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’.



Check the Vanguard newspaper for the full story.