In the Newswatch founding quartet, Yakubu Mohammed was reputed as the pearl and vital link to gold. He was the sheik who had a Midas touch that translated to huge resources. His immense contacts provided access to several deals thereby opening doors to the magazine’s financial stability in its hay days.

Unlike now when media professionals “work in silos” in the view of Gbenga Adefaye, former president, Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) or prefer to operate as atoms, the collaboration of high flying editors – Dele Giwa, Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese and Yakubu Mohammed to found Newswatch in 1984 was not only novel but hinged on harnessing their peculiar endowment.

From conception, sourcing for funds to giving character to the new product, they traded ideas, shared thoughts and brought their individual competences to the table to midwife a magazine on the platter of noble ideals. Their dream visualize a quality magazine like Time and Newsweek. The magazines that took their birth thereafter like Tell and The News borrowed from this pattern.

From Ume Umanah to Abdulaziz Udeh, Yakubu Mohammed was the anchor in the angling to reach out to men of means. As Associate Editor and Managing Editor at the New Nigerian from 1976 to 1980 and later Editor of the then influential National Concord newspaper, owned by acclaimed winner of June 12, 1993 Presidential Election, Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, he had built an arsenal of rich contacts.

Although his writings appeared a bit colourless and sometimes shared views that veered on the far right ideological spectrum, he had the ability to combine vision, determination, deft entrepreneurial spirit, willingness to face failure with relationship building and could wrap deals that addressed the needs of all parties while achieving his own ambitious goals.

In simple terms, Yakubu Mohammed who was executive editor and managing editor and later deputy chief executive became more financially endowed than other Newswatch founders,

He could have turned out as Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Ratan Tata, Gautam Adani or Andrew Carnegie if he operated in a different clime with more promising fortunes. However much of these resources were also spluttered on his governorship debacle in Kogi State.

At a time, the Editor in Chief, Dan Agbese who was sharing the other wing of a twin duplex apartment hired by Newswatch and owned by Mohammed, was piqued and could not fathom why the rents of the house were suddenly raised. Dan’s grouse was that since Mohammed exploited his Newswatch identity to become rich, he needed to show more pity.

Born in Ologba, Dekina Local Government Area of Kogi State, Mohammed attended St Joseph’s Primary School, Ayangba (1964) and Government Secondary School, Okene (1965-1969). He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos (1972–1975) and later studied at the Glasgow College of Technology, Scotland (1978–1979).

In response to breaking stories, reporters were given funds to also cover purchase of new shirts and pants just to make sure they had no recourse to go home to pick their luggage.

Shortly after the assassination of the founding Editor in Chief, Dele Giwa in October 1986, the massive drift of the first generation editors led by Nosa Igiebor, Dele Omotunde, Dare Babarinsa and others to float Tell magazine had nudged Newswatch into a quandary. Rising from this sudden flight of its first 11 leading to a near depletion of its newsroom was a grilling task.

This was also against the backdrop of the stiff competition posed by new publications like This Week, Timesweek, African Concord and The Sunday Magazine (TSM). This necessitated the poaching of fresh hands. And that’s how I got a note from Yakubu for a chat to come on board.

Coming from the Daily Times that was then enmeshed in the loutcry over the perceived “jumbo salary” offered to staff brought in as part of Dr Yemi Ogunbiyi era to change the face of the newspaper, I got a 67 percent raise to join Newswatch.

It was then a fat cheque but nothing compared to the whooping 412 percent pay difference between The Post Express which I later joined in the middle of 1996 and my subsequent movement to National Interest in October 2000.

Just as it was at the Daily Times, where then General Manager, Angus Okoli generously approved our traveling expenses and other claims, story ideas were properly funded at Newswatch. There were no financial inhibition on your trips. Reporters were sent to far flung places sometimes at short notices and without any opportunities to say goodbye to their families in a pre mobile phone era.

In response to breaking stories, reporters were given funds to also cover purchase of new shirts and pants just to make sure they had no recourse to go home to pick their luggage.

From the editorial meetings we sometimes get marching orders. I recall one of our colleagues, Utibe Ukim who covered aviation being put in the next flight to Kano to make on the spot check of the newly installed instrument landing system (ILS) at Malam Aminu Kano International Airport.

Many times the then General Editor, Soji Akinrinade would raised alarm about reporters not meeting the financial threshold for trips. “ What’s happening that you guys have not traveled this week,” he would reel raising fears about the magazine not having enough stories in the bank.

Thanks to the Daily Times and Newswatch experiences on field trips and particularly covering areas of the North East of the country, I remember how former Governor of Borno State, Maina Maaji Lawan almost threw me out of his office when I asked him about the wisdom of taking 1000 persons to Mecca in the midst of acute water scarcity in Maiduguri.

It was easy knocking my jottings to do a tribute on Dr Shekarau Angyu Masa Ibi, the 27th Aku Uka of Wukari when he departed on October 10th, 2021 at the age of 84 after 45 years in the throne. I also relish the story titled, “Askira Uba: Death of Gallant Soldiers on My Pathway” published in The News magazine in November 23, 2021.

The terrorist group, Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP), formerly known as Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihād, which has seemingly grown fiercer than the dreaded Boko Haram, was in the offensive against our soldiers in Bulguma, Askira Uba Local Government Area, a pathway traversed severally by this writer long before BH conceived opening their operational base in Sambisa located within earshots.

By the time the staccato of their smoking gun had receded, one of our gallant generals, Brigadier General Dzarma Zirkisu, commander of the special forces and three soldiers laid dead. It was really tragic losing a general who actually called for reinforcement to confront the brazen attack from ISWAP.

These days many reporters churn out stories from their dingy laptops and phones. Publishing interviews with persons they’ve never met because of the astronomical cost of traveling around is commonplace.

The vital lesson of that glowing era perhaps still haunts us. If media professionals collaborated to pool resources in a period of economic boom, it should be a matter of great worry that we’ve now opted to work in splinters when the economy is in virtual shreds. Nurturing a strong and viable Nigerian media on this warped thinking may be a mirage.

The demise of Yakubu Mohammed at 75 after a protracted bout from prostrate cancer for which he underwent chemotherapy is the huge loss of an astute deal maker. Coming weeks after the death of Dan Agbese, this is a big blow to the Nigerian media and the Newswatch family.

It’s not particularly soothing for Ray Ekpu who’s now left alone to bear the can of their initial dream. My heart and prayers are with Yakubu Mohammed’s immediate family in this period of tribulations. May his soul find rest in the Lord’s bosom, Amen.

*Iyare, an international journalist is also a development expert.

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A review of Yakubu Mohammed’s ‘Beyond Expectations’

My first love is literature; I love everything connected with language and its performances. But during my secondary school years, I was immersed in that eternal dialogue between mind and matter, finding ease and delight in Maths, Physics, and other science subjects. My path seemed clearly charted, guided by the logic of numbers and the certainties of experiment. Then, at some point, some big boys in Lagos started a news magazine called Newswatch and took the whole nation by storm. In their reports and commentaries, the reading public beheld excellence in its purest form. I read them: Dele Giwa, Dan Agbese, Ray Ekpu, and Yakubu Mohammed, and something within me began to stir. Chewing, swallowing, and digesting their words convinced my river to change course. It was time to face the arts and be like them. That decision became the granite foundation of my journalism story. To be asked to review the memoir of one of the gods of that journalism of excellence is, for me, an opportunity for my river to pour libations at its source, an honour most cherished.

For someone like me, who recently wrote and published a preview of this book, being asked to present a full review before such a distinguished audience as this, an audience that cuts across faiths, fields and fraternities, feels a bit like being asked to describe the sunrise again, but now beneath the gaze of the sun itself, while every star in the firmament sat in solemn witness. Still, this book, ‘Beyond Expectations’ demands another telling, because every reading reveals a new gleam in the gold of Yakubu Mohammed’s destiny.

As a student of literature, when I first saw the title of this memoir, what came to my mind was Charles Dickens’ classic, ‘Great Expectations’. And so, when I was summoned to come and be the reviewer here and now, I thought a journey into Dickens should resonate deeply with Yakubu Mohammed’s life story. And, truly ‘Great Expectations’ provides a philosophical doorway into ‘Beyond Expectations’. There are passages that tie the English classic’s reflections on destiny and moral integrity to the Nigerian memoir’s lived experience of resilience, faith, and character.

“Life is made of ever so many partings welded together,” Charles Dickens wrote in Great Expectations. It is his way of saying that destiny is not a straight line but a chain of separations, turns, and welds, the forging of one’s path through both loss and will. Reading Yakubu Mohammed’s Beyond Expectations, one senses that same truth unfolding in a different tongue and terrain: a life of many partings, disappointments, misses, close-shaves and redirections, all welded together by faith, grit, and an unbending moral spine.

A riveting story of four parts, 27 chapters, Yakubu Mohammed’s memoir begins, fittingly, with mystery: the author does not know the exact date of his birth. For a journalist whose craft depends on detail, this uncertainty feels poetic. In a world obsessed with records, he calmly chose April 4 as his birthday; a quiet act of rebellion and self-definition. Where others rely on documentation, he relied on destiny. He did it and says what he did calmly: “My uncle was not sure of the exact date in April. No matter, I took over from where he left off and decided, without any facts or figures, that it must be the fourth day of April, so April 4 became my birthday.” April 4 became not just a date for him, but a declaration: that life could still be authored by faith and will.

The author’s very first sentence in Beyond Expectations, is “I begin in the name of God Almighty,” (XXIII). Yakubu Mohammed transforms the story of his life into a spiritual odyssey shaped by faith, family, and providence. He recalls that his name, drawn from an Igala legend of persecution and survival, later linked to Dan Fodio’s Jihad in Northern Nigeria, carries a sacred weight, a sign of divine destiny that would mark his journey from birth. That destiny first revealed itself in tragedy narrowly averted: as an infant (less than a month old), he was rescued from a raging fire that consumed his family’s grass house and all his mother’s possessions. His mother, who lost all her clothes, reacted tearfully yet triumphantly.

Pointing at Yakubu with tears of joy flowing freely she said: “That is my cloth, my belonging, my all-in-all. I have not lost anything. Yakubu is my cloth, he is my God-given garment and that is enough for me”. (Page 5).

This declaration of maternal devotion sanctified Yakubu’s survival and set the tone for a life guided by divine protection. A few years later, another symbolic gesture deepened the themes and the spiritual narrative: in 1958, three days after enrolling in school, his unlettered father presented him with a pen (page XXIV). In Islamic teaching, the Pen was the first creation, commanded by Allah to write all things decreed until the final hour. To young Yakubu, it became a prophecy, a sign that his calling lay in the written word.

Through these tender recollections, Mohammed presents his life as a succession of events and as a drama of destiny, where faith (and fate) remould suffering into survival, where family serves as the vessel of divine grace, and where the pen, given in innocence, becomes the tool through which purpose is fulfilled. From that moment of fire to his rise as editor under Publisher M. K. O. Abiola, Beyond Expectations traces a journey of resilience and faith, a life that, as the title rightly affirms, blossomed far beyond human expectations.

Some words on the book’s form, language and style. Yakubu’s language is very accessible. The plot is linear. It starts with the author’s early life, moves in 106 pages to his life in the media which takes 184 pages. The remaining 102 pages are devoted to his public service record, his politics. The sentences are simple, the words clearly collocate with the sense and the context. Yakubu’s prose mirrors his personality: it is calm, pinpoint, precise, contemplative. He writes like a man who has learned that wisdom often lives in restraint and subtlety. The humour on his pages sparkles; it winks and blinks quietly like the lagoon; the insights arrive without fanfare like rain divorced from thunder. One minute he recounts the absurdities of human thoughtlessness with a wry, grimly mocking smile; the next, he meditates on fate with the calmness of faith. Through it all runs a steady stream of gratitude, a constant flow of appreciation; what he calls “the unseen but active hands of Allah (SWT)” guiding each turn of his story.

Yakubu got his first gift, a pen as a child.

But before the pen could meet its purpose, it would first write through pain. In one of the book’s most poignant chapters, Mohammed recalls how he was cheated twice in his quest for education. Those two early heartbreaks nearly derailed his future; they could not. Instead, they deepened his resolve.

The first came when he passed the entrance exam to the senior primary school at Ogane-Aji only to discover that his name had been crudely crossed out on the list of successful candidates and replaced with another pupil’s. Hear him: “When the results of the entrance examinations came, I was gripped by shock and disbelief. I did not fail; at least that was clearly shown on the typewritten list that was pasted on the school notice board. The shock, which threw me into an emotional tailspin, was that someone, somewhere had carefully crossed out my name on the list of successful candidates with a ballpoint pen and replaced it with the name of a female classmate. I could not comprehend the incongruity of it – they were saying, but who were the they’?- that I did not fail but I did not pass! It immediately dawned on me that my successful result had been annulled with a fiat…”(Page 19).

His teachers were helpless; they could do nothing to challenge the injustice.

The second disappointment was when he was denied admission into St. John’s College, Kaduna, despite excelling in the entrance exam, because he refused to renounce his faith. Some Reverend Fathers asked him if he would convert to Catholicism if admitted, his calm and honest answer was an unhesitant “No”.  He was told:

“Here is a Catholic school and you are doing well even as a Muslim. Would you agree to convert to Catholicism if admitted to college.”

“I did not hesitate to answer. And my answer was an unequivocal No.”

That ‘No’ sealed his fate.

Yakubu Mohammed, was the only one who passed the written examination, but when the letter of admission came a few weeks later, it was not for him. The letter went to his classmate who did not pass (see page 27). If this happened today, it would be a counter-point to Donald Trump’s single narrative that religious persecution is a one-faith blight on the face of Nigeria.

Twice denied, yet undeterred. The boy who had been erased from one list and removed from another would soon pass the common entrance into a government college, where there was no gatekeeper; where merit itself was the front door’s key.

From his humble beginnings, Yakubu’s path would rise steadily. He passed his exams, went to UNILAG and with his pen made himself known. The story of his journalism exploits as an undergraduate is worth reading in this book. Where I come from, we say that cats that will grow to kill rats are always smart as kittens.

From classroom to newsroom, from editor’s desk to public office, Yakubu’s story is a journey powered by perseverance, the story of a life told in headlines and deadlines. Every page of this book testifies to that.

The author’s early struggles reveal the moral foundation of ‘Beyond Expectations’: that integrity is not an elective but a core course. The same child who refused to yield to injustice became the man who refused to trade truth for convenience. As a senior journalist with the New Nigerian, as the editor of National Concord, and later as Pro-Chancellor and chairman of council of two Federal Universities, (one of them the great ABU, Zaria), Mohammed consistently walked that thin, difficult line between service and survival, between principle and politics. He did so, suffered and moved on without bitterness.

The last part of the story is entitled ‘Politics’ (Page 339-389). Yakubu’s adventure in PDP and APC politics is a lesson for the motherless never to follow the initiate into the forest of the heartless. One of the chapters he christened ‘where angels fear to tread’. The second is ‘Cocktail of Mischief and Betrayal’. Sample: the APC announced in 2015 that he withdrew for Abubakar Audu. He did not withdraw but the party insisted he did.

Yakubu Mohammed complains loudly in this book that he suffered several arrests and detentions from the government and its agents. But it is always better to lose one’s cap than to lose one’s head. Hubert Ogunde sings in an album that a man that is beaten by the rains but escapes the withering celts of Sango should learn to thank God (eni òjò pa tí Sàngó ò pa, opé l’ó ye é). Mohammed is lucky that he lives to write his story. His friend, Dele Giwa, was not that lucky; he died before his time.

When a friend and colleague of Dele Giwa writes a book, a memoir, he is expected to answer or, at least, seek an answer to the question: Who Killed Dele Giwa? Does this book answer it? Giwa’s author-friend has ample space for an interrogation of that nagging question: Who killed Dele Giwa? He asks that question and raises posers which only he, Ray Ekpu and Dan Agbese could raise. Then he provides insights. Was Newswatch doing a story on a certain Gloria Okon? Who really was she? Yakubu’s book answers the questions in a manner that may activate many more people to write their own versions of the truth; some are reacting already.

I have read many accounts that seek to answer that Dele Giwa question. I have read Brigadier General Kunle Togun’s 195-page “Dele Giwa: The Unanswered Questions’ published in 2002. Journalist and lawyer, Richard Akinnola has written several materials on that unfortunate event. He has, in fact, reacted in writing to this book. Well, Mr Yakubu Mohammed has written his insider’s account, we look forward to Messrs Ray Ekpu and Dan Agbese and other Newswatch great men and women to write their own memoirs. Probably at the end of the whole interventions, an acceptable answer will be distilled to the question: Who killed Dele Giwa?

The book contains more on Nigeria and its chequered history. How did David Mark accurately predict in 1994 that Sani Abacha would spend five years in power and would attempt to contest a multi-party presidential election with only himself as candidate? Why did M. K.O. Abiola contest the 1993 election even after he had been told eight years earlier by Yakubu Mohammed who dreamt that he would one day successfully gun for the nation’s top job but would have the crown blown away by a storm at his crowning ceremony.

Through this author’s life, we glimpse a broader Nigeria: the growing pains of a postcolonial nation, the trials of its media, the ethical tests of public service. Yet, unlike many memoirs from men who carry ugly scars of life, Beyond Expectations oozes no scent of bitterness. Its tone is neither offensive nor defensive; it is a thanksgiving, a 440-page-long song of praise.

There are several MKO surprises that should extract gasps from the reader. Imagine Abiola as a reporter pursuing a story with his editor in the dead of the night.

As editor of Abiola’s National Concord, Yakubu Mohammed says “one night, I was going to meet a news contact in Surulere. He (Abiola) had an idea of the story I was pursuing and he inserted himself into the investigation team. He offered to accompany me. We took off from his residence in my car. Only three of us; he, in the passenger’s seat and I, in the driver’s seat with one security detail at the back seat. We did not return to Ikeja until about 4.00 the following morning, mission accomplished” (Page 168).

Accounts of several escapades like this make the book a thriller. Or how should I describe a scene that has billionaire Abiola stranded in a motor park one midnight in Benin? The money man finally got bailed out by the police and on the way to Lagos that night, Abiola entertained his boys in the police car with good music – a fork and a plate supplying the percussion.

Readers will confirm that a time there was in Nigeria when a newspaper financed a bank. It is difficult to believe but that is what I read in this book by Yakubu Mohammed. Hear the author: “Abiola’s initial contribution to the establishment of Habib Bank which he co-founded with his friend, Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, was paid from the Concord purse. I knew it because I signed the cheque”.” (Page 176).

As Concord journalists, Dele Giwa, Yakubu Mohammed and Ray Ekpu were famous for the unconventional work they did; they were even more famous for the flamboyance of their social life and engagements. They were brilliant, hardworking and rich.

Professor Olatunji Dare in the Foreword to this book drops a positive line on the “quiet elegance” of Yakubu’s wardrobe. But they lived big. A columnist with the rival New Nigerian newspaper based in Kaduna went with the pseudonym Candido, one day, called them “the Benzy journalists in Lagos who wear Gucci shoes.” A journalist, even if an editor, riding a Mercedes Benz in Nigeria of the early 1980s was a big deal. But Yakubu Mohammed does not think it should be a big deal. “Yes, we were riding Mercedes Benz cars, but we were not the first journalists or editors to do so. I don’t know about Gucci shoes but we were frequent visitors to New Bond Street and Oxford Street, the high-end shopping areas of London. If we were the envy of colleagues, it was thanks largely to (MKO) Abiola’s large-heartedness and the generous support of many other good friends.” (Page 199).

In the 1970s through early/mid 80s, the Lagos/Ibadan powerhouse of the Nigerian media had “The Three Musketeers.” That was the honorific tag hung on Messrs Felix Adenaike, Peter Ajayi and Olusegun Osoba who were at the helm of the Nigerian Tribune, Daily Times/Daily Sketch, and Nigerian Herald. One is dead, one is abroad, the third musketeer (Chief Osoba) is here, in this hall as chairman. They were the reigning big boys of that period. Then came the three “Benzy journalists” in imported, expensive shoes.

Beyond Expectations is also a book on business plan and execution (see pages 210 and 211). The process that birthed Newswatch, and how the brand was lost, are worth reading by all aspiring media entrepreneurs. But on this, something is missing in the book: How did the promoters of the magazine arrive at the name Newswatch? Who suggested it? I searched and could not find it in the book.

The media is a long-suffering entity. The same with its operatives. You will find Yakubu Mohammed’s ‘Beyond Expectations’ a book of tribulations, an account of a few ups and many downs. It is in there, how people of power use and dump journalists, and how journalists disgracefully undermine journalists for patronage, positions and privileges.

You also see and feel accounts of the journalist’s patriotic actions, many times unappreciated by the beneficiary-society. German playwright and novelist, Gustav Freytag, in 1854 published his famous play, ‘Die Jouralisten’ (The Journalists), a comedy in four acts. A voice in that play describes journalists as “worthless fellows, these gentlemen of the quill! Cowardly, malicious, deceitful in their irresponsibility” (Act 3, Scene 1).

At a point in the plot, one of the characters says “The whole world complains of him (the journalist), yet everyone would like to use him for his own benefit.” Yakubu experienced this many times and it is there in the book. His partner, Dan Agbese, puts this starkly in the Preface: “He expects no rewards and receives none. Some pay him back with the coins of ingratitude. That should make a lesser man bitter but not Yakubu. He takes it in his strides.”

At the beginning of this review, I said this is a story of miracles and survival. One more story:

In 2005, some assassins, point blank, rained bullets on him and his wife, yet, like Gbonka in the fire of Alaafin Sango, Yakubu and his wife, Rabi, “escaped unhurt” (page XXV). The episode illustrates the book’s dominant themes: providence, miraculous deliverance, and the sustaining power of grace. How did the bullets miss husband and wife? I searched for clues; I found none. The Igala mystery man did not disclose how those bullets lost their potency.

Competently written, elegantly printed, properly-indexed and illustrated with beautiful, meaningful photographs. Beyond Expectations is, in every sense, a Nigerian story, one forged in the binary of hope and disappointment, fine-tuned by faith, and polished by time. It leaves the reader with inspiration, admiration and breath-taking awe that the boy who once had no birth date would one day leave his mark on history in bold, indelible ink. Indeed, Asale ni Oja n tooro: the market settles in the evening.

Yakubu’s memoir opens with the name of God; it ends with words about his Creator and his religion, Islam (Page 389). By the time one closes the book, Dickens’ line returns with renewed clarity: “Life is made of ever so many partings welded together. One man is a blacksmith, one is a whitesmith, one is a goldsmith, and one is a coppersmith. Divisions among such must come, and must be met as they come.” Life, indeed, is made of many partings welded together, only that in Yakubu Mohammed’s case, each weld glows with grace. From the erased name on a school list to the enduring signature of a top-rate journalist, media entrepreneur and public administrator, the arc of his life is proof that destiny may divide, but character unites. This is, indeed, an account of a life that is beyond expectations.

Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for listening.

*This review was read at the book’s presentation on Tuesday, November 4, 2025 at the NIIA, Victoria Island, Lagos.

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The post BOOK REVIEW: Premiering a drama of destiny, By Lasisi Olagunju appeared first on Frontpageng.

Veteran journalist and one of the founders of Nigeria’s first weekly news magazine, Newswatch, Yakubu Mohammed, has said the assassination of Dele Giwa in 1986 had nothing to do with the late Gloria Okon.

Mohammed, who co-founded Newswatch with Giwa, Ray Ekpu and Dan Agbese in 1984, said this in his memoir, “Beyond Expectations.”

Giwa, one of Nigeria’s most flamboyant journalists, was assassinated on October 19, 1986, after a parcel bomb was delivered to his house in Lagos.

After the incident, the rumour mill was agog with the conspiracy theory that Giwa had a scoop on Okon who had been arrested at the Aminu Kano Airport for trafficking in drugs.

The said Okon was later reported dead by the authorities.

The rumour, however, persisted that she had been released secretly and was living large in London.

Mohammed wrote: “Was Dele Giwa doing a story on Gloria Okon? And did he interview her in London and the tapes of the interview along with pictures brought to Lagos by Kayode (Soyinka)?

“In discussing these theories, I am mindful of the fact that I am accountable to only God, my creator.”

He stressed that the magazine was not planning to do any story on Okon.

“Not by any of our reporters, not by any of the editors and not by any of the directors – Dele, Ray, Dan and Yakubu,” he said.

According to him, the Okon story idea was suggested by Bose Lasaki, a relatively new member of staff who was determined to learn the ropes, only to discover that it was a ruse.

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“One day at the general editorial conference, she said she had a story idea.

“She muttered some words to the effect that there was a rumour that the drug courier that was arrested in Kano and reported dead did not die.

“Her colleagues laughed at her suggestion and she appeared visibly embarrassed.

“Dan who conducted the meeting advised her to do more work on the idea.

“When she reported back the following week, she admitted that there was nothing to the story. And that was the end of the story,” he said.

Mohammed said that Giwa and Ekpu were not in any of the editorial meetings and knew nothing about the Okon “fable.”

According to him, until the tragic death of Giwa, nobody heard anything again about Okon.

“But she came alive as possible reason why Dele Giwa was killed.

“Dele was said to have travelled to London some weeks before his death and interviewed Gloria Okon.

“The fact is that Dele Giwa did not meet any Gloria Okon on the trip in question.

“I know this for sure because I travelled with him to London,” he said.

Source: NAN

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Veteran journalist, Mr. Yakubu Mohammed, has said that an unexplainable friction between late Chief MKO Abiola, the publisher of the defunct National Concord, and late Dele Giwa, Ray Ekpu and himself led to founding of Nigeria’s first weekly news magazine, Newswatch.

Mohammed, who together with Giwa, Ekpu and Dan Agbese founded Newswatch in 1984, said made this known in his memoir, “Beyond Expectations.”

He was the Editor of National Concord while Giwa was the Editor of Sunday Concord.

Ekpu was a member of the Editorial Board of the newspaper while Agbese was the Editor of the New Nigerian Newspaper.

According to Mohammed, Giwa’s famed iconoclastic journalism inevitably became a source of friction in his apparently cosy relationship with Abiola.

He wrote: “But was that the only source of friction? It was difficult for me to pinpoint what it was.

“All I can recall now was that there was a cold relationship.”

He recounted how the trio formed a team whose visibility and professional contribution was a positive development for National Concord.

“Out of office, we sometimes moved together and attended social events together.

“We became poster boys for the improved public image of Concord.

“That was when the famous Candido column of the New Nigerian referred to the trio of Dele, Ray and Yakubu as Benzy journalists wearing Gucci shoes,” he said.

Mohammed also said that an in-house fashion competition created by a staff writer, late May Ellen Ezekiel, MEE, also exacerbated the frosty relationship between Giwa and Abiola.

“While learning the ropes at Concord, she (MEE) introduced an occasional competition for best dressed men.

“It was open to the readers who usually voted for men who showed class and displayed sartorial taste.

“One of the installments grouped MKO and Dele together and Dele was rated higher than MKO.

“What the editor and his staff did was in bad taste. It was like committing incest.

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“Why would you feature anybody connected with the newspaper in a contest it was organising? And of all persons, the editor and his publisher.

“This bad judgment did not sound funny to MKO who literally stormed my office to say that Dele’s cup was full,” Mohammed said.

He said that the three of them were later queried by Abiola for an exclusive interview they had with Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, the then military Head of State, in January 1984.

According to him, rather than a commendation from Abiola for the scoop, the three editors got “cold shoulders.”

“Unknown to us, the new military regime had fenced him off and the duo of Buhari and Idiagbon were not relating with him.

“When we returned from the interview and told the publisher of the warm reception General Buhari gave us, he was rather glum,” he said.

Mohammed said that Abiola was later pushed by some vested interests to issue the trio a query, preceded by an anonymous letter describing them as “stranger elements.”

He said that the unending friction motivated them to start seeking investors for a weekly news magazine to be fashioned after Time and Newsweek magazines.

He listed some of the early investors in the Newswatch project to include businessman, Alhaji Ibrahim Bilyaminu Yusuf, late Chief Alex Akinyele, Nuhu Aruwa, Ime Umanah, Abdulaziz Ude and Mike Adenuga among others.

Source: NAN

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