Yakubu Mohammed, one of the co-founders of Newswatch, has spoken publicly for the first time on the decades-old rumours linking Dele Giwa’s assassination to Gloria Okon, the alleged drug courier who reportedly died in police custody.
Giwa, the editor-in-chief of Newswatch, was killed by a parcel bomb on October 19, 1986. Not long after, speculation spread that his death was tied to Okon, who was rumoured to be a drug mule for the powerful. Some said she died mysteriously in custody to protect the military president, Ibrahim Babangida, and his wife, while another version claimed she was secretly flown to the UK — and that Giwa had tracked her down for an exclusive interview.
Mohammed, however, says these stories were fabrications that distracted from finding the real killers. In his forthcoming memoir, Beyond Expectations, published by MayFive Media, shared with TheCable, he describes the Gloria Okon narrative as “a hoax” that unfortunately derailed the investigation.
“And who, I must ask, killed Dele Giwa?” he wrote. “Nearly four decades later, the search for Giwa’s killers has not yielded any definitive results. And that is because the search had been mired in controversies, occasioned by sporadic eruptions of conspiracy theories, some more ridiculous than others, but conspiracy theories all the same.”
He stressed that Newswatch never worked on any story about Gloria Okon. According to him, the idea only came up once when a junior reporter suggested it at an editorial meeting, but it was dismissed after follow-up checks revealed nothing.
“Until the tragic death of Dele, nobody heard anything again about Gloria Okon. But she came alive as the possible reason why Dele Giwa was killed,” Mohammed wrote. “The fact is that Dele Giwa did not meet any Gloria Okon on the trip in question. I know this for sure because I travelled with him to London.”
Mohammed explained that the London trip was not for an interview but to visit Newswatch’s chairman, Ime Umanah, who was hospitalised, and to inspect a printing press in Amsterdam. He insists that throughout their stay in London, the journalist was never out of his sight.
He also addressed one of the most enduring claims: that Colonel Haliru Akilu, then director of military intelligence, phoned the journalist shortly before the bomb was delivered. Mohammed recalled that Giwa had recently been introduced to Akilu and had reached out to him after being questioned by the State Security Service. Akilu, according to him, only returned the call later through Giwa’s wife, Funmi, and then spoke to Giwa on the very morning of the tragedy.
“About ten minutes later, the deadly letter was delivered. And then conspiracy theorists went to town, saying that it was Akilu who called on that Sunday morning to know if Dele was at home so they could deliver the bomb,” Mohammed noted.
He also defended Kayode Soyinka, Newswatch’s London bureau chief, who was with Giwa at the time of the explosion, dismissing claims that Soyinka had smuggled in tapes and photos of Okon.
“Giwa’s house had always been his base anytime he was in the country. How utterly ridiculous, therefore, it was to say that he brought to Lagos the interview allegedly conducted by Giwa in London,” he said.
Mohammed argued that those who had an axe to grind with Babangida narrowed the investigation to fit their suspicions, which, in his view, only muddied the waters.
“The methods they adopted narrowed the investigation to a few options instead of widening the options,” he wrote. “Instead of nailing the killers and doing justice to the soul of our departed colleague, the question of who killed Dele Giwa has remained in the realm of conjectures nearly four decades after his murder.”
I know nothing of Dele Giwa’s death – IBB
Former military president, retired General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB), has denied involvement in the death of Giwa, The New Daily Prime reported.
In his autobiography, “A Journey in Service,” launched in Abuja on Thursday, the former military dictator denied involvement in the death of the journalist.
Two days before Giwa’s assassination, a senior official of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) had accused the veteran journalist of illegally importing and stockpiling arms and ammunition to stage a socialist revolution in Nigeria.
Alarmed at the charge, the journalist quickly briefed his lawyer, the firebrand human rights advocate, Gani Fawehinmi.
The following day, a security chief, Colonel Halilu Akilu, called to reassure the journalist that the accusation had resulted from a misunderstanding, that the matter had been cleared, and that Giwa should not worry about it.
According to Ray Ekpu, the journalist’s colleague at Newswatch, a government emissary arrived at Giwa’s Ikeja residence a few hours later. His son, Billy, collected the parcel and handed it to his father, who was seated at the dining table in the company of Kayode Soyinka, the London correspondent of Newswatch, who was visiting from the UK. The envelope bore the seal of the Presidency and was marked “To be opened by addressee only.”
However, dismissing the longtime allegation that he was involved in the journalist’s death, Babangida, in the autobiography presentation in Abuja on Thursday, noted that he expected that one day, the truth would be uncovered.
He said, “The hysteria of the media did not help the investigation of the Giwa murder. As is typical of the Nigerian media, the direction was marked by an adversarial attitude towards the government, which had remained the hallmark of the Nigerian media from its colonial heyday.
“It was an attitude of ‘we versus the government’ that has remained today. It is a situation in which the government is adjudged guilty even before the evidence in a case is adduced.
“When the Obasanjo civilian administration reopened the Giwa case at the Oputa Panel on Human and Civil Rights, I expected that the police and lawyers would come forward with new evidence as to their findings on the Giwa murder over the years.
“Nothing of such happened. The Giwa, like all mysterious murders, has remained unsolved after so many years. I keep hoping it will be uncovered in our lifetime or after us. More often than not, mysterious crimes are solved long after their commission.”
