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On 4 December, Ray Ekpu published a tribute for Dan Agbese, his classmate, friend and business partner, who passed on recently at 81.
In the moving tribute, Mr Ekpu wrote about how the late journalism icon “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.”
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That aspect of the tribute apparently irritated some apostles of guerilla journalism, including Babafemi Ojudu, journalist, politician and farmer, who co-founded TheNEWS and Tempo Magazines in 1993.
Mr Ojudu has now written a rejoinder, forcefully defending the value of guerila journalism in society and its contribution to the restoration of democracy in Nigeria after decades of military dictatorship.
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Read below Mr Ekpu’s tribute and then Mr Ojudu’s rebuttal.
Dan Agbese’s legacy: A great gain, By Ray Ekpu
While I was away from this country – and this page – three woes waltzed into my life in a whopping fashion. My step mother died. My sister passed on. My friend also went away. Dan Agbese, my friend, colleague and brother who has just said a permanent goodbye to me would have described these three incidents as a “whopper” if he had lived beyond his 81 years of age.
Dan Agbese 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 Agbese 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 Agbese 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.
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 Agbese 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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On Ray Ekpu’s Tribute to Dan Agbese — and a Word on Guerrilla Journalism, By Babafemi Ojudu
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 Agbese, 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.
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.
READ ALSO: TRIBUTE: The Dan Agbese I Knew, By Mohammed Haruna
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’ Agbese’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.
