COLUMN: Who Silenced Dele Giwa?
By Alabidun Shuaib AbdulRahman
On the morning of October 19, 1986, a parcel bomb delivered to the Ikeja residence of Dele Giwa, founding editor-in-chief of Newswatch magazine, shattered more than the silence of an ordinary Sunday. It killed a 39-year-old journalist whose work had challenged the conventions of Nigerian journalism and whose death would expose the dangerous relationship between political power and the freedom to question it. Forty years later, the most disturbing feature of the assassination is not simply that Giwa died violently, but that Nigeria has yet to establish a definitive judicial account of who orchestrated his killing and why.
The question, therefore, is not merely who silenced Dele Giwa. It is why a country that has experienced successive military administrations, seven presidential elections since its return to democratic government in 1999, and decades of constitutional rule has failed to resolve one of the most consequential crimes in its media history. When a journalist can be killed through such a calculated method and the circumstances remain unresolved across generations, the failure extends beyond the victim and his family. It becomes a test of the state’s capacity to protect the public interest against the influence of powerful individuals.
Giwa’s significance to Nigerian journalism cannot be understood without considering the institution he helped build. In 1984, he joined Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese and Yakubu Mohammed in establishing Newswatch, a magazine that sought to move Nigerian journalism beyond routine announcements and official statements towards sustained investigation of public affairs. Its founders believed that journalism had a responsibility to examine how power was exercised, question the conduct of public officials and give citizens information that those in authority might prefer to keep from them.
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That ambition carried particular risks under military government. General Ibrahim Babangida seized power in August 1985 after overthrowing Major General Muhammadu Buhari. His administration promised political reform and a transition to civilian rule, but the military remained the dominant force in national affairs. The press operated within a political environment in which independent reporting could be treated as a challenge to authority rather than a legitimate component of public accountability.
Newswatch’s emergence in such circumstances was an assertion that government authority did not place its occupants beyond scrutiny. Giwa understood that journalism could not fulfil its democratic purpose if powerful people alone determined what the public was permitted to know. His assassination consequently became a defining event in the struggle over whether Nigerian journalists could investigate those who governed without placing their lives at unacceptable risk.
The circumstances surrounding his final days intensified public suspicion. Giwa had contacts with security officials shortly before his death, including Colonel Halilu Akilu, then Director of Military Intelligence, and Lieutenant Colonel A.K. Togun, a senior State Security Service official. Their names became central to the public controversy surrounding the case. Yet a responsible examination of the assassination must distinguish the existence of unanswered questions from proof of criminal involvement. Neither association with the victim nor public suspicion establishes guilt, and neither officer should be declared responsible without sufficient evidence and a lawful determination.
In February 1988, a Nigerian High Court dismissed murder and conspiracy charges against Akilu and Togun after finding that the prosecution had not established a sufficient case against them. The proceedings did not produce a definitive judicial account of who ordered Giwa’s killing. Even though the failure to establish guilt against particular defendants is not proof that an alternative theory is correct, just as the absence of a conviction does not mean that every circumstance surrounding the crime has been explained.
The problem is that the investigation never delivered the comprehensive answers Nigerians had reason to expect. The passage of time has allowed speculation to survive where an authoritative account should have prevailed. That is precisely why the state must resist the temptation to treat public interest in the case as an inconvenience. The proper response to persistent suspicion is not to endorse unproven allegations, but to establish what the evidence can support.
Nigeria’s return to civilian rule in May 1999 presented an opportunity to confront the institutional failures inherited from military government. Democratic administrations could have demonstrated that the political sensitivities surrounding Giwa’s assassination would not prevent a serious examination of the evidence. Instead, the case continued to represent the distance between democratic promises and the practical delivery of justice.
A significant development occurred in February 2024, when Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the Federal Government to reopen the investigation and prosecution relating to Giwa’s murder. The judgment arose from a suit filed by Media Rights Agenda, which challenged the state’s failure to protect journalists and adequately investigate attacks against media practitioners. The court also directed the government to take measures to prevent attacks on journalists and investigate and prosecute those responsible for such offences.
Yet the subsequent legal development raises further questions about the government’s commitment to implementing that order. In January 2026, reports emerged that the Federal Government had approached the Court of Appeal in Abuja for an extension of time to challenge the February 2024 judgment, having missed the prescribed period for filing an appeal. The application was not itself a final determination of the appeal, but it placed the government’s response to a long-unresolved assassination under renewed probe.
This is where the matter becomes an institutional test. If the government believes that the judgment should be set aside, it must pursue its legal position through the appropriate process. But the public is equally entitled to ask what the state has done to establish the facts of a killing that has remained unresolved for four decades. Legal proceedings should not become a substitute for the substantive obligation to investigate an unlawful death.
The distinction between justice and political convenience is fundamental. A credible investigation must examine surviving case files, assess the reliability of previous accounts, identify available documentary evidence and determine whether witnesses or other relevant material can still be obtained. Investigators must distinguish between the person who delivered the bomb, those who prepared or financed it and anyone who may have ordered the killing. These are separate questions, and each requires evidence capable of withstanding judicial investigation.
The objective must not be to manufacture a dramatic conclusion for an anniversary or satisfy public anger with a convenient name. It must be to establish the truth through a process sufficiently independent to withstand political pressure and sufficiently rigorous to support prosecution where the evidence warrants it.
The assassination of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia demonstrates why such persistence matters. On October 16, 2017, she was killed by a car bomb near her home in Bidnija, Malta, after years of investigating alleged corruption and connections between political and business interests. Several participants were subsequently convicted. In June 2025, Jamie Vella and Robert Agius were convicted of complicity in her murder for supplying the bomb and received life sentences.
Nevertheless, the Maltese case has not produced an uncomplicated conclusion. On September 2, 2026, businessman Yorgen Fenech was acquitted by a jury of charges relating to complicity in Caruana Galizia’s murder. Malta’s Attorney General appealed the acquittal later that month. The acquittal must be respected unless overturned through the legal process, and allegations against Fenech cannot be presented as proven guilt. The case illustrates both the possibilities of sustained investigation and the limits of what can responsibly be claimed before judicial proceedings have concluded.
The lesson for Nigeria is not that another country’s legal system offers a perfect model. It is that a journalist’s assassination demands more than an initial investigation followed by years of silence. Where evidence permits, investigations must proceed, suspects must receive due process, and courts must be allowed to determine criminal responsibility without political interference. Justice cannot be measured by the number of statements issued after a killing. It must be measured by the quality of the investigation and the integrity of the legal process.
For contemporary Nigerian journalists, Giwa’s legacy must also be understood beyond the familiar description of him as a fearless reporter. Courage is indispensable to investigative journalism, but it should not become an excuse for romanticising danger or accepting the avoidable deaths of those who challenge authority. A journalist’s duty is to establish and communicate the truth, not to sacrifice personal safety to prove professional commitment.
Investigative reporting requires disciplined verification, documentary evidence, reliable sources and a fair opportunity for those facing allegations to respond. It also requires the willingness to distinguish what is established from what remains uncertain. The more powerful the subject of an investigation, the greater the need for accuracy and professional restraint. An unsupported accusation does not become journalism merely because it is directed at an influential individual.
Media owners and editors must recognise their own responsibilities. News organisations that demand courageous reporting but provide neither legal assistance nor practical protection for threatened staff place an unreasonable burden on individual journalists. Press freedom requires institutional support, adequate resources and professional systems for documenting threats, preserving evidence and responding to intimidation. Journalists should not be expected to confront powerful interests alone while their employers celebrate their courage from a distance.
The Nigerian state bears a constitutional obligation to protect life and freedom of expression. Sections 33 and 39 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, respectively protect the right to life and freedom of expression, subject to the Constitution’s provisions. Those guarantees are weakened when journalists can be attacked without a credible effort to identify and prosecute those responsible.
A government cannot claim to defend press freedom simply because newspapers remain in circulation or broadcasters criticise its policies. It must also ensure that violence against journalists attracts the same seriousness of investigation expected when other grave crimes are committed. The obligation survives changes of administration because the protection of life and the pursuit of justice are responsibilities of the state, not favours dispensed by individual officeholders.
Forty years after Giwa’s assassination, the passage of time presents undeniable investigative difficulties. Some witnesses may have died, memories may have faded and records may be difficult to retrieve. These realities should shape the investigation, but they cannot automatically excuse its abandonment. The authorities should explain the steps taken since the February 2024 judgment, clarify the status of the related proceedings and identify what further lawful action remains possible.
The cost of continued silence is greater than the unresolved fate of one case. It reinforces the perception that crimes involving powerful interests can outlast public attention and escape meaningful accountability. For journalists working today, that perception can encourage fear and self-censorship. For citizens, it weakens confidence that the law applies equally regardless of political influence.
On October 19, 1986, a parcel bomb silenced Dele Giwa. Forty years later, the question of who ordered his assassination remains without a definitive judicial answer. Nigeria cannot rewrite that morning, but it can decide whether the unanswered questions surrounding his death will continue to define its relationship with investigative journalism.
The country owes Dele Giwa more than annual tributes. It owes his family a serious pursuit of the truth, its journalists a credible assurance that attacks against them will not be ignored, and its citizens a justice system willing to confront even the most politically uncomfortable crimes. Until the state demonstrates that commitment through lawful, transparent and effective action, the question of who silenced Dele Giwa will remain not merely a mystery of the past, but an indictment of the present.
Alabidun is a media practitioner and can be reached via alabidungoldenson@gmail.com
