that the military under Babangida were behind the murder. People like Gani Fawehinmi, Lagos lawyer whom Newswatch had engaged as consultant, had even directly accused the former head of state, Babangida of being behind the murder.
Also implicated in the murder case were Halilu Akilu, a brigadier- general who was director of Directorate of Military Intelligence, DMI, Apapa and A. K. Togun, a colonel and deputy director of the State Security Service, SSS. The two principal security officers had direct confrontations with Giwa before he died.
Since he returned to Nigeria practising a brand of journalism, which military authorities saw as objectionable attack on government of the day, he had been a regular invitee to the SSS and DMI. Notable encounters which readily come to mind include one which happened early in 1986 when Mamman Vatsa, a major-general and other soldiers accused of coup-plotting, were sentenced to death. The DMI invited Giwa for a chat on the suspicion that he had a copy of the judgment delivered by a tribunal which tried Vatsa and co., which Newswatch wanted to use for a cover story.
Later on September 19, 1986, he was invited by the SSS under Togun in respect of an article in his column, on the introduction of a Second-tier Foreign Exchange Market, SFEM. In that article, which he titled "God's Experiment", Giwa had said: "the only problem for the government is that all its leaders will be stoned on the street if the SFEM fails; and everybody will be hungry and things will be like in Ethiopia." But Giwa added also that "the source of hope is that (Ibrahim) Babangida is determined to make SFEM work."
Giwa had reported that he was asked to report to one Mrs. Aliyu and one Adeniyi-Jones, two senior members of the SSS, to make a statement. He did, and was later ushered into the office of Togun who said after their meeting that he did not find anything offensive in Giwa's article, more so, that Giwa had stated in the same column that the president was determined to make SFEM work.
On Thursday, October 16, three days before his death, Giwa was again summoned by the SSS. He went but was asked to repeat the next day. He was accompanied by his deputy, Ray Ekpu, who is now chief executive officer of Newswatch Communications Limited. On arrival, only Giwa was allowed to meet Togun while Ekpu was kept outside. When they met, Togun was reported to have confronted Giwa with four allegations.
First, Giwa was told that security reports indicated that Newswatch was planning a story on "the other side" of the Ebitu Ukiwe story. Ukiwe, a commodore, was then removed as chief of general staff, CGS, the second in command to Babangida. Newswatch reported the sacking of the CGS in its issue of October 20, 1986 under a cover titled: Power Games: Ukiwe Loses Out.
The second allegation was a fallout to the suspension of Alozie Ogugbuaja, then police public relations officer in Lagos State. Ogugbuaja had been suspended by police because he said before the Akanbi panel investigating the May 1986 students' protest in universities that it was because soldiers in Nigeria were idle that they had time to plan coups. Giwa had been accused of planning to give Ogugbuaja a job in Newswatch if the police ended up sacking him. The allegation turned out to be true.
A few days before Giwa was summoned by the SSS, he (Giwa) had phoned one of the executive directors of Newswatch saying Ogugbuaja was a good editorial material. "He is a good writer and in fact a mass communication graduate. Besides, he has a lot of contacts in and outside the police. If they fire him, don't you think we can take him?" Giwa asked. Giwa was reported not to have either denied or admitted the second accusation. He rather reminded the security officer that it was not his business whom he employed.
It was only the third and fourth allegations that were said to have made Giwa shiver. Togun alleged that he had security reports which showed that Giwa had been holding discussions with the Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, and students with the aim of destabilising the country and leading to the enthronement of a socialist revolution. Giwa was also accused of making consultations with some people on the possibility of bringing in arms into the country.
The grave accusations were said to have caused heated argument between Togun and Giwa who wanted the allegations substantiated. After he was allowed to go home, agitated Giwa was said to have reported the matter to Ekpu and said: "If they can think this of me, then I am not safe. They are only trying to give a dog a bad name in order to hang it."
Giwa also reported the matter to his lawyer, Fawehinmi. At Fawehinmi's chambers in Anthony Village, Lagos, Ekpu said they considered calling a press conference only to drop the idea when Fawehinmi promised to take the case to court on Monday, October 20.
Many things point to a feeling of premonition on the part of Giwa that some harm would happen to him after his encounter with the SSS. He seized every opportunity to notify whoever came across him about the frightening allegations.
Back in his office at 62, Oregun Road, Ikeja, he briefed Yakubu Mohammed, then executive editor of what transpired. He also took the case to Tony Momoh, his friend and former boss at the Daily Times, who was then serving Babangida's government as minister of information and culture.
He was told not to worry by the minister who promised, however, to check on the matter. Momoh was even said to have lessened his tension by saying: "they just want to rattle you."
Giwa refused to be easily persuaded that all was well. When he had an opportunity to meet Augustus Aikhomu, the CGS who replaced Ukiwe October 18, a day to his murder, he also tabled the matter before him. It was at a party organised by Aikhomu for media executives at his (Aikhomu's) residence.
Giwa had told Aikhomu: "To be specific, I was called yesterday by the SSS. You cannot believe some of the things they said to me. They said I was a gun-runner. Me, a gun-runner?" Aikhomu was said to have admitted that he knew about the case but he assured Giwa that there was nothing to it.
That Saturday, October 18, Akilu was reported to have called Giwa's house on telephone twice. Funmi, Giwa's wife who answered the calls, said Akilu's first call was to collect Giwa's phone number and the second for the home address. She added that Akilu explained that his reasons for the address was because he was not familiar with Ikeja and also that "the ADC has something for him (Giwa), an invitation or something like that."
Even before Giwa was torn to pieces by the parcel bomb, he was said to have received Akilu's phone call. The phone conversation took place 40 minutes earlier and they spoke for about 10 minutes during which Akilu assured him that the matter had been settled.
While Giwa was having breakfast with Kayode Soyinka, former Newswatch's London bureau chief, after the phone chat with Akilu, the death parcel was handed to him. Unfortunately, an unidentified motor- cyclist rider who was said to have brought it gave to Giwa's guard who, in turn, handed it over to Billy, Giwa's son, who handed it over to his father. Giwa suffered terrible burns when the parcel bomb exploded after he attempted opening it. He died later in the day at First Foundation Hospital. Before he finally gave up, he was said to have uttered: "they have got me."
In spite of the leads provided by the chain of events leading to the bomb explosion, neither Togun nor Akilu was arrested for interrogation by either the police or the military. The federal government even closed its ears to the confession of one Edmund Kechukwu Onyema who specifically claimed in an interview with Tell magazine, October 23, 1993 that he participated in the killing of Giwa.
The said Onyema said he was a former operative with DMI and worked with Akilu for the murderous act, adding that he was dismissed on account of the deal. He told Tell: "I was dismissed because on October 19, 1986, we carried out an operation. The operation was the killing of Dele Giwa, the editor-in-chief of Newswatch then. After the killing, the director of DMI, colonel Halilu Akilu, advised that we should leave the army and that we would all be settled and our identity changed. When I refused to leave the army, I was dismissed."
Newswatch had also made available to government, a hand-written confessional statement from an anonymous fellow who claimed to have been a police officer who was unknowingly made an accessory to the murder of Giwa. The letter to Newswatch was dated November 3, 1986.
The source pointed at two police officers from the police station in Ilupeju named Rasaki and Lasisi respectively as those who know the Dele Giwa killers. He said he joined Lasisi, in his car on a mission which turned out to be an enquiry to make sure the bomb was delivered. He said he sat in the car and read Sunday papers at a distance while Lasisi did the espionage. But when the car later pulled out, he confessed noticing "a rider (motorcyclist) in our front."
The source claimed to have been poisoned through a drink after he came to visit Lasisi later when it dawned on him that he had participated in the murder. While serving the notice that "by the time this letter gets to you, I would have been dead," he concluded by advising that Newswatch should "try everything to track Lasisi and Rasaki." No one was even subpoenaed when Fawehinmi took up the matter in the law courts, asking government to prosecute them.
In fact, initiating legal actions against suspected murderers was like fighting God. Fawehinmi had been at the centre stage of the legal crusade which started November 3, 1986 with his application to James Oduneye, then Lagos State director of public prosecutions, DPP, under section 342 (a) of the criminal procedures law of Lagos State, seeking the DPP's permission to file a murder charge against Akilu and Togun by private prosecution. Fawehinmi's proposed charge was on two counts: murder, contrary to section 319 (1) of the criminal code law-cap 31, Laws of Lagos State 1973; and conspiracy to commit murder contrary to section 324 of the same code.
This issue was to lead to series of other cases at the Lagos high court, court of appeal and finally at the supreme court. At the high court where Fawehinmi asked for leave to apply for an order of mandamus which would compel Oduneye to decide whether Akilu or Togun should be tried, he lost.
He also lost the appeal he filed against the high court ruling delivered on November 19, 1986 by Candido Johnson. In dismissing his appeal on February 23, 1987, the higher court said Fawehinmi's application was frivolous, hopeless, incompetent and constituting an abuse of legal process by a busy-body and was in bad faith.
Fawehinmi's application was eventually granted by the supreme court in a landmark ruling, December 18, 1987.The court, in a six-to-one decision, ruled that Akilu and Togun could be privately prosecuted for the alleged murder of Giwa. The argument of the justices in favour of Fawehinmi's application was, indeed, mind-touching. They said: "The peace of the society is the responsibility of all persons in the country and as far as prosecution against crime is concerned, every person in the society is each other's keeper. Since we are all brothers in the society, we are our brother's keeper... If consanguinity or blood relationship is allowed to be the only qualification for locus standi, then crimes such as are listed above will go unpunished and may become the order of the day and destabilise society. Can it be said that the death of Dele Giwa is not as much as a sad and bitter loss to his friend, lawyer and confidant (Fawehinmi) as it is to his family? The answer to the first question, therefore, in my view, is in the affirmative, that is, that (Fawehinmi) has locus standi. The right of private persons to initiate criminal proceedings is not a new creation." Given their reasons, the justices said Fawehinmi cannot be described as busy-body in the matter. But it turned out the only victory he recorded so far, on the effort to prosecute Togun and Akilu.
Akilu confirmed this in an interview published by the defunct Thisweek magazine, September 11, 1989. When asked whether the army tried him, Akilu said: "No. Why? They don't believe Gani. How can they try me? For what? I gave the military my own version of the story and they were convinced."
Akilu defended his inability to appear personally in court by arguing that such things are not common to the military. "It has never happened anywhere in the world for security chiefs to be taken publicly to court. Even where you commit court marshal cases, it is mostly done behind camera. It is never exposed," he told Thisweek.
Post-military events in Nigeria are proving Akilu wrong that the security veil cannot be lifted in cases of gross abuse of human rights. Unlike what would have amounted to attempting suicide in the past, Akilu and Togun have been detained and interrogated at various places since the return of civil rule last year.
Newswatch had, in fact, reported about the opening of investigation into the security chiefs' involvement in the murder of Giwa in the magazine's edition of November 9,1999. It was reported then that Akilu was held under house arrest in Kano and ditto for Togun in Lagos.
The arrest of the two former security chiefs had come in the wake of massive arrests of a number of top military officers of the Abacha regime who were also implicated in various human rights abuses. The officers who were arrested late last year and are now being tried in civil courts include Ishaya Bamaiyi, former chief of army staff, Hamza Al-Mustapha, former chief security officer, CSO, to Abacha and James Danbaba, a retired police commissioner.
Reliable sources at the presidency in Abuja told Newswatch that Akilu, Togun and many officials of government who served in the regimes of Babangida and Abacha will soon be arraigned in court in connection with the Dele Giwa murder. Apart from weighty evidence, which previous investigations are said to have assembled, prosecution of the implicated security chiefs is said to have been made apparent by the recommendation of the Oputa panel in October last year.
The panel had recommended that Giwa's case be taken to a regular court for prosecution. It arrived at that decision after it studied and almost became overwhelmed by series of petitions sent to the panel. Among the petitions was one sent by Newswatch Communications Limited.
In the petition dated July 27, 1999, and signed by Ekpu, chief executive officer, Dan Agbese, editor-in-chief and Yakubu Mohammed, deputy chief executive officer, the Newswatch directors asked the panel to investigate the gruesome murder. They stated that the murder amounted to "gross violation and abuse of fundamental human rights."
The 14-paragraph petition chronicled the events leading to the death of Giwa, asking for an "objective and rewarding review." They submitted that "the seeming helplessness of the police with regards to the security officials concerned with the events in Giwa's last four days and government's inexplicable stand in the question of an open judicial problem have begun to fuel speculations that there was a deliberate attempt to cover up the murderer(s) of Dele Giwa."
Six pertinent questions were raised by the Newswatch directors in their case for a review of Dele Giwa's murder. They asked: Why was Akilu so interested in Giwa's home address that weekend?; Why did Akilu not phone him on weekdays in the office? Does he need the home address in order to tell Giwa that "the matter is now settled?" Why did he not inform Giwa of the reason for his asking for the home address? Was the gun-running allegation a cover so that if Giwa died as he did, it would be said that it is the arms he allegedly imported that exploded in his home and took his life? How did a parcel bomb find its way to the shores of this country without the knowledge of the security operatives and the government.
Fawehinmi also sent an elaborate petition to the Oputa panel. In the petition dated July 30, 1999, he indicted Babangida, Akilu and Togun and described Giwa as "a dynamic, selfless and fearless journalist." Fawehinmi also sought two reliefs from the panel - that Babangida, Akilu and Togun should pay two billion naira compensation to the mother, widow, children and other dependants and relatives of Giwa, and that the three ex-government officials be prosecuted.
Details of Newswatch's accounts of what Giwa went through in the hands of the security operatives before he was murdered are shared by Billy, Soyinka and Funmi who made separate statements to the police.
Fawehinmi also commended the panel's decision to send the case to court. He told Newswatch that hearing the case in a regular court would serve the course of justice, truth and fairplay.
The panel may have also listened to the voice of reason on the issue, as it concerns Babangida. The former head of state was among military leaders subpoenaed by the panel last week. They were to appear in Abuja when the panel reconvenes. The order issued in Lagos summoned Babangida in respect of a complaint from Beko Ransome Kuti, a popular Lagos-based surgeon and human rights activist.
Among other things, Kuti complained that Babangida framed him up for coup-plotting in 1992 while he was the chairman of Campaign for Democracy, CD, campaigning against misrule in the country. Akilu was also subpoenaed in respect of a petition from Olu Awotesu, a former minister in the regime of former President Shehu Shagari. It is expected that the panel will seize the opportunity of the presence of the two former military officers, if they appear, to seek their clarification on all other cases of human rights abuses against them. The gravity of the multiple allegations against them, including the murder of Giwa, makes the widening of areas of interrogation against them, very compelling.
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