The International Press Centre, IPC, has demanded solutions, accountability and justice over the assassination of Dele Giwa, founding Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch Magazine, as Nigeria marks 40 years since his dying.
In a press assertion issued on Monday by Melody Akinjiyan, Press Freedom Officer, the organisation’s Safety and Protection of Journalists, SPJ, Hub known as on the Federal Government and related authorities to pursue the case and set up accountability for the journalist’s killing.
DAILY POST experiences that Dele Giwa was assassinated with a letter bomb on (*40*), October 19, 1986, at his house in Lagos.
The IPC mentioned 4 many years had handed with out anybody being held criminally accountable for the killing, describing the unresolved case as a seamless problem to justice, accountability and the safety of journalists in Nigeria.
The organisation’s Executive Director, Lanre Arogundade, mentioned Giwa’s assassination went past a private tragedy for his household, associates {and professional} colleagues.
“It was an attack on the fundamental principle that journalists must be able to investigate, question authority and report in the public interest without fear of violence or intimidation,” Arogundade mentioned.
He burdened that the size of time for the reason that killing mustn’t forestall authorities from looking for solutions, urging the related establishments to resume efforts in the direction of establishing the reality.
“Forty years without justice is far too long. Silence cannot substitute for accountability, and the passage of time must not become an excuse for abandoning the pursuit of truth,” he acknowledged.
The IPC-SPJ Hub known as on the Federal Government, the Nigeria Police Force and related investigative and prosecutorial authorities to reopen and pursue a reputable, impartial investigation into Giwa’s assassination, drawing on accessible proof, historic data and former investigative findings.
It additionally urged authorities to research different unresolved killings of journalists, together with Bayo Ohu of The Guardian, murdered in September 2009; Nathan S. Dabak and (*40*) Gyang Bwede of The Light Bearer, killed in April 2010; and Zakariya Isa of the Nigerian Television Authority, killed in October 2011.
Other instances listed by the organisation included the killings of, “Enenche Akogwu of Channels Television in January 2012; Maxwell Nashan of the Federal Radio Corporation in January 2020; Alex Ogbu of The Regent Africa Times Magazine in January 2020; Emmanuel Adeyemi of The Sun in October 2020; Titus Badejo of Naija FM in June 2021; and Tordue Salem of Vanguard in November 2021”.
The organisation additionally known as for stronger safety for journalists, emphasising that press freedom was important to transparency, democratic accountability and the safety of residents’ rights.
“As we commemorate the fortieth anniversary of Dele Giwa’s dying, we should resist the temptation to scale back him to an annual remembrance marked by speeches and tributes. His legacy demands motion. A rustic can not credibly have a good time press freedom whereas leaving certainly one of its most infamous assaults on a journalist unresolved for 4 many years,” it mentioned.
