Dele Giwa’s Murder: Omeben lied, I gave statements to police twice – Soyinka

FORMER London Bureau Chief of Newswatch Magazine, Kayode Soyinka, who was present when Dele Giwa, the co-founder of the magazine was murdered in 1986 through a letter bomb, has dismissed as lies comments by a retired Deputy Inspector General of Police, Chris Omeben, that he fled after the attack and was never questioned.
Omeben said on Monday that Soyinka was a prime suspect in the murder but the Newswatch management shielded him from being quizzed by the police.


Mr. Soyinka, who is now the publisher of Africa Today magazine, told Premium Times from his London base that he was questioned twice by the police after the incident and accused Omeben of deceit.
Labeling the retired police officer as a “disgrace” to the Nigerian Police, who worked with the former military regime to cover up the crime, Soyinka said: “I gave statements not once but twice to the same Nigerian Police he represents before I eventually left Nigeria. The first one was at the hospital where I was admitted – Dele’s body was next door to me. That interrogation by a senior police officer whose name I cannot recall took place on the spot when the incident was still fresh. It was inside the hospital. Dele Olojede (publisher of defunct 234next newspaper) was beside me – he is alive, go and ask him,” he said.
“The second statement I made when the police requested to see me again. It was made at the premises of Newswatch in Oregun Road in Lagos in the presence of the eminent lawyer Chief Gani Fawehinmi. I don’t know why Omeben did not know about this and he is accusing me wrongly. The statement I made, and the ones made by Funmilayo (Dele’s wife) and Billy, I believe, is now in public domain. Chief Gani Fawehinmi must have published them in the series of books he published on this subject before he died.
“So I don’t understand why Omeben should tell Nigerians such a blatant lies. That is wickedness. He does not fear God at all. Thank God I am alive and I can respond to him. Can you imagine if I had died with Dele, Omeben and cohorts would have succeeded in putting cotton wool on the faces of Nigerians and sold a different story completely to them to exonerate those who did it,” he added.
Mr. Soyinka recalled that Halilu Akilu called Mr. Giwa’s house about three times within 24hours and spoke to Funmilayo, Dele’s wife, to know how to get to the journalist’s Ikeja home.
“On the Sunday of the bomb blast Dele had spoken to Akilu from his upstairs bedroom before coming down to have breakfast with me, to tell him that he heard he had called him on Saturday and asked why. The letter bomb was delivered to the house within 45 minutes after that early morning telephone discussion between Dele and Akilu. So who should be Omeben’s ‘principal suspect’ then? Should it be me who was bombed with Dele? Or Akilu?
“Chris Omeben, who was a Deputy Inspector-General of Police, when the letter bomb blast occurred on October 19, 1986, is a complete disgrace to the Nigeria Police Force. He claimed to be an investigator of the bomb blast. Instead of protecting me, the survivor, who escaped death by a whisker, and by the very special grace of God, he is sadly and disgracefully trying to rewrite the script to make me, as he said, his ‘principal suspect’.
“His ‘principal suspect’ should be Halilu Akilu, who called Dele’s house about three times consecutively Saturday before the Sunday bombing and spoke to Funmilayo, Dele’s wife, to ask for description of and direction to Dele’s house in Ikeja.
“Omeben, said, and I quote: ‘Soyinka knew what was coming and he left the room to hide behind the wall.’ What a blatant lie? This man, who I understand is now a pastor, has no fear of God in him at all, making such bold erroneous statement like that on an issue of such sensitivity and accusing me, an innocent man – a victim and survivor of the bomb blast. He should ask God for forgiveness!
How Dele Giwa died
“Dele and I were the only two people in the study when Dele’s son Billy delivered the letter bomb to his father. It is very important here to remember that some unidentified people, who gave it to the security man at the gate, delivered the parcel bomb to Dele’s house.
“The security man, while coming inside the compound with the parcel saw Billy (Dele’s son) on the way and gave it to him. When Billy came to the study and delivered the parcel to his father, Dele looked at it and handed it over to me. I looked at it and was able to vividly see the inscription on the padded envelope and handed it back to him. He received it back from me, moved his recycling chair back slightly to face the window on his left, he held the envelope with both hands, and tried to tear it through the top left-hand corner. He had not really opened it up, if he did it was only very slightly. And boom!! The bomb exploded!’
“A big ball of fire occurred. It was a very powerful bomb explosion! The side of the envelope facing the iron-barred window blew up that window. The side facing Dele exploded on his chest and stomach. And the force that came out from the bottom of the envelope blew up his upper legs and badly affected lower part of his body. He did not die immediately. He died in the hospital.
“Now, you see the vivid description I have just given you – 29 years after the gory incident. If I ran into the toilet or hid myself behind the wall before the bomb exploded like our Mr Omeben will like the world, and particularly Nigerians, to believe, and as he is trying hard, very hard, to label me as the suspect, how would I have been able to know all this, and give this graphic description?
“That partly was what the Oputa Panel missed when it investigated this matter because they did not see it necessary at that time to invite me to give evidence and I was not invited.
So, Mr Omeben should get it now that I did not – and I repeat I did not – run away to toilet or hid behind a wall. I sat on my own chair right in front of Dele. Only the strong mahogany L-shaped desk on which we were eating our breakfast divided us. So I was literary inches away from him. The huge desk must have mobbed the force of the blast that would have done the damage on me up.
“But the force was so powerful and so powerful enough to still lift me off my chair. The chair itself collapsed. I was thrown on the floor by the exit door. I was momentarily unconscious. But regained consciousness, flung my spectacles off my face, and staggered out of the room. Yes, I received no cut on my body, but my nightgown was spattered with blood – Dele’s blood – and I had burns on my forehead. And I smelt of burns.
“I thank God for sparing my life. I could have been killed on that day. My survival was a Biblical miracle. I told you that I held the letter bomb myself! What if I was the one that opened it? And I could easily have opened it myself. But I gave it back to Dele. That’s why I believe my survival was the work of God. My own time was not up yet.”

Punch