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Abubakar Umar, a lawyer and special assistant to Ahmeed Al Mustapha, registrar of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) was found brutally assassinated yesterday in Abuja. Abubakar was trailed by unknown assailants after he left work last night, abducted, shot to death, and set ablaze. His badly burnt body was found near Utako Market in the opposite direction of his residence in Maitama.
Already, the Nigerian police has been quick to claim that Mr. Umar died in auto accident, saying that his body was burnt because it was trapped in his burning car. But family members suspect a cover-up, contending that Abubakar's body was riddled with bullets and that the police recovered expended bullet shells from the scene where his body was recovered
Dele Giwa was a founder and editor of Newswatch magazine. Twenty-three years ago today, on October 19 1986, he was killed by a letter bomb sent by agents of the former dictator, Ibrahim 
Badamosi Babangida.
On October 17 1986, Mr. Giwa, who was Nigeria’s most feared editor, had been summoned by two notorious officials of the Babangida regime: Halilu Akilu, former Director of Military Intelligence (DMI), and Lt.-Col. A. K.Togun, former Deputy Director, State Security Service (SSS). Forty-eight hours later, he was killed via a bomb with a parcel bearing the coat of arms of the Nigerian state. He recognized it so well, and just before the bomb went off as he opened it, had exclaimed, “this must be from the President,” referring to Babangida.Babangida ruled Nigeria from 1985 to 1993, when popular protests forced him to leave office unceremoniously as he engaged in one of the most grievous acts of political infamy in annulling the nation's freest and fairest election in history. Throughout his tenure, Babangida jailed or repressed his political
opponents, real or imagined, or sponsored assassinations against them. Also in 1986, one of Babangida's closest childhood friends, General Mamman Vatsa, who was the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, was accused of involvement in a coup plan. Despite a clear lack of evidence, 
Babangida ensure he was summarily tried and quickly executed.
The killers of Nigerian Editor Bayo Ohu are still a mystery, three weeks after his murder. Now the family of the former Guardian newspaper journalist lives in fear. Ohu was shot dead early on Sunday morning, September 20, by a gang of five armed men and a woman in his apartment in Egbeda, a Lagos suburb in Nigeria. His killers made away with his laptop and cell phone, raising speculation that he was killed for his work as a journalist. Nigerian Police Commissioner Marvel Akpoyido told CPJ that investigations are ongoing.According to local news reports, Ohu was working on a sensitive story about the use of forged educational certificates by a recently appointed customs official. This was confirmed by his widow, who told CPJ that this information had been passed on to her by senior journali
sts at The Guardian.The 31-year-old mother of five girls, aged 10 months to 16 years old, described her slain husband as “loving, caring, and with a passion for journalism,” which convinced her to take up journalism as a profession herself. Blessing Bayo Ohu recently spoke to CPJ about her husband, her security concerns, and her future plans.
