A Vacuous Judgment on Dele Giwa
Over 37 years after the gruesome no time lag or statute bar, but with a murder of a renowned journalist, Mr. setting as Nigeria’s, is there anything Dele Giwa, a Federal High Court in Abuja left to assist in the investigation or in penultimate week ordered the federal a successful investigation? government to reopen an investigation The Nigeria Police we know, do into the incident and bring those they keep files? And given the circumstances culpable to justice. of Giwa’s death that
Giwa was 39 years old when he was was allegedly linked to the military blown to smithereens by a parcel bomb regime, will anything be left to recover at his residence in Lagos on October and give essence to this court order? 19, 1986. His death remains one of What would have offered Nigerians the many unresolved murder cases in a glimmer of hope in the tortuous advocacy Nigeria. for Giwa’s killers to be brought
Delivering judgment in a suit filed by to justice was when his lawyer, the late the Media Rights Agenda (MRA), Justice Chief Gani Fawehinmi, at the Oputa Inyang Ekwo asked the government to Panel, applied for a subpoena order investigate the murder and prosecute to be issued for General Ibrahim Babangida anybody found culpable. (rtd) under whose regime the
It is a fact that liability for crime has murder occurred to appear before it and testify. But the former military president hired an influential lawyer, the late Chief FRA Williams (SAN), who got an ex-parte injunction to stop the panel from compelling his appearance.
This matter dragged from the Federal High Court to the Court of Appeal where a lead judgment by Justice George Oguntade held that the Oputa Panel was an Administrative Panel of Inquiry and not a Judicial Panel. Because of this, it had no powers in law to compel anybody to appear before it.
By the time the matter dragged to the Supreme Court, the Oputa Panel summoning Babangida had been overtaken and that also frustrated issuing its findings to the public.
This is why the court’s decision coming now to compel the police to go back to that same matter does not really excite many people who knew how muddled up this matter had been.