National Wire About Nigerians, Nigerian Business and Other Stories
The International Press Centre (IPC), Lagos-Nigeria has called for justice on the gruesome murder of Dele Giwa precisely 30 years ago.
Giwa, the founding Editor-In-Chief of Newswatch Magazine was assassinated through a letter bomb, 19 October, 1986. Prior to this incident, Giwa was known to be an intelligent and enterprising journalist who was always on the frontline.
Director of IPC, Mr. Lanre Arogundade in a release signed by Melody Akinjiyan, IPC’s Safety Alert Officer and made available to www.nationalwire.com.ng, describes the killing of Giwa as the most drastic act of intimidation of the press in the Nigerian history.
“The death of Dele Giwa, has over the years shown just how journalists could be endangered. Many other journalists have been killed, and we must not relent in the pursuit of justice for them, and the safety of journalists in Nigeria.”
IPC therefore uses the opportunity of the 30th anniversary of the gruesome murder of Dele Giwa to plead with the Buhari government to reopen the case, as justice is a very important element of development.
Giwa was born on 16 March 1947 to a poor family working in the palace of Oba Adesoji Aderemi, the Ooni of Ife. He attended local Authority Modern School in Lagere, Ile-Ife.
His father moved to Oduduwa College, Ile-Ife as a laundry man, then he gained admission to that school. Brilliant Dele travelled to the USA for his higher education, earning a BA in English from Brooklyn College in 1977 and enrolled for a Graduate program at Fordham University. Giwa worked with the New York Times as a news assistant for four years after which he relocated to Nigeria to work with Daily Times.
His first marriage was to an American nurse in 1974, his second marriage to Florence Ita Giwa who later became a Senator, lasted 10 months. Giwa later married Olufunmilayo Olaniyan on 10 July 1984, and they were married until his death in 1986 while a parceled bomb he received exploded during his breakfast with Kayode Soyinka in his Adeniyi Jones Avenue home in Ikeja, Lagos.
Story by Dayo Emmanuel
