MY LAST MOMENT WITH DELE GIWA

Nyaknno Osso pays tribute to Dele Giwa, former Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch

Whenever I recall the circumstances that led to the death of Dele Giwa, the painful memory torments, forcing helpless flow of anger and sadness. Giwa was one of Nigeria’s most talented journalists. Between us, he was not just my boss, he was a friend and a senior brother. 

Next to Uncle Ray who brought me into the media industry and created opportunities for me to explore the world, expand the scope of my career and make impact, Giwa gave me the platform that made me shine. He provided the inspiration and the guidance that I needed to get the job done, from the day I joined the Newswatch magazine as a pioneer member of staff.

My knowledge of Giwa started evolving when I read his first column in Nigeria’s Sunday Times on April 8, 1979. The headline was: Golden Fleece? I think I got it!  

As stated earlier, I met him in person for the first time in early 1980 in Calabar during the annual conference of the Nigerian Guild of Editors. Uncle Ray, who was his bosom friend and my editor at that time, brought Giwa to my office to cross-check information on a story he was doing for the Sunday Concord. 

Giwa was amazed and obviously excited when I showed him folders containing all his writings since that day in 1979. He was surprised and impressed that I meticulously kept a comprehensive documentation of all his writings since he returned to Nigeria. I labelled the folder: Dele Giwa: An Annotated Bio-bibliogaphy, April 1979. We became friends instantly.

Later, he invited me to join the Newswatch magazine team in July 1984. I felt honoured that he had to personally come all the way from Lagos to Calabar to invite me, not just as a pioneer staff member, but as the first person on the senior management staff to head the Research, Library and Documentation Section of the organisation. It was a demonstration of the confidence in what he believed I could do. He charged me to collect and preserve all the data that would help the magazine in its brand of journalism, which was new in Nigeria. 

Most of what you will read in this chapter will be drawn from my previous writings and recollections of what made Dele Giwa who he was. I did not work with him at the Daily Times or Concord. But I knew that he kept two weekly columns at the Times, where he was the features editor before moving to the Concord. One was called Press Snaps and the other Parallax World (later changed to Parallax View). They used to appear on Wednesday and Friday, respectively. 

When he went to edit the Sunday Concord from February 1980, he fused the two columns into what he called Parallax Snaps. It started featuring from Sunday, March 2, 1980, and ended on March 11, 1984. At Newswatch, the column was retained from February 11, 1985 to October 1986.

Indeed, Giwa was a believer in the written word. In a paraphrase of one of the Biblical Old Testament prophets, his perception was that the written word is ageless, its message timeless, its relevance endless (Habakkuk2:3) 

Within the time I knew Giwa, he had written more than 300 lively and thought-provoking columns that touched on all aspects of life. Such a person cannot, should not and will not be ignored or forgotten in a hurry. In a sense, he was ahead of his time like the gifted Nigerian poet, Christopher Okigbo, who had foreseen the “going and coming that goes on forever.”

From the moment I joined Newswatch magazine, Giwa developed and sustained great confidence in me as a rigorous collector and preserver of facts and figures, and consequently handed over everything he had written up to 1984 to me for preservation. I took those materials to a bank vault in Ikeja, Lagos for safe-keeping. 

Every time I go through some of his writings, it strikes me that one of the most memorable moments of Giwa’s career as a journalist was on August 30, 1984, the day he received a public apology from the then Inspector-General of Police, the late Etim Inyang. 

The apology followed a court order, which condemned his wrongful arrest and detention by the police, under Sunday Adewusi as Inspector General, in February 1983. 

It was from his response to the public apology that the famous quotation: “No evil deed can go unpunished. Any evil done by man will be redressed, if not now, then certainly later; if not by man, then certainly by God, for victory of evil over good can only be temporary” (Daily Times, September 5, 1984).

Giwa’s journalism career began in New York City where he worked with the world’s most powerful newspaper, the New York Times. As he revealed to Kevin Ejiofor of Radio Nigeria 2 and the late Ely Obasi of the Vanguard newspaper in separate interviews. 

He said, “I was arguing with a couple of Nigerian students in a library one day in New York City. I was looking at the front page of the New York Times when I saw an error and I said that even Dele Giwa would not commit this kind of error. And they said, there you go again. Then I replied: How do you mean; there you go again? I can go get a job in that paper. It was a Friday afternoon. They said no way! So, on Monday, I got dressed, went to New York Times and got a job.” 

Giwa practised journalism and wrote his compelling columns without malice towards anybody. He was ethical, almost to a fault—a believer in the fairness doctrine. 

Superbly creative with words, he learnt and used graphic words to capture the atmosphere, colour and essence of any event. He wrote as much as he read. I have often described him as an omnivorous reader, a voracious assimilator of information, a walking encyclopaedia — cerebral, visionary, energetic, and dynamic. 

In addition, Giwa was fearless, restless, street-wise, chatty, domineering, quite clear-minded on issues, and full of drive and determination. 

On and off duty, he was always neatly-dressed, well groomed, always pregnant with great and fresh ideas, and had mastery of what it takes to be a good reporter—nose for news, eye for the great story, language, style, elegance, wit and wisdom.

A few hours to his death, precisely on Saturday, October 18, 1986, I was in my office, doing not just what I was employed to do, but what I enjoyed doing. I recall that I was working on an indexing project for the magazine. 

Somehow, as I looked through my window, I saw his car outside, which indicated that he was in his office. All along, I was so busy that I did not notice when he arrived the office. This was about 5 p.m. My office was on the second floor whilst his was on the first floor. 

As was the tradition between us, I had an idea to share with him and get his opinion on it. It was about a story we could do for the magazine. I decided to go to his office. It was about 5.30 pm. I knocked on the door, opened, and entered. 

Several years later, it is still unclear whether he knew I was the one who knocked and entered the office, because he did not lift his head or say anything to me. 

That was quite unusual. Added to this was the sad mood I saw around him. It was deadly. His face seemed bloated as though he had been through some kind of tearful trauma. This was not the man all of us knew—always full of life. He was down-cast.

As I entered the office, he seemed to be in a different world. He neither invited me to sit down, nor asked why I was there. Notwithstanding, I walked in, pulled a seat, and hesitatingly sat in front of him, without saying a word. I was worried by what I saw. 

After a few minutes, which seemed like eternity, he struggled to look up at me, sighed and said as if responding to my thoughts, “My brother, I don’t know why someone would like to kill me.”

That was it. First, he addressed me in his usual way: My brother. Second, by those few words, something deadly was looming around him. My mind was puzzled with issues I had no grasp of. Someone wants to kill my boss? 

Throughout my brief work experience with and personal knowledge of him, I had never seen Giwa in this mood. I didn’t know how to react. If it were today, I would have prayed with him; or cited some scriptures to strengthen him. But at that time, I was several kilometers away from God. So, I kept quiet and whispered to myself: “What’s going on?” It was not a question directed at him. It was a statement of confusion.

It occurred to me that I needed to give him time to recover from whatever was nailing him. The story idea I needed to discuss with him simply died in me. Looking back, I wished I did something to help him; though up till now, I do not know what I could have done. 

As I left his office that evening, more helpless than he was, I never knew that was going to be my last meeting with him. But that was what it turned out to be. I did not see my friend, my boss, my brother, alive again.

By the following morning, I was in the office as usual to continue with my work, with my eyes darting towards where he used to park his car. I needed to see him again, so that we could talk. 

Few minutes after the noon hour, the sad news came that my God-sent brother and my boss, the man we used to call DG, short for Dele Giwa, had been assassinated through a letter bomb inside his study. Sad, terribly sad!

It was October 19, 1986. My world came crashing down. By the time I rushed to the hospital to ascertain how bad it was, I could only see his battered body. He was already dead. 

Who killed Dele Giwa?

Excerpts from Osso’s book, ‘AGAINST ALL ODDS: My Testimony’