No Gloria Okon Link: 39 Years On, Top Journalist Dele Giwa’s Murder Becoming Curiouser

By John Paul

Nearly four decades after the brutal parcel-bomb assassination of celebrated journalist Dele Giwa, one of his closest colleagues and co-founders of Newswatch magazine, Yakubu Mohammed, has dismissed the long-running theory linking the murder to the late Gloria Okon.

Mohammed, who alongside Giwa, Ray Ekpu, and Dan Agbese founded Newswatch in 1984, made the clarification in his memoir, Beyond Expectations. He insisted that neither Giwa nor the magazine ever pursued any investigation into Okon, contrary to widespread speculation.

Giwa, remembered as one of Nigeria’s most flamboyant and fearless journalists, was killed on October 19, 1986, after a parcel bomb was delivered to his Lagos residence. His death, widely believed to have been politically motivated, sparked a wave of rumours, including claims that he was working on an explosive scoop about Okon, a woman arrested for drug trafficking at Aminu Kano Airport and later declared dead.

Speculation persisted, however, that Okon had not died but was secretly freed and living in London. Some accounts even suggested that Giwa interviewed her abroad and returned with tapes and photographs, allegedly delivered to him by colleague Kayode Soyinka. Mohammed categorically dismissed this version.

“Was Dele Giwa doing a story on Gloria Okon? And did he interview her in London, and the tapes of the interview along with pictures brought to Lagos by Kayode?” Mohammed reflected in the memoir. “In discussing these theories, I am mindful of the fact that I am accountable only to God. The answer is simple: no. Newswatch was not working on any story about Gloria Okon. Not by any of our reporters, editors, or directors—Dele, Ray, Dan, or myself.”

According to him, the entire rumour originated from a casual suggestion by a young reporter, Bose Lasaki, who once raised the idea at a general editorial meeting. “She muttered that there was a rumour the drug courier arrested in Kano and reported dead did not actually die. Her colleagues laughed. Dan Agbese, who chaired the meeting, told her to do more work on the idea. She returned the following week admitting there was nothing to it. And that was the end of it,” Mohammed recalled.

He stressed that Giwa and Ekpu were not even present at that editorial session and were never aware of Lasaki’s brief probe. “Until Dele’s tragic death, nobody heard anything again about Okon. But she suddenly came alive in the rumours as the supposed reason he was killed.”

Mohammed, however, debunked that narrative outright, pointing out that he personally accompanied Giwa to London weeks before the assassination. “The fact is that Dele Giwa did not meet any Gloria Okon on that trip. I know this for sure because I travelled with him,” he wrote.

Nearly 39 years later, Giwa’s death remains unsolved, and with new revelations such as Mohammed’s, the mystery surrounding one of Nigeria’s darkest political assassinations continues to grow curiouser and curiouser.