The founders now fight to recover newswatch – Yakubu …

Yakubu Mohammed, one of the founders of the first weekly news magazine of Nigeria, newswatch, says that efforts are underway to regain the ownership of the businessman magazine, Jimoh Ibrahim.

Mohammed said this in his memories book, “beyond expectations”.

He said the founders decided to expand the operations of the Weekly magazine in 2011, after 25 years of publication successfully.

According to him, they decided to expand the operations to include a daily newspaper and a radio station.

“We have also planned to reposition our nascent book company, Newswatch Books Limited and make our library the best media archive in this part of Africa and, then, retire.

“To realize this dream, we decided to buy multiple investors as we did when we conceived the idea of ​​Newswatch in 1984.

“We involved our managers looking for credible investors.

“One of these, Bankole Makinde, our advertising manager, presented us Jimoh Ibrahim, a businessman and publisher as a possible basic investor,” he said.

Mohammed recalled that the newswatch team, as well as Ibrahim, were enthusiastic after keeping preliminary discussions.

“Ray, Dan, Soji (Akinrinade) and I entered the warm embrace of the lawyer Jimoh Ibrahim in May 2011.

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“There was nothing to indicate that we were about to sign the death mandate of our company, Newswatch Communications Limited.

“We did not foresee that any worst fate of our 13 -day ordeal of Abacha’s Gulag would return.

“But the calamity that gave us a hand after a handshake with Jimoh Ibrahim was as painful as death,” he said.

The journalist veteran said that the meeting with Ibrahim reported a fortune inversion and also the death of a dream.

“Newswatch, the adorable of media consumers in Nigeria and abroad, had suffered an almost irreversible bad luck.

“At the time of writing this, he has been off the road for 13 years,” he said.

He said that the investor, who initially announced the conservation of newswatch founders as executive and consultancy directors for a period of two years, gradually began to renounce the agreed terms.

“We had to resume after our holiday. But it didn’t have to be so.

“In the same way, he was unable to pay the N510 million for his 51 % shares in line with the equity purchase agreement.

“After having Pussyfoot for a while, he approved with reluctance that the company should pay us our retirement services.

“For this reason, he made available a total sum of N310 million, saying that this was what the company could afford,” said Mohammed.

He said that until they finally separated, the company could not yet afford to pay the balance of their benefits.

Mohammed described this experience as a “small question” compared to the fate that hit them later.

“After keeping the council meetings for a year, in 2012 he closed the company extravagant when the staff complained about the salaries and unpaid allowances.

“Since we intervened on behalf of the staff, he said we were no more directors of the company,” he wrote.

He said the problems had led to infinite disputes, which have been turned on for 12 years.

Mohammed, however, claimed to have also decided to explore other means, including the regulation outside the court, to recover the company.

“On the advice of leader of prominent in this country, including President Olusgun Obasanjo and General Abdulsalam Abubakar, we approached Senator Ibrahim to discuss the matter,” he said. (Nan)

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