Published 21st Feb, 2025

By Abimbola Abatta

Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, Nigeria’s military leader between 1985 and 1993, has described claims that his administration assassinated Dele Giwa, editor of Newswatch, as “cheap and foolish”.

Giwa was one of the founders of Newswatch, a weekly magazine that criticised the administration of Babangida and questioned some of his economic policies. He was killed on October 19, 1986, by a parcel bomb delivered to his residence in Lagos by some unknown couriers.

Reports state that the parcel bomb exploded and blew the journalist’s torso after he opened it.

Nearly 40 years later, Giwa’s killers remain unknown and his death is a mystery.

After Giwa’s death, there were claims that Babangida might have had a hand in the assassination due to the journalist’s ‘fearless’ objections to the regime.

Babangida, in his autobiography titled A Journey in Service, which was released on Thursday, refuted these reports.

He wrote: “The insinuation that the parcel may have come from the headquarters of the administration was cheap and foolish.”

According to the ex-military leader, he was shocked by the “novelty and tragic impact of the incident”.

Babangida described Dele Giwa as a friend and respected journalist whose insights on national issues he respected. He said they spoke often and met a few times, but the public outcry and the shocking manner in which the assassination happened later overwhelmed his sense of loss.

“The Giwa, like all mysterious murders, has remained unsolved after so many years. I keep hoping the truth will be uncovered in our lifetime or after us. More often than not, mysterious crimes are solved long after their commission,” he added.

In a July 1995 interview with TELL magazine, included as an appendix in his autobiography, Babangida was asked why his government appeared to have obstructed an open investigation into Giwa’s murder.

The interviewer said that when Gani Fawehinmi, Giwa’s lawyer, obtained a Supreme Court ruling to try the people he had alleged to be culprits, “a state government headed by a military governor introduced a new law that made it impossible for Gani to proceed”.

Babangida responded, “If you had studied the whole case, maybe you’d have seen the thing from a better perspective.”

The former military leader also said that it was frustrating and disappointing that the judicial system was unable to uncover the mystery surrounding the death during and after his tenure.

“There are many cases like this. Dele Giwa’s is not the only one. There are a lot of other cases. So, if you talk of disappointment, yes, the frustration is there because we’ve not been able to unravel, to quote you, the mystery of his death. So, this should not be treated as an isolated case. It is part of the total of such cases; I think it’s a pity we couldn’t do it,” Babangida said.

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