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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The post Yakubu Mohammed: Demise of a media Sheik appeared first on Frontpageng.

There are two things I avoid when people I adore die: I don’t write tributes and I avoid their burial. Twice in the last few years I have broken the second one: Attended their burials. The first was for my father-in-law, Alhaji Suleiman Yusuf, who is better known as Salam Salam. The second was that of my brother-in-law, Justice Adegboye Gbolagunte, who I affectionately call Chief Justice (CJ). But I never wrote even a single line about them. Because I really didn’t know where to start from.

Now that my greatest mentor in journalism, who I describe as a boss and a friend, Dan Agbese, is gone, I am being forced to break both the first and the second. My dilemma in breaking the first of the things I avoid now is: Where do I start from? Not when just a few days before Oga Dan died I still spoke affectionately about the four Directors of Newswatch magazine who shaped my journalism career: Ray Ekpu, Yakubu Mohammed (who I still keep in touch with), Soji Akinrinade (we jam once in a while on WhatsApp), and Agbese. Without them, I am not sure I would have had such a solid foundation in journalism.

But I must confess that Oga Dan did more than the others did. And that was because at the time I returned to Newswatch after my youth service, he was overseeing the Back of the Book section of the magazine. And I was more or less the Sports Editor after the death of Kayode Olaokun, who encouraged me to chase Taiwo Yusuf, who is now Taiwo Oladipo.

Beyond my beat on the Sports Desk, I was also looking into World News and the Security Desk, where Janet Afolabi, the CNN award winning journalist, who is now the Olori (Queen) of Apomu in Osun State, was firmly in charge.

I learnt so many things from Oga Dan in the years I spent in Newswatch. One was humility. He carries his bag, newspapers, and other stuff he brings to the office himself. It is only when it seems too much that you will see his driver or office assistant assist him. For other staff, it was a no, no. I took that from him.

And in terms of the real work itself, he has a way of pushing you beyond what you assumed was your limit. I remember my first Cover Story for Newswatch. It was a Sports story. And that was the week Olaokun died. The gangling (that’s what Oga Dan called him) Olaokun had all the materials we had gathered for the Cover with him and was on his way to the office on a Monday morning to defend the story at the Editorial Board meeting when he was knocked down by a motorcyclist riding one-way.

After we discovered what happened on a Tuesday, with production scheduled for Thursday, the burden to write the Cover fell on me. How I recovered from the shock of Olaokun’s death to write that story was the effort of Oga Dan who calmed me down. In fact, when Olaokun’s family opted to bury him before we concluded production that week, the Directors of Newswatch prevailed on them to hold on until the Friday of that week, providing the vehicle for the transportation of the corpse.

From then on, we forged a bond that remained unbroken. I still remember the Cover I anchored on late Chief Bola Ige as the Minister of Power when he failed to fulfil his promise of providing 24 hours power supply to Nigerians within six months or a maximum of one year in office. We waited for it to be one year before we took him on. It was the last I did before leaving. The Editorial Board had decided on an entirely different Cover, which some of us the young reporters felt was not going to do well in the market. I led a protest team to his office. I expressed our reservations on the proposed Cover. He asked one question: Why are you convinced of the choice of this Cover? I marshalled the points. Then he told me: If you are going to anchor it, then it will go as Cover. And it did.

With Oga Dan, scolding in abrasive manners is completely out of it. You will only get what we called then: Love letter. I recall a trip I took to Abuja for a Cover. By the time I got to Abuja, I had taken ill. I did a very bad job with the Cover. And I got a Love Letter. But that Lover Letter is not for when you don’t do well alone. When you perform well, you get it also. I remember his cursive writing on his office memo pad. I still have a couple of them in my folder.

Compassion is at the top of his good qualities. On the badly written Cover when I travelled to Abuja, as soon as I returned and he saw me, he apologised for the Love Letter seeing that I looked ill. To the company clinic he sent me.

He also suffers nothing, including his personal resources, when it comes to getting stories out. His nose for stories is unquantifiable. I remember as the Defence Correspondent when I had to go to Liberia when our troops were enforcing peace in that country. A day before we were to depart, the Accounts Department did not make provisions for the trip. He saw me in the office and asked what I was still doing around. I said no money. He took me to his office, scribbled his house address on his memo pad and dispatched me to meet his wife for what he described as little: $200. That was how I made the trip. He dipped his hands into his pocket on other occasions too.

Indeed, we were so close that I couldn’t tell him the truth when I was leaving for PUNCH. Though when I initially resigned, it was to do something else outside of journalism, but by the time he called me, Azu Ishiekewene had ensured I couldn’t run away from the job he offered me on the Saturday Desk of PUNCH. So when he called me to ask what my plan was, I told him: I wanted to go manage the companies my father, who died a few weeks before I turned in my resignation letter, left behind. Indeed, the late Commissioner of Police, CP David Ayodeji Sunday Oladipo, left three companies for me and my older ones to manage: Three boys who were still in school.

After I left Newswatch, I kept in touch with him and others. We still meet in places he delivered lectures, at functions of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), and others. And the meeting had always been warm.

For the relationship we shared, I am going to break my second avoidance when closely loved ones die: I will be at his funeral.

A good man has gone. A mentor of mentors. A columnist who couldn’t be ignored. And a news man par excellence. He packed all and more. He was a man that couldn’t be ignored.

Rest in peace, Sir.

*Oladipo is the Managing Editor and CEO of Premium Eagle Media Limited, owners of The Eagle Online and The Eagle Online Nigeria YouTube channel.

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The post Dan Agbese: A boss and a friend, By Dotun Oladipo appeared first on Frontpageng.

I read Ray Ekpu’s moving tribute to our departed brother, Dan Agbese, with a mixture of sadness and admiration. Sadness, because we have lost a fine mind and a gentleman of the craft. Admiration, because even in grief Ray’s pen remains as evocative and commanding as ever.

Ray has endured three personal losses within a short time, and anyone who has walked through such a valley understands that sorrow inevitably seeps into one’s writing. I respect that, and I extend my condolences once again.

Yet, in paying homage to Dan, my brother Ray found space to dismiss what he described as “guerrilla journalism” as “vile propaganda… not fit to be touched by any self-respecting journalist.” It is this portion of his tribute that compels a gentle clarification—not for my sake, but for the sake of younger Nigerians who did not witness those dangerous years when journalism and dictatorship collided head-on.

What Guerrilla Journalism Was — and Was Not

Guerrilla journalism was not a philosophy of propaganda.

It was a press survival strategy in an era when conventional journalism had been criminalised.

Those of us who practised it did so because:

• newsrooms were being sealed, bombed, or proscribed;
• editors and reporters were disappearing into detention;
• publications were banned;
• truth had become an endangered species;
• and the military government had arrogated to itself the sole right to define reality.

What we refused to do, as young men of conscience, was to put on savile-row suits, dash into expensive cars, smell of Arabian perfumes, and dine with men in government and business. Instead, in our jeans and canvas shoes, we jumped from one danfo bus to another, moving discreetly from hideout to hideout, determined to keep the nation informed and military dictators sleepless.

IBB’s Admission — and Why It Matters

I recall a conversation with General Ibrahim Babangida shortly after his exit from power. He said two things gave him the most trouble during his regime:

the Orkar coup, and the phenomenon of our publication—the same guerrilla journalism my brother Ray now derides.

Guerrilla journalism was not a philosophy of propaganda.

It was a press survival strategy in an era when conventional journalism had been criminalised.

He told us he was often astonished to read, in our magazines, details of high-level meetings held just the previous day with his fellow generals. How did these secrets escape? It was simple:

we cultivated sources at every level of society.

We were trusted by the people because we never traded truth for access, and never supped at the table of power.

How We Worked Under Repression

When a dictatorship deploys fear and violence to silence the press, journalism must either die or adapt.

We chose adaptation.

We reported from hiding, printed in safe houses, wrote under pseudonyms, smuggled stories across borders, and published in the dead of night. We continued to inform Nigerians when darkness threatened to swallow the public sphere.

That—no more, no less—is what guerrilla journalism was:

a refusal to let tyranny win by default.

Accuracy, Integrity, and Professionalism

Was the method perfect? Of course not. No form of resistance under violent repression is.

But to equate it with propaganda is to overlook the dangers faced, the truths uncovered, and the democratic space preserved.

It is worth noting that many of those who felt wronged by our reports went to court. Out of all the cases filed against TheNEWS and TEMPO, we lost only one—the lawsuit by Chief Olu Onagoruwa. And we lost not because our facts were weak, but because we were not represented in court.

Mr. Femi Falana, SAN, whose chambers defended us throughout that turbulent period, can attest to this.

Let me also refresh my brother Ray’s memory:

A young man once claimed to have witnessed the preparation of the parcel bomb that killed Dele Giwa. He came to us, and we interviewed him—just as he went to Newswatch, then edited by Ray. We combed through his account, cross-checked details, and found his story hollow. We dismissed it.

Newswatch unfortunately published it, to its later regret.

And, with utmost respect, let me add: at no point in our practice was any of us accused or found guilty of plagiarism. I was a young man when that grave infraction was committed by our senior colleague. I sat on the Committee of Ethics set up by Lagos Chapter of Nigerian Union of Journalists that investigated and found him culpable. If brother Ray has forgotten, this is as good a moment as any to remind him.

Different Traditions, Same Republic

Dan Agbese practised journalism with grace and decency.

Some of us practised journalism with urgency and defiance.

Both traditions served the same republic—just under different conditions.

History has room for all of us.

May Dan’s soul rest in peace, and may our disagreements as survivors never obscure the sacrifices made to keep journalism alive in Nigeria’s darkest hours.

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The post On Ray Ekpu’s Tribute to Dan Agbese — and a Word on Guerrilla Journalism appeared first on Frontpageng.

Dan and I were classmates at the Department of Mass Communication of the University of Lagos (1970-73). We both graduated in 1973. We both look slightly alike: darkly painted, built like track stars, no beer belly even though we touched the bottle in those days but we did not touch it limitlessly. We are both tall by Nigerian standard but Dan is a six-footer. I am not. He could have been a basketballer like Michael Jordan but sports was not his forte. When our classmates at the University borrowed a book from him they would return it to me. And when they borrowed a book from me they would take it to him. We both have oblong faces but we do not look strikingly alike, not like Siamese twins. We have this pet name Mkpori for each other. I can’t locate its etymology. It is not an Annang name or an Idoma name, the tribes to which we both belong. It is lost in antiquity but we call each other that till today. Who will inherit the pet name? Nobody. It belonged to two of us. Now that Dan is dead, the name is dead too, dead like a dodo, stone dead.

Even when we left school we were constantly in touch. He worked at the Nigerian Standard in Jos while I toiled at the Nigerian Chronicle in Calabar. The distance between Jos and Calabar is gaping but we did not allow distance to be the roadblock, the hurdle, to friendship. The then Minister of Communications, David Mark had said that telephones were only for the rich but we strenuously utilised the equipment even though we were not rich. We bridged the distance with regular phone calls until 1984 when we co-founded Newswatch with two other friends Dele Giwa and Yakubu Mohammed. That was the point where we made the timely transition from friends to founders because we thought that we had what was needed to break into the media scene as entrepreneurs and break the monopoly of governments and the rich in that sector.

Dan was older than all of us in Newswatch both in age and in journalism but he was a decent man who did not wear his longevity as a badge of suzerainty and did not display any superiority complex. He did not ride on a high horse or stay on Mount Sinai. He did not boast like a rainless thunder. That is why we were able to sing from the same hymn book. He did not have the short temper of a drill sergeant; he was always calm, ice calm and respectful to all, young and old. So for those who have respect for decency you have lost a beacon in Dan’s death.

Dan’s journalism was admirable, very admirable. The way his life was so was his journalism. He did not go out looking for the synthetic significance of fame. Fame came to him through the mastery of his craft, not through his craving for it. He did not write to impress; he wrote to express. He believed in simplicity, clarity, one word sentences and no grandiloquence. But in writing to express, he impressed admirably because his writing was understood by those who read him.

Journalism is not Easy Street in Nigeria. It may not be the equivalent of Rocket Science but it is something akin to it because some corrupt and irresponsible leaders had tried to turn the profession on its head by tormenting journalists for their private gains. This happened largely during the days of military rule but the vice has not gone away even during our democratic dispensation. He was thrown into detention a few times but he survived the mental torture and illegal harassment because his journalism practice was wholesome and free of frivolous frills.

He was the master of graceful writing, a wordsmith whose words were full of wisdom, wit, humour and something to remember. His writing was a definition of integrity, patriotism, inclusivity, professional and ethical correctness. He was a firm believer in the fairness doctrine and had no interest whatsoever in sensationalism, that reckless adventure into unguarded extremism and “gra-gra-ness.” His writing did not display either ethnic or religious bigotry, the twin evils that have threatened to drive Nigeria into the ground. His writing had no iota of brazenness, or theatrics or nihilism because he was not one of the perpetual preachers of pessimism. It was obvious that he loved Nigeria and wanted it to become a country loved by its citizens for the right reasons other than the fact that God planted them here.

Even when Dan wrote an article on a subject that was esoteric, he always made it less than esoteric, less than pedantic, less than pedagogic by cutting it down to bite sizes for the sake of clarity and easy digestion.

He was not an apostle of guerilla journalism because he knew that guerilla journalism is fraudulent propaganda, not fit to be touched by any self-respecting journalist. Yes, guerilla journalism is propaganda, vile propaganda. Journalism is not. Journalism is the noble art of truth-telling, of fact-finding. What he practised was just that: journalism, and he practised it with missionary determination. In his journalism practice he was not scared of the sting and clash of battle but he performed even in such situations with an overriding sense of decency because of who he was: a decent man.

He was not an apostle of guerilla journalism because he knew that guerilla journalism is fraudulent propaganda, not fit to be touched by any self-respecting journalist. Yes, guerilla journalism is propaganda, vile propaganda. Journalism is not. Journalism is the noble art of truth-telling, of fact-finding.

At Newswatch we adopted the prevailing trend in the journalism world then by pursuing what was then known as the New Journalism, a blend of investigative and interpretative journalism written in the seductive format of fiction writing. This was how we inserted ourselves in the task of agenda setting and the shaping of public conversation. Dan was an important part of that movement.

After many years of military rule Nigerians were desirous of a return to democracy. It wasn’t an easy task because the boys in khaki who had been feasting on Nigeria’s honey pot were not ready to return to their trenches. They wanted to turn the feast into a festival of limitless “chopping”. That was a challenge for the media, civil society and the people but the larger burden of the problem lay with the media. Dan and other media personnel were in the thick of it, how to help bring democracy to Nigeria. And also the problem of how to keep the democratic government accountable to the people. That job remains unfinished because democracy and governance are not a day’s job. Our governance is still wobbling. Our politicians are still buying votes. Corruption is walking on four legs. Partisan politicians are engaging in endless litigation, moving from inferior courts to superior courts and from inferior courts to inferior courts in search of where justice can be converted to injustice. So our democracy and governance are an unfinished business. To respect Dan’s legacy we must all keep our eyes on the ball so that our democracy, governance and country can be better, much better, than what it is now.

There is a royal road to royalty. Dan comes from a royal family in Agila, Benue State but there is no royal road to journalism. Dan started as a sophomore at the New Nigerian, became Editor of the Nigerian Standard and rose to the pinnacle of the profession as the Editor in Chief of the trail-blazing Newswatch.

Dan’s death, like all deaths, is like scrambled eggs. You cannot unscramble it otherwise we would have loved to do so for the sake of his family, the media family and the family of humanity for he was truly a great man. While his death is a great loss, the legacy he is leaving behind is a great gain. His admirable writing style has been the subject of study in some tertiary institutions in Nigeria. His columns were enthusiastically read by millions of Nigerians. His books are available for consumption by book lovers. His credible practice of journalism is a source of inspiration for young journalists.

Dan was a great journalist and writer. That is putting it simply. Meekly. Casually. My condolences to his adorable wife, Rose, his six children, seven grandchildren and the entire Agbese clan. May his soul rest in peace. Amen.

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The post Dan Agbese’s legacy: A great gain, By Ray Ekpu appeared first on Frontpageng.

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, 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

The post How friction with Abiola birthed Newswatch -Yakubu Mohammed appeared first on Frontpageng.

The president, according to his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, assessed Ekpu’s life as one synonymous with the struggle for freedom, democracy and the entrenchment of good governance in Nigeria.

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“I join friends, family and admirers of the veteran journalist and respected columnist, Mr. Ray Ekpu, in celebrating his purposeful life as he marks his 75th birthday. In a career spanning over 50 years in the Nigerian media landscape, Mr. Ekpu has consistently demonstrated a dogged commitment to progressive ideals.

“His pen has been deployed to the service of society through frank, analytical and engaging commentary that is uniquely characterised by his beautiful prose. As he marks his 75th birthday, I send my heartfelt congratulations to this doyen of journalism on behalf of the Government and people of Nigeria,” the president said.

The post Ray Ekpu at 75: His pen deployed to the service of society -Tinubu appeared first on Frontpageng.