Yakubu Mohammed interview (3): In a forceful pushback against the insinuation that Dele Giwa’s colleagues didn’t stand up for him in death because of their relationship with General Babangida, Yakubu Mohammed insists that the assassinated Newswatch editor-in-chief was friendlier with IBB than most people realise. Doubling down on his assertion that the man he still fondly calls ‘Dele’ neither interviewed Gloria Okon nor was Newswatch doing a story on her, the respected journalist told IKECHUKWU AMAECHI that his guess all along was that Dele assassination had nothing to do with Newswatch.
What will you say to people who still insist that the Newswatch trio – Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese and yourself – didn’t stand up for their colleague in death because of their friendship with Babangida?
Whose friendship with Babangida? Myself or others? How many of us had friendship with Babangida?
The three of you
If you are talking of friendship, Dele was friendlier with Babangida. Who am I to influence Ray, Dan and Soji Akinrinade? Were we supposed to investigate the death of our colleague? Okay, if you say it is the forte of investigative journalism, what have other journalists done? If you are a doctor and you are sick and taken to a hospital, will you be the one to treat yourself? Did we stop other journalists from investigating the killing of Dele Giwa? Did they even come to interview us? They were busy celebrating falsehood. We sat down there and saw naked lies being peddled and you want us to accept it because you don’t want to be accused of one thing or the other?
If you are talking about friendship with Babangida and his government, Dele was closer to them. They said he was even the one writing speeches for Babangida. Yes, it is a fact that I knew the man and still know him, but I wasn’t writing speeches for him.
So, why will anyone say that we didn’t stand up for Dele? Did we stop the police from investigating? When Deputy Inspector General of Police Chris Omeben blamed us for not cooperating, Ray destroyed him by exposing everything. Do you know how many times we were interrogated? Kayode Soyinka was in this country for about six weeks. Why did they say that we were hiding him, that we didn’t allow him to be interrogated? Kayode was interrogated. He came for a meeting that shouldn’t have lasted for more than three days but he was here for six weeks. So, how did we stop him from being interrogated?
Okay, is there any deadline for the investigation? Kayode has been coming back to this country. He even contested election in Ogun State. Have police ever talked to him? So why will they say we abandoned Dele because of our relationship with Babangida? Which relationship? The government proscribed Newswatch magazine for six months. We were in detention. So, why didn’t our relationship with Babangida make it difficult for them to arrest us?
There are some things I don’t want to say because Dele is dead. The first time Newswatch did Man of the Year, Dele at the board meeting said we should name Babangida as Man of the Year and we rejected it. He wrote it in his column, using it to make Babangida Man of the Year. So, in terms of friendship, how can we be friendlier to them than Dele? My own friendship with Babangida was not because he was head of state. I have told you how it happened. It came organically. In the book, you will see the number of things he has done, not for me as a person, but for my people because I told him. The creation of Kogi State is one of them. The appointment of my uncle as a member of the Federal Public Service Commission is another. They are all in my book. We had a permanent secretary of Igala extraction, Mr. Akor, who was removed. He was in the Ministry of Works and Housing. I complained to Babangida about it. He asked who he could use as a replacement. I mentioned a name and the man became a permanent secretary. He was being responsible. Except for my uncle, these other people were not my relations. We were still in Benue State then and to come from Makurdi, the state capital to my area will take you more than six hours because there was no road. I complained to him and the road was done from Otukpa after Ninth Mile all the way to Ayingba. That was the relationship I had with Babangida. So, how does friendship stop anybody from investigating murder?
You said you were not going to mention names but late Chief Gani Fawehinmi pointedly accused Babangida of killing Dele Giwa. Could he be the person that mounted pressure on Billy to indict Babangida in his statement, the one who told you to steer clear because you are a northerner?
Exactly! But because he said Babangida killed Dele Giwa, I should agree with him?
How did he arrive at the conclusion that Babangida killed Dele Giwa?
He is the one you should have interviewed. How will I know how he arrived at that?
I asked because he was the Newswatch lawyer and Dele Giwa complained to him after the SSS encounter.
Gani Fawehinmi was not the Newswatch lawyer. Dele Awokoya, who used to be in his chambers, was our lawyer. I am not disowning him but he was not our lawyer. Gani had passion for big cases and we were attracting big cases, so he was interested. When he came to defend us against Chief Rotimi Williams, we didn’t invite him. But because he had his own grouse against Rotimi Williams, he took over and we thanked him for that. It is true that Dele wrote him a letter after his encounter with the SSS but he was not Newswatch lawyer.
Was he Dele Giwa’s personal lawyer?
Dele wrote him a letter after his encounter with the SSS. And when Dele spoke to Akilu, he told him he had spoken to his lawyer. Of course, you are free to pick anybody as your lawyer but for Newswatch, it was Dele Awokoya. And the board of Newswatch magazine, we had eminent people there – Abdulaziz Udeh, Alex Akinyele, etc. – decided that because the narrow path he was taking will not take us anywhere, because this was a murder case, the investigation ought to be expanded.
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I don’t know how I am going to explain this thing to you but what I am saying and when I put it in writing, I said, between me and God, and I am accountable to my God, what will I gain by doing otherwise?
How many years ago are were talking about? So, we were the ones who stopped Gani from investigating? Definitely no. We were the ones who stopped the police? The police that even harassed us by first accusing us of killing Dele? They said police claimed that Kayode was the one who triggered the bomb’s explosion and they still didn’t arrest him? Chris Omeben said we didn’t allow police to interrogate Kayode, which is not true and Kayode has visited this country countless times since then and what happened?
Did Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese and yourself have cause at any time to discuss Dele Giwa’s assassination with Babangida?
Yes, we interviewed him many times.
What was his response?
He always expressed anguish over the kind of things that people were saying, the same thing he wrote in his book. But you know the thing about success, it attracts a lot of envy. For instance, nobody believed that we did anything on the annulled June 12, 1993 election. Politicians from a particular section of the country didn’t believe that Newswatch did anything. But we were the first to write editorial condemning the annulment. We wrote about three or four editorial comments, we have written many things against the annulment but there is nothing you can say to convince those who don’t like us. So, these are the things we have been living with but that doesn’t mean we should go and invent lies or side with someone who is telling lies so that we can look nice.
The people Gani accused of Killing Dele went to court, all the way to the Supreme Court, was I called there as a witness? Did I stand in the witness box to defend anybody? Did they call me as a witness? So, you deny people just because of what others think about you and them? It doesn’t make sense.
I just confined myself to the areas I was personally involved: we were not interviewing Gloria Okon, we were not planning a story on Gloria Okon, we went to London together, I didn’t see Dele interviewing anybody, and he didn’t travel again before he was killed and that was the trip they were talking about. We were the ones who asked Kayode to come to Lagos and they are saying, why did he come? When people talk like this, why would you want to believe them or take them serious? Our own staff? Why was he in Lagos, why was he in Dele’s house?
Are you worried that almost four decades after Dele Giwa’s death, the insinuation that you people didn’t do enough for him still persists?
We were not supposed to do anything other than what we did. We were interrogated. Police needed evidence from us, they came, went to inspect the house where it happened, they called us to come and make statements and we did, there was nothing they wanted from us that we said no. So, what were we supposed to do that we didn’t do? Have you heard that they called Ray, Dan or myself to come and give evidence and we refused to go? Omeben lied that we refused to produce Kayode but he was not in hiding. He was here for more than six weeks for a trip that was supposed to last only three days. He even attended Dele’s burial before he went back to London. His family even had to come from London to join him here. So, how was he hidden from the police?
Okay, if they were looking for him, have they told INTERPOL to help apprehend him? They even said he was the one who killed Dele. Killed Dele for what purpose? To take over Newswatch? Just because he didn’t die with Dele, he must be a culprit. But we have had instances of plane crashes where babies will survive when every other person on board will die but Nigerians playing God are asking, why did he survive, he must be the one who triggered the explosion. Haba!
Nobody has told us what we were supposed to have done that we didn’t do. How do we know who the killers are? You and I can share the same office, yet your personal life is different from mine. Who you associate with is different from who I associate with. Outside the office, can I account for your life? Can you account for mine?
My conjecture all along is that Dele’s assassination has nothing to do with Newswatch because if it was Newswatch, first, they should have come to our office and bomb us when we are holding our editorial conference. Secondly, nobody has written a letter of warning to us to desist from doing anything that they killed Dele for. Terrorists who don’t want certain things done threaten newspaper houses, they write to them, if you do this, this is the outcome. Till today, nobody has written to us to say, okay, we have dealt with your friend, beware of this story or his fate awaits you. They took the bomb to his house at breakfast time on a Sunday. Was the intention to wipe out his family?
If they were scared about a story, what stops us from carrying the story after Dele had been killed? Or are they saying we should have just shut the magazine down? It is in this country where after about a month or so, we now told Ray to take over, and somebody wrote in Sunday Times that we didn’t feel for our brother who died. What were we supposed to have done that we didn’t do which showed that we were not concerned? Just because we didn’t stop publication? Olu Aboderin died, did Punch fold up? Did they even stop publication for one day? But ours is different. Why didn’t we stop publication? Why did we appoint Ray editor-in-chief after one month to replace Dele? Haba! I think you better ask other questions.
Do you have any regrets?
I have no regrets in life because there is nothing I can do of my own strength. My life is totally in God’s hand. I stated it in the concluding statement in my book where I said to say that I have regrets in life means that I don’t know God. There is nothing you can do on your own without the will of God. If the whole world teams up to say they want to make you a billionaire, president, governor or whatever, if God doesn’t say so, it cannot come to pass. And if God wants to make you anything, and the whole world is against it, you will become what God has willed. So a Moslem has no regrets in life. What regret should I have? Regret that I am a journalist? Or that I went into politics? Or regret that I was born a man? Or regret that I am Igala? You can only regret what you can do for yourself and you didn’t do.
I have no regrets picking journalism. If I have to come back to this world again, I will be a journalist. Journalism was my passport into the wide world, the reason you are talking to me today is because of the course I chose or God chose for me. That I am known today has to do with journalism. So, why will I regret? That I became Pro-Chancellor of ABU and Federal University Birnin Kebbi was not of my own making. I didn’t apply for it, I didn’t lobby for it, people buy positions but I didn’t spend one Kobo. Till today, I have done only one interview for appointment in my life. That was in 1971 and they didn’t employ me. All the other jobs I have got including editorship of newspapers came to me. I didn’t go looking for them. And then you want that person to regret? That means I am not grateful to Almighty God.
How hopeful are you for Nigeria?
Our best has always been in the past, which is very sad. Whenever a new leader is coming, we invest a lot of hope in him and at the end, we get disappointed. I don’t know whether that is in us, or it is generic, I don’t think it has to do with the water we drink or the air we breathe or whatever, our level of greed is simply insatiable. And commitment to nationhood and common good is doubtful. It is like everybody for himself. And I give the example of myself. There are things I have done on the basis of integrity, trust, which other people will never do. If all of us are like that, there will be change but they will not allow certain kind of people to go near power because they can’t trust you and the reason that they can’t trust you is that you are not ready to steal money or allow somebody else to steal. Therefore, you are not their kind of person. But there is always hope because God who created us will not allow us to suffer endlessly. That is where my hope derives from.
- Concluded
