Dele Giwa’s Murder Made My Son Abandon Journalism Dream – Ray Ekpu

Veteran journalist and co-founder of Newswatch magazine, Ray Ekpu, recounted how his son gave up his ambition to become a journalist after the assassination of the magazine’s founding Editor-in-Chief, Dele Giwa.

Naija News reports that Ekpu said this on Monday at the presentation of the book ‘Dele Giwa’s Granite Journalism’ at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism in Lagos.

The book collects some of Giwa’s writings for the Daily Times, Sunday Concord, and Newswatch.

Giwa was killed on October 19, 1986, when a parcel bomb delivered to his Ikeja, Lagos home exploded, during the military regime of Ibrahim Babangida, who ruled the country from 1985 to 1993.

Ekpu, who spoke about his relationship with the late journalist, said their families lived in the same duplex in Ikeja and shared a warm relationship.

He said his young son had dreamt of becoming a journalist like Giwa, but changed his mind a few days after the killing.

Ekpu recalled, “My five-year-old son used to tell me that he would like to be a journalist like Daddy Uncle Dele. But a few days after Dele’s assassination, my son came to me and said, ‘Daddy, I have changed my mind.’

“I asked him, ‘You changed your mind about what?’ He said, ‘I don’t want to be a journalist anymore.’ I asked him, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘I don’t want to be killed like Uncle Dele.’” 

He said the incident showed that even a five-year-old understood the risks of journalism.

Ekpu further stated, “Today, the guy works in a different profession far away from journalism.”

Ekpu lamented that 40 years after the murder, efforts by Newswatch and the media community to get justice for Giwa had yielded no result.

He said the Newswatch team spent years working with their lawyer and friend, the late Gani Fawehinmi, to pursue the case, but their efforts were frustrated by what he called “the forces of oppression.”

“So, at this point, all we can do is to leave the criminals who assassinated our partner, friend and brother in the able hands of God Almighty because the good Lord says vengeance is mine,” he said.