Yakubu Mohammed Dismisses Gloria Okon Link To Dele Giwa’s Assassination in New Memoir

Nearly 39 years after the assassination of celebrated journalist Dele Giwa, one of his closest colleagues at Newswatch magazine, Yakubu Mohammed, has weighed in on one of the most enduring conspiracy theories surrounding the killing — and dismissed it outright.

In his forthcoming memoir, Beyond Expectations, Mohammed, who served as executive editor of Newswatch, rejects the claim that Giwa’s death by parcel bomb was connected to the controversial case of Gloria Okon, a woman once alleged to be a drug courier with ties to Nigeria’s military elite.

Giwa, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Newswatch, was killed on October 19, 1986, after opening a letter bomb delivered to his Lagos residence — an act of terror that stunned the nation, shocked the media, and remains unresolved to this day.

In the chaotic aftermath of the murder, rumours quickly spread that Giwa had been probing the mystery surrounding Gloria Okon, who had been arrested for drug trafficking in Kano earlier in 1985 but reportedly died under controversial circumstances in police custody.

Some versions of the tale alleged that Okon’s death was staged to cover up her connections to top military figures, including then-military president Ibrahim Babangida and his wife, Maryam. Another narrative claimed Okon was never dead at all but was spirited abroad under a false identity, with whispers that Giwa had tracked her down in London shortly before his assassination.

But Mohammed is unequivocal in dismissing these accounts. “It was all a hoax,” he writes in his memoir, insisting that the Gloria Okon angle was manufactured by political opponents of Babangida and used to muddy the waters of a crime that should have been the subject of rigorous investigation.

According to him, the fixation on unproven narratives “prevented a proper investigation of the gruesome incident” and shifted focus away from the essential question: Who killed Dele Giwa?

The veteran journalist recalls how speculation, rather than facts, came to dominate public discourse in the weeks and months following Giwa’s assassination. Military intelligence figures such as Colonel Haliru Akilu were widely suspected, particularly after it emerged that he had placed phone calls to Giwa shortly before the fatal delivery. Other lingering questions surrounded the role of Kayode Soyinka, Newswatch’s London bureau chief, who was staying with Giwa and narrowly escaped the blast.

Mohammed argues that rather than illuminating the truth, the Okon story and other conspiracy theories only served to deepen confusion and cast doubt on legitimate lines of inquiry. “All the controversies gave birth to a myriad of conspiracy theories,” he writes. “Some were ridiculous, others ludicrous, but conspiracy theories all the same. These narratives only distracted from the central search for truth.”

Despite multiple official inquiries — including testimony before the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission (popularly known as the Oputa Panel) in 2001, where retired police investigator Abubakar Tsav revisited aspects of the case — the assassination has never been solved.

For Mohammed, this is emblematic of Nigeria’s culture of unresolved tragedies, where rumour often supplants evidence, and public memory is shaped more by speculation than by verifiable truth.

“Nearly four decades later, Giwa’s death continues to agitate the minds of society,” he writes, stressing that the persistence of myths has prevented closure for both the press and the nation.

Giwa’s assassination remains one of Nigeria’s darkest moments of press repression, a reminder of the fraught relationship between journalism and power under military rule. Mohammed’s intervention, while unlikely to silence debate, adds a significant insider voice to the ongoing conversation about one of the country’s most haunting political mysteries.