By Is’haq Modibbo Kawu
On the 1st of February, 1977, forty-nine years ago, at just 16 years and five months old, I resumed work as a studio manager (trainee) at Radio Nigeria, Ilorin. It was the point of embarkation for a professional life in broadcasting: studio manager, announcer, deejay, presenter, producer, news reader, current affairs analyst, ceremonials and sports commentator, and correspondent for international broadcasters.
I produced and presented several programmes with “Breakfast Fiesta” and “Outlook” being very emblematic. I read news on the national network service of Radio Nigeria and on the African Independent Television Network (AINET). I reported for the Cooperation Service of Radio France International (RFI) and the BBC World Service.
I then made the transition to television, helping to commence the KWTV as the pioneer GM. Through my five years at KWTV, I read news, created and presented the weekly personality interview programme, “Fontliner”, and I also presented special programming for notable dates like Nigerian independence anniversaries.
When I closed the television broadcasting page, I transitioned into journalism, as pioneer editor of Daily Trust newspaper. The roots of journalism had been planted years earlier from two platforms. I had written a weekly column for the “Nigerian Herald” newspapers in Ilorin for a few years while I worked at Radio Kwara, and had also contributed editorial opinions to the newspaper, on the main international developments of the 1980s and 1990s. I had also done journalism for underground journals, as a member of the Marxist-Leninist Movement of Nigeria, for many years. I wrote poetry for the dedicated arts and culture pages of the Nigerian Herald newspapers, through those very crowded years of broadcasting and activism.
The years of the 1980s and 1990s were the years of underground activism as well as of trade union leadership. I was the chairman of RATTAWU at Radio Kwara, and it was from that platform that I was elected as a vice chairman of the Kwara State Council of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). The unfortunate passing of our state chairman, thrust me into the position of state chairman for four years. I had headed the media and publicity committee of the Kwara State Council of the NLC. Because of my commitment, the NLC sent me fir further training in the former German Democratic Republic, in 1986.
As a pioneer editor of Daily Trust newspaper, I wrote a weekly column, and chaired the editorial board of the newspaper. I became a full time editorial board chairman, and was also saddled with leading a process to commence a radio and television station by Media Trust Limited. Fortuitously, as director general of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), many years later, I was responsible for the issuance of broadcasting licenses to Media Trust, Leadership newspaper, Blueprint newspaper, and several other media institutions, and personalities.
At Daily Trust, I also worked as Africa Editor, and devotedly analyzed African developments, became coordinator of the “African of the Year” event, for which we created an impressive pan-African membership, headed by the notable Tanzanian diplomat, Dr. Salim Ahmed Salim, with Prof. Abdoulaye Bathily of Senegal, Prof. Kwame Karikari of Ghana, Prof. Tandika Nkiwane of South Africa, Prof. Okello Oculi of Uganda/Nigeria, and Dr. Tajudeen Abdulraheem of Nigeria, as members, and a few of us from Daily Trust, in the mix. I edited the pan-African magazine, “Kilimanjaro” as part of my remit as Africa Editor.
From the truly memorable nine years at Daily Trust, I was privileged to be part of the team put together to midwife “Blueprint” newspaper. I was chairman of the editorial board and an editorial consultant. I wrote a weekly column, and it was in fact almost the same week of commencement of work at Blueprint, that Uncle Sam Amuka, the inimitable “Sad Sam”, one of Nigeria’s star journalists of all time, invited me to write a column for Vanguard newspaper. Muhammed Idris, the Chairman of Blueprint newspaper, today Nigeria’s Minister of Information, didn’t object to the arrangement for me to syndicate my weekly column with the two newspapers, Blueprint and Vanguard.
In 2013, Sule Lamido, then Governor of Jigawa State, appointed me into a team of experts to establish the Jigawa State Television. We travelled back and forth to Dutse for a year, to get the job done. It was in the midst of that assignment, that I was nominated as a delegate to the 2014 National Conference, to represent the Nigerian Guild of Editors. The previous year, 2013, I was made a Fellow of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, at the annual conference in Asaba, Delta State.
President Muhammadu Buhari appointed me Director General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) in May 2016. We worked with dedication to break the logjam around the Nigerian digital switch over (DSO) project, finally carrying out the transition in Abuja, Kwara, Kaduna, Osun, and Enugu States. We were poised for Gombe, Lagos, and Delta States, but I had become a marked man by some of the most sinister individuals in the political firmament of Nigeria.
I was invited for questioning by the ICPC over payment legitimately made to the company which made the largest single financial contribution to the Nigerian DSO, and had delivered state-of-the-art facilities in Abuja, Kaduna, and Gombe States. These were commissioned by the Nigerian vice president in Abuja, and the Kaduna State governor, in Kaduna.
We were arraigned in court, and put on trial for six years. In the course of the trial, the sinister individuals at the heart of the political trial got me out of the position of DG, NBC. I was also pulled through a vicious media trial along with the real trial in court.
On February 13th, 2025, EXACTLY five years to the day that I was suspended as Director General of the NBC, we were discharged and acquitted by the Federal High Court, and the three-count charge against me was dismissed! The trial was the most difficult period in my life, as a professional and a human being, who held passionately to values of Pulaaku that I was cultured with by my parents, and those that I cultivated in all my years as a very committed activist.
But, when a life has been given to professionalism with dedication for forty-nine (49) years, there will be crests and troughs. The blot of a trial didn’t dampen my commitment to a life of media that serves the best interests of our communities, our dear country, our beautiful African continent, and all of humanity. I developed a passionate love for our history, and I have been true to the values that I was brought up with and those that I consciously learned and accepted as my world view from a very young age.
I was privileged to be the youngest person of my time to be recruited by Radio Nigeria, in 1977. Our country gave me opportunities and privileges that underline my patriotic commitment to its development. I am also an internationalist. I work passionately for and firmly believe in a world that eliminates the exploitation of man by man. Forty-nine years later, I am still committed to the finest traditions of committed media.
Which of the favours of Allah can we deny? Alhamdulilah!
Is’haq Modibbo Kawu, Ph.D.; FNGE, is a broadcaster, journalist, and a political scientist