DIG Omoben knows Dele Giwa’s killers, Ray Ekpu says

A retired police officer, Chris Omoben, who was in charge of the investigations into the death of a Dele Giwa, the founding Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch Magazine, who was killed by a letter bomb at his Ikeja, Lagos residence on Oct. 19, 1986, may have stirred the hornet’s nest with his recent reiteration of the circumstances surrounding why the case was never solved.

Omoben in a recent interview had blamed Ray Ekpu, a co-founder of Newswatch magazine for allegedly shielding a principal witness, Kayode Soyinka who he said would have shed more light on the events of the fateful day, and consequently helped to solve the case.

But Ekpu and Soyinka have both faulted the claims of Omoben, who is now a clergyman.

Soyinka stated that he would not dignify the retired police investigator with a reply, and directed anyone interested in what he has to say to an interview he granted earlier on the issue, while Ekpu in a chat with Cable, dismissed the allegation of Omeben.

Ekpu said the truth about the death of Giwa is in the open, that Nigerians know who his killers are. “This man thinks that people’s memories have faded, so he can twist and turn as he likes, but I don’t think people’s memories are that short,” he said.

“Kayode Soyinka was in the country for more than two months, the police interviewed him and also interviewed us, so I don’t know at what point we shielded him. As our correspondent in London, Kayode only came for consultation a few days before this incident happened and stayed with Dele just the same way, we stayed with him anytime we went to London. So, there was nothing, absolutely nothing unusual about that.

“Will a guy who wants to use a bomb and kill someone stay in the same room with him? Would he stay in the same room while the bomb explodes? Will he know the extent of the damage that the bomb will create? I’m not a security man but I doubt it, except you are a suicide bomber.

“Besides, Kayode’s ears were perforated and he couldn’t hear for months. The bomb had an effect on him. You know he was seated opposite Dele as he opened the parcel. They were together; now tell me how it is possible for a man who knows something about bomb to sit inches away from the man who was opening the parcel? Does that sound credible? Doesn’t that sound preposterous to you? Who knew anything about parcel bombs at that time? Who ever thought that a bomb could be sent through a letter in 1986 Nigeria?”

Ekpu said Soyinka had nothing to gain by taking Giwa’s life and went down memory lane in recalling that the parcel sent to Giwa was from the powers that be at the time in the country.

Ekpu added that Giwa had been receiving parcels from Babangida before the incident of his death. “I remember at least two incidents when Dele called me to say, ‘I just got a letter from the president’ and what did he normally send? He sent parcels, that is if he was going to deliver a speech, he will send an advance copy so that Dele can put it in the magazine to meet our production time,” he said.

“On another occasion, he requested Dele to draft his speech for him and Dele called me and we drafted his speech for him.” He said Omoben stopped the investigation into Giwa’s death, adding that one of the police officers (believed to be Abubakar Tsav) involved in the investigation provided evidence that was used against Giwa’s killer at the court.
Read also: Dele Giwa: Newswatch hindered our probe, says investigator

“This same Omoben was the one who stopped one of the officers who was doing the investigation. That officer later became a commissioner of police of Lagos. He has a report which was published in our book, ‘Justice in the Jungle’. I did the story on the assassination and it’s perhaps the most comprehensive and most authentic story done on the assassination of Dele Giwa. Nobody has contradicted the information contained in that book.

“In a different interview, this same Omoben said there was a scuffle between the directors of Newswatch and Dele and that was absolute falsehood, absolute fabrication. He never allowed the case of Dele’s death to go far. The investigator told us and it was published copiously in various newspapers. He provided information to Gani Fawehinmi (Giwa’s lawyer), which was used in court but they frustrated him.

“Omeben is a fake man. He keeps changing the story, now he is pinning it on Kayode Soyinka, at that time he was pinning it on the three of us – Yakubu Mohammed, Dan Agbese and Ray Ekpu. Now, he is changing the story again.”

Also responding to Omoben’s allegation that he had a hand in the death of Giwa, Soyinka said that he was not willing to be drawn into the matter afresh as he had stated his view in an interview he granted The Nation newspaper in 2013. He notes, “I don’t like narrating the story. I have said enough about it over the years. But there is somebody I must use this opportunity to respond to. I have been deliberately keeping quiet all these years that he has been writing about me, accusing me of being a suspect and even insinuated that I was the one who brought the bomb. That was the former Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Christopher Omeben, who investigated the horrific incident, and who I understand is now a pastor.

“He did not believe that I could survive the bomb. He was unfair to me severally in the book that he wrote on Dele Giwa, and in an interview he granted The Sun Newspaper last year or so. He said in that interview that I ran to the toilet when the parcel bomb was delivered. That is not true. It’s a blatant lie. He got wrong information”.

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