By Abiola Olawale
Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka has issued a clarion call onPresident Bola Tinubu, urging him to confront Nigeria’s haunting past by launching fresh investigations into the unresolved assassinations of journalist Dele Giwa, democracy activist Kudirat Abiola, and former Attorney-General of the Federation and minister of Justice, Bola Ige.
Speaking to a select group of journalists in Lagos on Saturday, Soyinka stressed the need for closure on these high-profile political assassinations.
He insisted that justice for these high-profile murders remains a debt Nigeria owes its people.
He also described the continued silence around these political assassinations as a stain on the country’s democratic conscience and urged the government to offer long-overdue closure to the victims’ families and the Nigerian public.
He said: “These are not just statistics. They were people who paid the ultimate price for daring to speak out, to challenge injustice. If there is any government that should revisit these murders, it is this one, led by someone who himself was deeply involved in the pro-democracy struggle.”
The New Diplomat reports that Giwa, a fearless journalist, was killed by a parcel bomb at his Lagos home on October 19, 1986, during Ibrahim Babangida’s military regime.
Kudirat Abiola, a fierce advocate for democracy and wife of MKO Abiola, was shot dead in Lagos in 1996 amid the June 12 struggle.
Bola Ige, a revered lawyer and former Attorney-General, was assassinated in his Ibadan home in 2001.
Soyinka’s call also comes after Tinubu announced national honours for key figures in the country’s pro-democracy movement.
