Beautiful mornings do not last forever. The radiant, luscious and autumnal morning of October nineteen, 1986 did not endure at Talabi Street, Ikeja. As the cool brilliant morning wore on to midday, a novel and spectacular method of human wastage made its devastating entrée into Nigeria’s political space.
Oladele Baines SunmonuGiwa, groundbreaking editor with film star good looks, was bleary-eyed after a night of carousal celebrating black Africa’s first Nobel prize in Literature. But he was already in his study. As he was handed the bulky parcel with the presidential coat of arms, Giwa had exclaimed rather redundantly: “This must be from the president!”
If Dele Giwa had any intention of reading the message on earth, the presidential parcel had an altogether different proposition. It was: Open and read in heaven. As the celebrated editor casually tore through the swanky seal, the parcel hissed and let forth a historic explosion.
Within seconds, the entire study had become a burning, hollowed out shell. Shrapnel, shards of glass and shreds of human flesh littered everywhere. Crouching under the smouldering hulk of the reading table was Dele Giwa, his magnificent torso mangled, his mid-section sensationally shattered. As he gained awareness of what had happened, Giwa gave a weak yell. “Won tipami!” , he moaned in Yoruba.(They have killed me!).
Acrid fumes of burning human flesh, roasting books and other refined refuse filled the air. Life had begun to ebb away from one of Nigeria’s greatest sons, a mesmerising maestro of the written word, a formidable journalistic sleuth, an extraordinary social animal and a warm, humane visionary.
As far as dying goes, it was quite a way to go, a volcanic exit if ever there was one, a one-way ticket in a chariot of fire and on a turnpike of no return. It was an extraordinary act of political intimidation, the equivalent of the ultimate nuclear intervention in post-colonial elite warfare. It was a maximum message of intent to dominate and prevail at whatever costs. Nigeria would never be the same again.
Those who killed Dele Giwa could have organised for him to be quietly dispatched by a lone gunman. They could have set him up in a scene of domestic violence. They had the means to make things look like an armed robbery attempt. They could have a car run him over as he took his early morning jog around Ikeja. No, these modes of elimination are too mundane and cheaply predictable.
By choosing to bomb Dele Giwa out of existence, his executors wanted Nigerians of his ilk to note the range and repertoire of the murderous cocktails at their disposal. After all, it is said that men are killed not because horses have been stolen, but so that horses may not be stolen.
But in addition to its preposterous violence, we must also note the sneaky cowardice of the act. It began a pattern of sly surprise and political ambush that was to become their trademark as earthly powers that be sought to bring the entire Nigerian social landscape under their dominion. Being a plucky warrior himself, Giwa would have loved to go under in a personal, no-holds-barred duel. For a man of such stirring valour, the anonymous bestiality of a parcel bomb would have been the unkindest cut of all.
May be Giwa would not have died after all, but this was not due to any concession from his vicious killers. History has it that had there not been a minor marital tiff, Giwa’s spouse would almost definitely have opened the parcel thinking that it contained early copies of Newswatch, the magazine Giwa edited with such distinction and panache.
Like all good women, Funmi shared in the triumph and success of her husband. By October 1986, Newswatch had become a publishing sensation. The magazine had not only the aura of an excellent publication but also the trappings of a great work of art in progress. Week after week it served its rapidly expanding readership scoop after scoop putting egg permanently on the face of the dominant military faction of a corrupt political class that operated by stealth and secrecy.
It was the complete Americanization of Nigerian journalism, with its power of full disclosure, its fierce and obdurate independence and its raucous razzmatazz. Giwa himself with his matinee idol looks and film star carriage seemed to have been torn out of The Great Gatsby, the classic film of the American dream with its Hopalong Kid and his perpetual romance with an orgiastic future and its immense possibilities. That dire future is now firmly with us, and it is not an American dream but a Nigerian nightmare.
Giwa was the Nigerian Gatsby, a remarkable wannabe from the gutter of deprivation who became a man of means and a major player in the power sweepstakes. He took his giddy transformation in his elegant strides, and with style and aplomb. Not for him the vulgar obscenities and crude hoopla of the wantonly self-obsessed ragamuffin. He was as cool as cucumber. He became a source of inspiration to millions of Nigerian youths trying to escape the grinding poverty of the bleak house.
In the event, it was all too good to be true. Dele Giwa patronized the power-elite and spoke truth to power like a mystical superpower addressing earthly powers. By so doing, the great journalist threatened the power structure and the pecking order of an unlettered power-Mafiosi. By his very example, he was pointing to an alternative life-style, an alternative vision away from the larcenous crudities of those who depended on crude oil for survival.
In the circumstance, both the message and the messenger were handed death sentences without any suspension. The inimitable K.O Mbadiwe once chillingly cautioned his journalistic tormentors to note the fate that befell their predecessors. When a newspaper and the editor were abusing him, K.O said, he did not do anything about it but a few weeks later, according to him, both the paper and the editor folded up. It remains a miracle that Newswatch did not fold up after Dele Giwa’s murder.
When Dele Giwa was sensationally dispatched, snooper noted at the time that the image of a virile gifted young man with his mid-section shattered might well become the enduring image of the nation itself. Once a country loses its way, it continues to wade deeper and deeper in the jungle of crippled nationhood.
Thirty years after Dele Giwa’s murder, this has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. On the very eve of Giwa’s anniversary nine years ago, a Nigerian law maker, a trained medical doctor at that, fell to the din of fistic contention as his colleagues slugged it out for the third time on the floor of the house. He was later pronounced dead. Four years after the bomb , made its way to the independence celebration at Eagle’s Square in Abuja. The Nigerian terminator machine has been working in overdrive gear.
Now try this. If we were to resurrect all the great men and women we have wasted, all the brilliant Nigerians that we have sacrificed at the altar of a vicious and incompetent state, what an endless funeral procession that would be, what a crying cortege of shame it must be!
Since we have nothing but dark memories of contemporary Nigeria, this is what we must hold on to, since our heart aches with sorrow and tragedy, this is what we must hang on to. The enemies are those who want to us to forget, who want us to bury history and their complicity by asking us to bury our sad memories. No, we shall not. National memory is made of sterner stuff. And Dele Giwa lives forever.
