Veteran journalist reveals how MKO Abiola’s rift with editors inspired Newswatch magazine

Abiola

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

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 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 is 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.