On the morning of Sunday, 19 October 1986, Dele Giwa was at his home on Talabi Street, Ikeja, Lagos.
He was not expecting death.
He was expecting the ordinary interruptions of a journalist’s life, telephone calls, documents, visitors and the endless stream of information that came with being editor in chief of Newswatch, Nigeria’s most influential weekly news magazine.
Then a parcel arrived.
Giwa opened it.
The package exploded.
The blast fatally wounded him, turning an ordinary Sunday morning into one of the darkest moments in the history of Nigerian journalism.
Giwa’s death was not simply the murder of a prominent journalist. It became a national mystery.
Who sent the parcel?
Who wanted Dele Giwa dead?
And what had he been working on before the bomb arrived?
For years, one name repeatedly appeared in the answers Nigerians gave.
Gloria Okon.
Who Was Gloria Okon?
EXPLORE NOW: Military Era & Coups in Nigeria
The story of Gloria Okon began more than a year before Giwa’s assassination.
On 22 April 1985, a woman identified as Gloria Okon was arrested at the Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano.
She was reportedly about to travel out of Nigeria when security officials intercepted her.
Accounts of the arrest describe substances suspected to be heroin, together with foreign and Nigerian currency, being found in her possession.
The arrest occurred during one of the harshest periods of Nigeria’s war against drug trafficking.
Under the military government of General Muhammadu Buhari, Decree No. 20 of 1984 had introduced the death penalty for certain drug offences. Drug trafficking was therefore not treated as an ordinary criminal matter.
The arrest of Okon immediately attracted attention.
Then came the extraordinary part.
Six days after her arrest, on 28 April 1985, she was reported dead while in custody.
She was said to have died in Kano.
That was when the story began to change from a drug case into a mystery.
A Death That Raised Questions
The circumstances surrounding Okon’s death generated controversy and speculation.
Why had a woman arrested in connection with such a serious offence died only days later?
What exactly had happened to her while she was detained?
And what information, if any, had she provided to investigators?
Rumours began circulating that Okon had information about people more powerful than herself.
One version of the story claimed that she was not merely an independent drug courier but had connections to powerful military figures.
Another claimed that the woman reported dead was not actually Gloria Okon.
According to the most elaborate version of the story, Okon had been secretly moved out of Nigeria and eventually found her way to Britain.
Some versions went even further, alleging that she was connected to the family of the future military ruler, General Ibrahim Babangida.
Those allegations later became central to the mystery surrounding her.
But they were allegations and rumours, not established facts.
Buhari Ordered an Inquiry
The controversy surrounding Okon’s death did not remain entirely outside government attention.
An inquiry was established during the Buhari administration to investigate the circumstances surrounding the case.
Then Nigeria’s political situation changed dramatically.
On 27 August 1985, General Ibrahim Babangida overthrew Buhari in a military coup.
Babangida became Nigeria’s new military ruler.
The change of government meant that the Gloria Okon controversy became entangled with a completely different administration.
For people already suspicious of the circumstances surrounding her death, the timing was extraordinary.
An investigation had begun under one military government.
That government was removed.
The mystery remained.
And the report of the inquiry became one of the missing pieces in the story that followed.
Then Came Dele Giwa
By the time Gloria Okon’s name became connected with Dele Giwa, Newswatch had already transformed Nigerian journalism.
Giwa, Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese and Yakubu Mohammed founded the magazine in 1984.
The publication was different from the traditional newspaper culture of the period.
Its journalists pursued personalities, political controversies and stories that often took them directly into territory powerful people would rather have left alone.
Giwa became the magazine’s editor in chief and one of Nigeria’s best known journalists.
He was also increasingly visible to the military authorities.
That relationship became particularly tense in the days before his death.
The Meeting Before the Bomb
Two days before Giwa was killed, he was summoned by security officials.
Among those involved was Lieutenant Colonel A.K. Togun, then deputy director of the State Security Service.
The meeting became an important part of the later investigation into Giwa’s assassination.
Questions were reportedly raised about the kind of stories Newswatch was pursuing and about Giwa’s activities.
There were allegations concerning political stories, his reporting on the removal of Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe as Chief of General Staff, his relationship with controversial public figures and an allegation that he was planning to import arms into Nigeria.
Giwa denied wrongdoing.
Then, two days later, the parcel bomb arrived.
19 October 1986
The morning of Giwa’s assassination has become part of Nigerian journalistic folklore.
Giwa was at home with Kayode Soyinka, the London bureau chief of Newswatch.
A parcel was delivered to the house.
Accounts of the incident state that Giwa received the package and began opening it.
The bomb exploded.
The force of the blast badly injured him.
He was rushed for medical treatment but died from his injuries.
He was 39 years old.
Nigeria had never witnessed the assassination of a journalist in quite this manner.
The killing shocked the press community and the wider public.
But almost immediately, another question emerged.
Why Giwa?
The First Finger Pointed at the Security Services
Gani Fawehinmi, Giwa’s friend, lawyer and one of Nigeria’s most prominent human rights advocates, refused to allow the matter to disappear.
Fawehinmi conducted his own investigation.
On 3 November 1986, he submitted documentation to the Lagos State Director of Public Prosecutions and sought prosecution of two senior security officials, Colonel Halilu Akilu and Lieutenant Colonel A.K. Togun.
The allegations were serious.
Fawehinmi accused the two officers of murder and conspiracy to murder Giwa.
The legal battle that followed became one of the most famous chapters in Nigeria’s history of public interest litigation.
The courts considered the matter, but the case did not produce a conviction establishing who ordered Giwa’s assassination.
The identity of the person or people behind the parcel bomb remained unresolved.
And Then Gloria Okon’s Name Appeared
As investigations and legal battles continued, the Gloria Okon story became increasingly connected to Giwa’s death.
The theory was simple enough to understand.
Okon had allegedly been arrested with drugs.
She supposedly knew the names of powerful people.
She was reported dead.
Rumours claimed she was actually alive.
Newswatch was allegedly investigating her story.
Giwa was then killed.
To many Nigerians, the pieces appeared to fit.
But there was an important problem.
The popular version of the story was much more dramatic than the surviving evidence.
What Ray Ekpu Told the Oputa Panel
Years later, the Gloria Okon connection was examined during the proceedings of the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission, popularly known as the Oputa Panel.
Ray Ekpu, one of the founders of Newswatch, was questioned about the story.
His testimony provided an important detail.
According to Ekpu, Newswatch was indeed working on the Gloria Okon story.
But at the time of Giwa’s death, it was still an idea that had been placed on the magazine’s story register for investigation.
Several reporters were expected to work on it.
That version was significant because it suggested that the Okon story existed inside Newswatch, but it did not necessarily establish that Giwa had personally completed a major investigation into her.
Another witness, Gani Fawehinmi, gave a different account.
Fawehinmi told the Oputa Panel that Giwa had been abroad gathering information about Gloria Okon.
He also connected the story to allegations involving Maryam Babangida.
These testimonies ensured that the Gloria Okon theory remained part of the historical record.
The London Story
One of the most fascinating elements of the Gloria Okon legend concerns London.
According to the popular account, Giwa discovered that Okon was alive in Britain.
The story claimed that photographs had been taken of the woman said to be Okon, allegedly at a family naming ceremony in London.
Some versions of the story place Giwa and Kayode Soyinka at the centre of this investigation.
The photographs were supposedly evidence that the woman reported dead in Kano was still alive.
The story became more dramatic because of another allegation.
It was claimed that Maryam Babangida was present at the London event.
If true, the implications would have been enormous.
But the problem remains the same.
The surviving public record has never established this chain of events as an uncontested historical fact.
It became one of the most powerful versions of the story because it appeared to explain both Gloria Okon’s disappearance and Giwa’s subsequent murder.
A New Account Changes the Story
Almost four decades after Giwa’s death, Yakubu Mohammed offered a strikingly different account.
Mohammed was one of the founders of Newswatch and one of Giwa’s close colleagues.
In his 2025 memoir, Beyond Expectations, Mohammed challenged the idea that Giwa’s assassination was connected to the Gloria Okon case.
According to Mohammed, the Gloria Okon story began at Newswatch through an idea suggested by a relatively new reporter, Bose Lasaki.
The suggestion concerned the rumour that Okon had not actually died.
The story was discussed at an editorial meeting.
Lasaki was asked to investigate it further.
According to Mohammed, the investigation did not produce anything substantial and the rumour was effectively dismissed.
Mohammed said that neither Giwa nor the other directors had originated the story.
Most importantly, he rejected the idea that Giwa was killed because he was investigating Gloria Okon.
His account directly challenges one of the most persistent explanations for Giwa’s assassination.
Why Mohammed’s Account Matters
Mohammed was not an outsider repeating something he had heard decades later.
He was part of the team that created Newswatch.
He knew the internal workings of the magazine.
His account therefore adds a significant new voice to an old historical dispute.
But it also creates an unusual contradiction in the historical record.
Ray Ekpu told the Oputa Panel that Newswatch had been working on the Gloria Okon story.
Mohammed later described the story as a rumour that had been investigated and found wanting.
Fawehinmi, meanwhile, maintained that Giwa had personally been abroad gathering information about Okon.
Three people who were close to the events therefore left behind accounts that do not completely align.
That disagreement is itself part of the history of the case.
What Happened to the Gloria Okon Investigation?
The fate of the original government inquiry into Okon’s death remains one of the intriguing gaps in the story.
The investigation belonged to the Buhari era.
Buhari’s government was removed before the political controversy surrounding the case was settled publicly.
As the years passed, the absence of a widely available definitive account helped rumours flourish.
The result was a strange historical situation.
Gloria Okon became famous without becoming fully known.
Her name survived.
The circumstances surrounding her death remained controversial.
The allegations surrounding her supposed connections to powerful people continued to circulate.
And eventually her name became inseparable from the assassination of Dele Giwa.
The Oputa Panel Reopened Old Questions
Nigeria’s return to civilian rule in 1999 created a new opportunity to examine some of the most controversial events of the military era.
The Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission, chaired by Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, was established to investigate human rights abuses and unresolved cases from Nigeria’s troubled political history.
Giwa’s assassination came before the commission.
The hearings brought old evidence, accusations and unanswered questions back into public view.
The Gloria Okon story also resurfaced.
The panel heard testimony from people connected to Giwa, Newswatch and the investigation that followed his death.
The commission ultimately recommended that the investigation into Giwa’s assassination be reopened.
The recommendation was significant.
It demonstrated that more than a decade after the murder, the circumstances surrounding the killing had still not been conclusively resolved.
The Questions That Never Went Away
The Giwa case left behind a remarkable list of unanswered questions.
Who sent the parcel bomb?
Who manufactured it?
Where did it come from?
Who knew Giwa’s home address?
Why had security officials been interested in his activities shortly before his death?
What exactly was discussed during the meetings between Giwa and security officials?
Was Giwa working on a major story that threatened powerful interests?
What exactly did Newswatch know about Gloria Okon?
Was the woman reported dead really Gloria Okon?
And what became of the investigation into her death?
These questions have kept the case alive long after the people at the centre of it disappeared.
The Gloria Okon Mystery Became Larger Than the Woman
There is an irony in the way Gloria Okon’s story developed.
She began as a woman arrested at an airport.
Over time, however, the details of her own life became overshadowed by the allegations surrounding her.
She became a symbol of everything Nigerians feared about secrecy during military rule.
A woman could be arrested.
A woman could reportedly die in custody.
A government could change.
An investigation could become difficult to trace.
And rumours could become stronger than official explanations.
By the time Giwa was murdered, Okon’s name had acquired a significance far beyond the original drug case.
The Murder That Changed Nigerian Journalism
The killing of Dele Giwa had an enormous effect on Nigerian journalism.
It sent a chilling message to journalists working under military rule.
If a prominent editor could be killed by a bomb delivered directly to his home, then journalism was no longer merely a professional risk.
It could become a matter of life and death.
Giwa’s death also transformed his place in Nigerian history.
He became more than a journalist.
He became a symbol of the dangers faced by journalists who challenged powerful institutions.
His colleagues continued working.
Newswatch continued publishing.
But the memory of the parcel bomb remained.
The Legal Battle Did Not End With Giwa’s Funeral
Gani Fawehinmi’s pursuit of justice continued for years.
He went to court repeatedly over the case and pursued the allegations against Akilu and Togun.
The Supreme Court proceedings surrounding the case became an important part of Nigerian legal history.
But despite the enormous public interest and years of litigation, the courts never produced a final conviction identifying the person who ordered Giwa’s killing.
That absence has contributed significantly to the endurance of the mystery.
When there is no final judicial answer, every surviving account becomes part of the debate.
A Mystery Preserved by Memory
The Dele Giwa and Gloria Okon stories have survived because they sit at the intersection of journalism, military power, crime, politics and unanswered questions.
They also demonstrate how historical memory works.
One generation remembers the parcel bomb.
Another remembers the woman said to have died in Kano.
Another remembers the rumour that she was alive in London.
And newer generations encounter the story through books, newspaper archives, documentaries, memoirs and social media.
With every retelling, details can become blurred.
Names can change.
Rumours can become facts.
Facts can disappear beneath layers of speculation.
That is why the story of Giwa and Okon remains so compelling.
Nearly Forty Years Later
In 2024, the Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the Attorney General of the Federation to reopen the investigation and prosecution relating to the killing of Dele Giwa and other journalists.
The order demonstrated that the case had not disappeared completely from the Nigerian legal landscape.
Nearly four decades after the bomb exploded at Giwa’s home, the identity of those responsible remains one of the great unresolved questions in Nigeria’s modern history.
And the Gloria Okon mystery continues to sit beside it.
Whether the two cases were directly connected remains one of the most disputed aspects of the story.
What is certain is that both became symbols of a period when military power, secrecy and journalism collided in extraordinary ways.
The Story Nigeria Never Got to Finish
EXPLORE NOW: Biographies & Cultural Icons of Nigeria
Dele Giwa’s final story was never published.
Perhaps that is what makes the mystery so enduring.
A journalist who built his reputation on finding difficult stories was killed before the public could know what, if anything, he was pursuing in his final days.
Gloria Okon’s name became attached to that unfinished story.
For some, she was the missing link.
For others, the connection was a rumour that grew after Giwa’s death.
For his former colleague Yakubu Mohammed, the supposed connection was simply not the reason Giwa was killed.
And for the historical record, the case remains unresolved.
The parcel bomb exploded in Ikeja on 19 October 1986.
It killed Dele Giwa.
It did not kill the questions surrounding his death.
Those questions survived him, survived the military governments that followed, survived the investigations and court battles, and eventually found their way into the testimony of the Oputa Panel and the memoirs of the journalists who knew him.
Nearly forty years later, Nigeria still remembers the explosion.
But the story behind it remains unfinished.
Author’s Note
The story of Dele Giwa and Gloria Okon is ultimately a story about two mysteries that became permanently intertwined in Nigeria’s memory. Gloria Okon was arrested in Kano in April 1985 and later reported dead in custody, while rumours about her identity, disappearance and alleged connections to powerful figures continued for years. Dele Giwa was killed by a parcel bomb at his Lagos home on 19 October 1986, and his assassination has never produced a final public account identifying those responsible. Former Newswatch colleagues left differing accounts of the Gloria Okon investigation, while later inquiries and legal proceedings kept the questions alive. What remains most striking is not simply the mystery itself, but the fact that a journalist’s final days and the fate of a woman arrested more than a year earlier became part of one of Nigeria’s most enduring historical puzzles.
References
Federal High Court of Nigeria, Abuja, proceedings relating to the reopening of investigations into the murder of Dele Giwa and other journalists, 2024.
Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission of Nigeria, Oputa Panel Report, proceedings concerning the assassination of Dele Giwa.
Nigeria Supreme Court, Col. Halilu Akilu and Lt. Col. A.K. Togun v. Chief Gani Fawehinmi, Supreme Court of Nigeria, 5 March 1989.
Gani Fawehinmi, legal documents and proceedings concerning the prosecution of Colonel Halilu Akilu and Lieutenant Colonel A.K. Togun over the murder of Dele Giwa.
Yakubu Mohammed, Beyond Expectations: A Memoir, 2025.
Ray Ekpu, testimony before the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission concerning Dele Giwa and the Gloria Okon investigation.
News Agency of Nigeria, reports on Yakubu Mohammed’s memoir and his account of the Gloria Okon controversy, 2025.
TheCable, reports on Yakubu Mohammed’s Beyond Expectations and the Dele Giwa and Gloria Okon controversy, 2025.
Vanguard, reports on Yakubu Mohammed’s account of Dele Giwa’s assassination and Gloria Okon, 2025.
Human Rights Initiative, Gaining Ground: How States Abolish or Restrict Application of the Death Penalty for Drug Offences, section on Nigeria.
