Veteran journalist, Yakubu Mohammed said an unexplainable friction between the publisher of the defunct National Concord, late Chief MKO Abiola and late Dele Giwa, Ray Ekpu and himself led to the founding of Newswatch weekly magazine.
Mohammed, who together with Giwa, Ekpu and Dan Agbese founded Newswatch in 1984, said this 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 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.
“We became poster boys for the improved public image of Concord.
” That was when the famous Candido column of New Nigerian referred to the trio of Giwa, Ekpu and Mohammed 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 Abiola and Giwa together and he was rated higher than Abiola.
” What the editor and his staff did was in bad taste. It was like committing incest.
“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 Abiola who literally stormed my office to say that Giwa’s cup was full,” Mohammed said.
He noted that the three of them were later queried by Abiola for an exclusive interview they had with the then Military Head of State, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, 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 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 added 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. NAN
