Elekiya Ayisat Giwa, Mother Of Dele Giwa, Dead At 87

Madam Elekiya Ayisat Giwa, mother of slain journalist Dele Giwa, has died.

Mrs. Giwa had been living with her youngest daughter, Mrs. Abibbat Ronke Aboaba in Ikorodu, Lagos.  She passed on in the early hours of Tuesday at Aruna Ogun Hospital in the town.


Her famous son, Dele, is credited with bringing new panache and zest into Nigerian journalism in the late 1970s and early 1980s through his work at the Daily Times, Sunday Concord and NewsWatch, the newsmagazine which he co-founded with his friends after leaving the Concord Group of Newspapers.

In 1987, Mr. Giwa was killed in a parcel bomb attack on him in his home in Ikeja, Lagos, and was buried in his village, Ugbekpe-Ekperi, in Edo State.

“It is an irony of sorts that Mrs. Giwa has died at age 87, following her beloved son’s death in ’87,” an analyst told SaharaReporters today, “as if her last wish is to remind us all we must unearth the criminals responsible for Dele’s assassination in that year.”