Media rights group Journalists for Democratic Rights (JODER) has faulted claims by a Nigerian medical doctor, Mahdi Shehu suggesting he knew how and why a journalist, Baguada Kaltho was killed in 1996.
In a press statement on Friday JODER called on the Nigerian parliament to institute a judicial panel of inquiry to investigate Mardi Shehu’s claims.
James Bagauda Kaltho, a journalist working for News/TEMPO/PM News was declared missing by his family and employers in February 1996 and is widely believed to have been murdered by the military junta of late Sani Abacha following the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election which the Nigerian media strongly opposed.
On 18 August 1998, the Nigerian Police Force held a press conference in Lagos which was addressed by Zakari Biu, an Assistant Commissioner of Police and head of the junta’s Task Force on terrorism.
Biu declared that Kaltho was killed in a bomb blast that occurred at the Durbar Hotel in Kaduna on 18 January 1996.
A new twist was however added to the saga on 12 September 2022 when Shehu Mahdi, a medical doctor and political activist, during a breakfast program on ARISE TV, claimed that he refused a parcel bomb given to him by one Mr. Russel Hanks a former American diplomat who later gave the same parcel bomb to Kaltho.
Russell Hanks earlier this week admitted that he was at Kaduna on the said date but insisted he is waiting for the American Embassy in Nigeria to clarify the issue before he can comment further
JODER however faulted the claim on Baguada Kaltho’s death, calling for a further probe into the matter.
‘Dr. Shehu’s fresh attempt to link the death of Bagauda Kaltho to an official of the United States Embassy has raised fresh concerns not only about the heinous crime committed against the late Kaltho but also against the Nigerian media. This is one issue that should not be allowed to go unprobed,’ JODER said in a statement signed by its Executive Director, Mr. Adewale Adeoye.
The group said Shehu’s position has added a new twist to what has remained an unresolved murder and that it should be in the interest of free speech for the media to pursue every angle to its logical end.
‘It looks too curious that an American diplomat would work so openly, handing over a parcel bomb to someone he met in a few days, and sounds difficult to believe that the official, even if he was a secret agent, would make himself so vulnerable to easy exposure by a relatively unknown third party,”
“Nigerians need to know if Shehu Maldi was revealing relevant information or trying to add to the thick layers of cover-up and create a diversion from the real killers of Baguado Kaltho” Said Adeoye.
Neither the Nigerian government nor the United State Embassy in Nigeria has commented on the latest development.
