The controversy surrounding the death of the late Nigerian Army Spokesman, Brigadier General Solomon Giwa-Amu, appears unsettled as his immediate younger brother, Chief Gabriel Giwa-Amu handed out a seven-days ultimatum to the Nigerian Army to investigate the death of the former officer or be ready for a legal battle.

Chief Giwa-Amu, a Lagos lawyer, claimed that some disgruntled element in the Nigerian Army murdered his brother and alleged it was an accident, adding that those disgruntled elements are still walking freely within the force.

The former Army spokesman, who was also former aide de camp (ADC) to former President Olusegun Obasanjo died in an auto crash on February 18 this year while on his way to the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji, Kaduna State to deliver a lecture.

He was in the company of some soldiers attached to the Directorate of Army Public Relations in the bus when the crash occurred. But all other occupants survived the crash. The bus in which they were traveling was alleged to have ran into a bad portion of the Abuja-Kaduna road, killing the former military spokesman.

Chief Giwa-Amu said his allegation and calls for investigations were anchored on the fact that, “shortly after Channels Television interviewed my brother on January 15, 2008, I received numerous phone calls from persons who claimed to be soldiers, there was no way for me to verify their claims if they were really soldiers. But they advised me to warn my elder brother and gave five reasons why I should do so.”
According to the fictitious callers, Chief Amu continued, Solomon Giwa-Amu was not the only officer in the Nigerian Army and they saw no reason he should be enjoying lucrative postings.

He said: “According to them, he was ADC to Major General Ike Nwachukwu when he was Governor of Imo State, later Military Assistant to General Archibong, ADC to Obasanjo, Military Attachee to Nigerian High Commission in New York and when he returned they said they were expecting him to resume at the National Defence College, but he was asked to drop his red beret which is a military police garb and pick up his infantry garb as the Director of Army Publics Relations.”

He said, the callers also mentioned his interview with Channels Television where he talked about the looted armoury of the Nigerian Army in Kaduna, pointing out that, “they were particularly upset with his word that ‘it is not unlikely that those arms found their way to militants in the Niger Delta.”
He also said that, “the callers mentioned the issue of the alleged fraud in the Directorate of Army Publics Relations in which one Colonel was being made to face court-martial and my brother volunteered to be a witness.”

He said faced with this, he called his brother but he did not take the matter serious, saying that those who called him could not be regarded as soldiers and that if they were, they should have directed their grievances appropriately.

The Lagos lawyer said that his late brother also dismissed the callers saying that enlistment in the Nigerian Army is not by conscription adding that, they have a choice of resigning if they wished.
He said when the new of his death came to him, he traveled to Abuja to see the vehicle in which the late Army spokesman was alleged to have died in.

“I found out some things that were shocking to me, the car was in a state that it would be unreasonable for anybody to conclude that a man of his height and size was thrown out of the window of the bus.
“Also, the bus was intact and in state that it was ridiculous to say that it somersaulted.”
According to him, the window of the vehicle which his brother was alleged to have been thrown out of was too small to contain a man of his size.

He said it was also shocking that, "the driver just sustained minor injuries. Now, I am not saying these things for him to be resurrected. He has died and has been buried. But I just want the military authorities to know that the action may not have been from the lawful authorities, but I am convinced he was killed.”
Gabriel Giwa-Amu emphasized that he was speaking for himself and not on behalf of the Giwa-Amu family. "I speak as a brother of the deceased person.