As the search for Dele Giwa’s Assasinators Continue, A Recall of the Import of My slain editors words “Ben Edokpayi Was Right Again — Green White Green Does Not Run” — Dele Giwa, a former New York Times Staff and My Assassinated Boss Whose Pixelated Image of his bomb-shattered body Was Misused in a East Coast Photo Blend Lab; In A Clairvoyant Newswatch Editorial Suite; And Overall An Important Essay for President Joe Biden’s Africa Policy
As the search for Dele Giwa’s Assasinators Continue, A Recall of the Import of My slain editors words “Ben Edokpayi Was Right Again — Green White Green Does Not Run” — Dele Giwa, a former New York Times Staff and My Assasinated Boss Whose Pixelated Image of his bomb-shattered body Was Misused in a East Coast Photo Blend Lab; In A Clairvoyant Newswatch Editorial Suite; And Overall An Important Essay for President Joe Biden’s Africa Policy
Special Report by Ben Edokpayi
Word Count 5248
#ConsiderThisTheOpus #OnTheDangersOfPlagiarism!
Cyber Security Hell, I am the Nemesis of Dumb and Dumbass Haters! Azumah “Zoom Zoom” Nelson and Felix Owolabi IICC former Warri Wolves and shooting Star Gaze player (Star Gaze Is The Name Of A Hotel in Oleh Where A Lewd Frame with a suspect named Felix in my stolen tan suit appeared https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/harvard-astrophysicist-still-believes-oumuamua-was-alien-technology ) Where are They Now?
Embellished By A Supremacy Scheme Enhanced By Computer Hacking, Assemblage Art and Human Controlled And What Is Now Genocidal Algorithms That Started With Mined for Mayhem headlines targeting innocent journalists Such As “The Cat As A Tiger” and a book on Dele Giwa titled “Born To Run” written by late Onukaba Adinoyi Ojo and former New York Newsday International Editor and my Newswatch co-worker Dele Olojede. Dangerous and Toxic Plagiarism!
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/africas-best-boxer-azumah-zoom-nelson-adorn-wall-fame-edokpayi/
https://cpj.org/2009/10/nigerian-editor-dele-giwas-unsolved-murder/
In A Picture Africa’s best known world champion, Ghanaian welterweight boxer Azumah ( Zoom Zoom) Nelson seen with journalist Ben Edokpayi in Tema and Accra, a picture that will adorn a popular Wall of Fame for World Champions in Fairfield, Calif.
https://www.codepublishing.com/CA/Fairfield/html/Fairfield12.html
Meanwhile Floyd Mayweather has offered 100,000 dollars reward for tips to burglarized homes and that obviously includes his real estate in Solano, misrepresentation of his photos at the Fairfield Gym, especially the one with Canelo Alvarez.
Home invasion at 2018 Pine Bluff in 2012 from the backyard fence near the Shed.
They stayed overnight, while we’re on vacation and may have assaulted Pet home alone in a garage cage.
Good tip off from a rock and roll band.
https://www.thereporter.com/general-news/20170503/papa-roach-day-celebrated-at-imagine-that-museum
“Quite an honor to be up there in the Wall of Fame with great Champs like Canelo Alvarez, Floyd Mayweather, Mohammed Ali and all the exceptional Champs from America, Mexico and Central America. Young man in the picture is my son, a biochemist, ASU product. And of course Bernard Delley is the family barber, the only man apart from in a Gastrointestinal who has loomed over my back of course for a haircut. Thx God we are not violent people in my blood family. Never hurt nobody.”
Interestingly Coach Kinsgbury Arizona Cardinals has now recovered from the Corona which is akin to putin out 🔥. Sad development for the NFL. Pray for Kliff Kingsbury. “ But did Baby Mama get help from a kin in destruction of evidence with pathological waste circa 2019?
Additional Footnote in honor of US Army Soldier Michael Plant I Interviewed Nelson Azumah in Tema and Accra, Ghana in a World Title Fight with Brazilian Sidney Del Rovere. The Newswatch article was titled “The Cat As A Tiger”. My journalism career also blessed me with interviews with former Super Eagles Star Felix Owolabi aka OwoBlow for his masterful attacks from the left wing. We also met after IICC club matches with BenDel Insurance of course for post match interviews as well as Henry Nwosu.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bear-attack-seth-michael-plant-army-soldier-killed-alaska/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/13/us-army-identifies-soldier-killed-bear-attack
#EdwardSnowdenHereIsVirginiasFailedJinx #ADoubleHelixFromASickBiologistAndCIAVendor
#AllAdataBaseSpin #AndAWhiteCriminalMisuseofSemantics #IOnlybelieveInGod #TheDevilhasNoBusinessWithMe! #911MalDiNi #SadieEttesNativeNameIsIni #Her911FuneralServiceWasAtFranklinCampbellInNewYork
#GoFigureTheDarkMindOfWhiteANalysts! #OMDB #SuperEaglesMidfielderHenryNwosu #AndFormerJohnsonWhyteStar #IllustratesTheBrownPointOfEntry #FromAFemaleSexToyOnSeptember52013 #WhileDadPrayedForAnInnocentSon
Henry Nwosu, A Bundle of Talent, And What About Jay Jay Okocha, “So Good They Named Him Twice.”
Original article from ’86 — A sidebar of the first sports story to adorn Newswatch cover
Oregun — Ikorodu, Nigeria — Two years after Newswatch hit the newsstands to begin a new era of bold and innovative journalism, the kind that Nigerians had never experienced, I had the privilege of writing the first sports story to grace the cover of Africa’s most popular news journal. At the height of our popular magazine, Newswatc circulation was about 120,000.
This article (which is not available online) focused on the Nigerian Soccer League ( Pure Semantics https://www.britannica.com/science/semantics ) of 1986, fresh from college and my first year as a Newswatch staff.
Among the sidebars for the cover story was a feature on Henry Nwosu, who before Jay Jay Okocha (who played for Paris Saint Germain — part of their fake Paris Spin) was considered the best midfield player for the Super Eagles, Nigeria’s National Team.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WdDm0EyFEQ
Henry was a contemporary on the Nigerian National Team With such players like Clement Temile, and Godwin Odiye and the late Stephen Keshi, seen in a Fairfield photo at a party I organized for ‘my brother’ Keshi. Edward Snowden now I know why you fled the nation. This is an expose on how some dumb and Xenophobic analysts target minorities with data that is not available online. I know for sure that after my affair with Kimberley Porter they spent some time in the Nigerian National Library gathering data from my work to spin a different tale about how White people are superior in the bedroom. A colossal failure Virginia because You have not proven anything or found anything wrong, and of course I am not gay. And I am clean, unblemished and unscathed.
By Ben Edokpayi © #86 https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/apr/08/world-cup-moments-maradona-hand-god
#ThisMayBeTheWorstAndMostDangerousEvidenceOfPlagiarismOfABlackMansWorks
Newswatch Sports feature in 1986 — The Individual skills of some players could sometimes raise the entertainment level of football to an art form.
Diego Maradona, in the last World Cup, was the prima donna with a supporting cast because of his matchless skills, his exquisite goals, his rare ball control, his precise passes and his pukka play. In Nigeria, the Maradona of the 1986 national league might as well be Henry (Onyemanze) Nwosu of ACB.
A Newswatch poll confirmed this.
Nwosu has hugged the headlines with his peerless skills right from his playing days with the Junior Eagles in 1978.
In the 1980 Cup of Nations, he was, at #19, the youngest member of the triumphant Green Eagles squad.
His club career began with the defunct Johnson (Whyte -the analysts flagged this) Football Club where he played with the likes of Steven Keshi, Emmanuel Akpan and Paul Okoku before moving to NNB where he played for five years. #JohnsonWhyteHotelInAbujaUsedToBeTheCampOfTheSuperEagles.
An NFA suspension early in 1984 prompted him and Stephen Keshi to seek better playing fortunes in the Ivory Coast.
He was back with the NNB (New Nigeria Bank) in 1985 briefly, before moving on to the ACB (Africa Central Bank) where he still continues to keep fans on the edge of their seats with his inimitable skills.
He scored six of ACB’s 19 goals in the league.
Nwosu is one of the most highlighted Nigerian players abroad. As far back #Semantics as 1981, the authoritative magazine, World Soccer, picked Nwosu as the key to Nigeria’s 1982 World Cup qualification, which was not to be.
The magazine said: “Nigeria will be relying on 19-year old Henry Nwosu, whose reputation spread beyond Africa when he scored Nigeria’s equalizer against Czechoslovakia in the Olympic tournament in Leningrad last summer.”
Here are some reasons why those polled by Newswatch think Nwosu is the greatest: Sebastian Brodericks-Imasuen, coach of Bendel Insurance: “He is a star and can hold his own in any part of the world.” Valentine Jombo, an informed follower of football in Benin: “Nwosu is an intelligent, all-round player who can play for any team in the world, for he does not collapse under pressure but stays firm and distinguishes himself in every match.”
Adegboye Onigbinde, coach of the IICC, said: “Henry will in a split second do something you think is impossible with the ball … that is what we call mastery. He has the confidence based on skill to attempt to score goals which other less-gifted, less-practiced and less confident players wouldn’t dare.”
Davidson Owumi, star player of relegated Sharks: “Nwosu is a bundle of talent.” ( #Semantics Words Poached and Reinterpreted by Sick Spies!)
“Ben Edokpayi Was Right Again”- Dele Giwa’s Account of How a Sports Story Graced the Cover of Newswatch
I had a special bond with the late Dele Giwa, perhaps Nigeria’s best and most courageous journalist of all time, which is why his assassination in 1986 is one of the most traumatic events in my life. I was among the first Newswatch hires in 1985 by this trail-blazing journalist, whose investigative style of reporting was way ahead of its time. Giwa was the kind of editor who challenged his reporters to their limits. When the Lake Nyos incident (which killed more than 1800 in Cameroon) happened, Dele’s directive to me and cameraman Conrad Akwu just before we departed Lagos for Bamenda, was “If anybody can get this story for us Ben will.” And so from getting lost in the tropical rainforest and dealing with a torrential downpour that forced my colleague Sonja Pace of VOA to say “this kind of assignment was not in my job description,” I kept going until I got to the crater of the lake, based on the inspiration from Dele. Our respect for him was the catalyst for the sacrifice every editorial staff applied to every assignment we were given. It is also what inspired me to suggest the first sports story to make the cover of Newswatch. Giwa wrote the preface for that cover story, a testimonial I consider a career highlight.
“ Vladimir Putin, Ben and VOA’s Moscow Correspondent Sonja Pace’ work on Nature’s Own Neutron Bomb in Cameroon; The Reasons for That Red Line Warning! America’s Intel Blunders Are Terrible!”
https://twitter.com/BenjaminEdokpa1/status/1522089641255473152?s=20&t=zIkykHLCGZcCCvVfS6majQ
From the Editorial Suite
It was just a matter of time for Ben Edokpayi to graduate to the level of the game, the in-house lingo for those who can write cover stories. The young man of 26 came to Newswatch in April last year. Last September, when Ray Ekpu had cause to mention Edokpayi in this column, he had the following to say concerning the part he played in the cover story of September 23, 1985, called Super Eaglets: ‘Edokpayi, who assembled most of the materials for the cover and did part of the writing is, like the Flying Eagles, a child of promise.”
Ekpu’s statement has turned out to be visionary. Edokpayi has fulfilled the promise. In fact, the promise was realized before the ink dried on Ekpu’s script. Edokpayi was made a staff writer that same September, five months after joining Newswatch as a reporter-researcher.
Edokpayi’s meteoric rise as a sports writer began in July last year when he suggested at the editorial conference that Newswatch ought to consider doing a cover on the Flying Eagles, the suggestion which led to the Baby Eagles making the cover of the August 26, 1985, issue of the magazine. Newswatch put sports again on the cover, a report of the gallant efforts made by the Junior Eagles in the Soviet Union. Edokpayi missed writing that cover by a hair’s breadth.
But the time has come, and Edokpayi has made the promise and risen to the level of the game. He started the journey to writing the cover of this issue of Newswatch on May 8 when he suggested that the National League, which just ended, should be made a cover story. That was four days before he proceeded on his annual leave. “I used the period of my leave to watch some of the teams play, assessing their weaknesses, strong points and patterns of play,” said Edokpayi.
“By the time that I resumed on June 16,” he said, “the league was just four weekends to the close and I knew the story would have to focus on the winners and the losers. Two weekends to the end of the league, it was apparent that Leventis United would emerge as champions, so I went to Ibadan for two days to find out all about the club and watch them at play.”
“When it became clear that the IICC Shooting Stars would go down to Division II, I sent Tony Eluemunor to find out all about IICC and their problems. And Anietie Usen traveled to Port Harcourt to do the inside job on Sharks,” said Edokpayi, whose ambition to play soccer started at age 9 and the hope of being a journalist took root at the tender age of 12.
Pele came to Nigeria in 1969 when Edokpayi turned nine. His parents took him to watch the Brazilian magician. At the end of the game, Edokpayi dissolved into the crowd which gathered around Pele. The little boy could not get to touch the man, but he got close enough for Pele to have such a great hold on him. As it turned out, Edokpayi’s hope of becoming another Pele did not materialize as he wasn’t able to rise above playing for his house team at St. Patrick’s College in Asaba.
Some four years later, when Edokpayi was nudging 13, another event occurred which got Edokpayi dreaming again. In 1973, Alfred Diette-Spiff decided to shave the skull of Minere Amakiri, a journalist who ran afoul of the then military governor of the Rivers State. It was an event which touched the boy Edokpayi so keenly that he vowed to become a journalist.
Some 11 years later, Edokpayi, who graduated in English from the University of Calabar, got a job as a reporter with the Benin-based Nigerian Observer. Though sent to Lagos to cover the National Assembly, he soon found himself reporting sports for the paper. He became a victim of retrenchment in November 1984, barely seven months on the job. And in April last year, he was hired for general reporting by Newswatch. It was his suggestion that a cover be done on the Flying Eagles that got him the first sports assignment at Newswatch and, for reasons that no one at Newswatch can now remember, Edokpayi gravitated to the position of the sports correspondent of the magazine. He was to cover the Commonwealth Games (in Scotland.)
“The Commonwealth boycott by Nigeria served as a tonic for me to speed up the league story. In the last week of the league, I traveled with Nosa Igiebor to Ibadan to watch the NNB play against Leventis United,” he said. “Coming back to write the story posed a different challenge,” mused Edokpayi. “I knew in my mind that a sports story on the cover of Newswatch just had to be excellent.”
Ben Edokpayi was right again.
Dele Giwa was Nigeria’s best journalist of his time. Newswatch founders along with the late Dele Giwa are from left, Ray Ekpu, Soji Akinrinade, Dan Agbese and Yakubu Mohammed. In this picture, Newswatch staffers are seen at the Lagos Airport on the way to the funeral of their assassinated Editor, whose murderers are still to be accounted for.
More About Our Investigation
New Bombshell! I Could Have Been A Victim Of The Parcel Bomb That Killed My Boss Dele Giwa
This JigSaw Puzzle Even By American Standards is inhumanely a mark on the Free World!
https://twitter.com/McFaul/status/1513919061914136580?s=20&t=bpY0mCLr8o9l0xLN0EHRDg
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7Rt5y9AOtK/
https://medium.com/@Mawureh/surprise-your-african-mom-is-lowkey-naive-9631eeb9253f
Gruesome Android image of our boss and editor Dele Giwa and
#ThreeAfricanHumanRemains #FromAmerica Unaccounted for :( I am a Journalist With A Personal Stake In This Matter (Because I Know Two Family Members, 9/11 victims Were Used For Experiment.) Holocaust!
https://thehill.com/news/wire/3265096-mimi-reinhard-who-typed-up-schindlers-list-dies-at-107/ https://www.theafricantimes.com/russian-war-with-ukraine-five-reasons-why-many-african-countries-choose-to-be-neutral/
I Could Have Opened The Parcel Bomb When Dele Giwa Passed It To Me, Kayode Soyinka Says 34 Years After Journalist’s Killing, On hindsight it could also have been me. Our boss knew I liked his sister Ronke and actually visited their Talabi a couple times. Maybe he envisioned me as a future brother-in-law because after Nigeria boycotted the Scotland Commonwealth games, which I was accredited to cover, he asked me to give him the Newswatch Money because he was going to London for investigation. I was told the money with my name was found in his pocket
Was Dele Giwa’s badly damaged body graphically altered by sick thespians abroad?
Why Did My Editors Pair Me With Gani Fawenhinmi, Africa’s Top Civil Rights Attorney to investigate his death? Was it because there was a spark between me and Ronke
#NoRhymeNoReaSon
#WhatWasBushThinking? #AboutASaintAndEnvironmentalAdvocate #WhoseMentorDeleGiwaWasMurdered #GeorgeOrwells1984 #AllIsWell #AdamsOshiomoleKnows #HarrasedImmigrantsAreReturningHome! #BlackLivesMatter #WhySeekInformationFromBernardBegho #AboutAnInnocentJournalist #SomebodyElseMustHaveHaveToldABadLieAboutDelta https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5A2D1r4Lek
News Watch! America, We Are Journalist’s For Christ Sake! Stop The Persecution! Some Insider Perspectives On The Assassination of Dele Giwa
I remember the first day at New swatch with excitement. I had walked into the office of the late Dele Giwa, the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief to receive my letter of appointment. Giwa, who is one of my role models, had told me: ‘Ben, you know this is a whole lot different from the Observer (where my journalism career started). I give you six months to perform, if you don’t you will be fired.” My reply was simply “try me.” I did not disappoint in my job as an investigative journalist and top-notch sports writer, and I became the envy of the newsroom not only for my exclusive sports/news stories. I was also one of the most sought-after bachelors in the newsroom by the bevy of beautiful ladies on staff. At the time I left Newswatch in 1989 I was also the most-traveled reporter because of my sports beat. Six months after being hired at Newswatch I was made a staff writer. Giwa died eight months after my promotion, in a parcel bomb incident. I was at home in Festac with Wuraola Ogunsanya, an Intern and my Muslim girlfriend, on that day. A day before his murder he had asked me to give the Thomas Cook Estacode I was supposed to use to travel to Scotland for the Commonwealth Games, which Nigeria boycotted because of Apartheid South Africa. Of course it was company money, so I gave the British Currency to my boss who sources say was on his way to London for an investigation for the Gloria Okon investigation. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/dec/16/almost-600m-worth-of-holidays-cancelled-in-thomas-cook-collapse
His death spurred me on in the quest for excellence, and I actually continued with the Gloria Okon investigation which led nowhere.
Four months after my mentor’s death I was made a senior staff writer. With this elevation more editorial responsibilities and traveling opportunities have taken me to more than 21 countries. In 1989 I moved to the United States as a correspondent for the magazine.
The photos show me at a wedding ceremony for Bernard Begho, from Warri, who was a next door neighbor in Shomolu (when I worked at Newswatch), photos of the Newswatch Soccer team during a tournament organized by the Nigerian Union of Journalists, the cover of a story I investigated for Newswatch on the shipment of toxic wastes from Italy to Nigeria and a colleague and friend at Newswatch, a photo of Dele Giwa, and the late Gani Fawenhinmi, the irrepressible lawyer, friend and attorney for Giwa. Bernard and his wife were close friends that I and my ex used to visit. So glad to see that they are still together and blessed with two lovely children. I guess they also know in London what Debra did to Essien. I worked with Fawenhinmi on the investigation of Dele. The last information we had about Dele’s assasins is that they fled Nigeria through Kano Airport. So was there a foreign link? I don’t know. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/29/world/nigeria-seeks-the-slayers-of-an-editor.html
The other pictures show me at the UI graduation of the girl I was supposed to marry and in Zaria, during her NYSC, at the home of Professor Dan Aighewi. My ex is a statistician with the Central Bank and the photos on the lawn were taken at the University of Ibadan home of Professor Sunday and Mrs. Ekaette Ette (My Aunty and mother of Sadie.) My Aunty introduced me to my ex. And I am her very first boyfriend, and of course she was always with me at Shomolu. I shared an apartment with my late sister Edowaye. The other picture shows Wuraola Ogunsanya, who I dated at Newswatch, and is no longer in the picture. Austen Oghuma, who is seen behind me in the photo of the Newswatch soccer team, is a CSU Northridge graduate and journalism colleague. He returned home a few years ago because of extreme intimidation and unusual surveillance. Drone, anti-immigrant and surveillance nightmares apparently prompted him to leave America. We all have no clue what all of this puzzle is linked with.
https://www.vanguardngr.com/…/framework-grassroots-campaign/
From My Clear Perspective Flawed Context With The Current Scheme of Things! https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-will-trump-and-netanyahu-continue-to-misread-iran-1.5471925
How This Became A Pivot From A Senseless Witch Hunt To A Secret Project To Put Harriet Tubman On The Twenty Dollar Bill Is A Puzzle.
#436 #98 #ProjectAboutTheBenjamins #ToPromoteAPresidentsTopSecretAgenda #NeverAndNotInOurBiblicalName
Chief Obafemi Jeremiah Oyeniyi Awolowo, GCFR was a Nigerian nationalist and statesman who played a key role in Nigeria’s independence movement. He is shown here on the Nigerian Naira given to me as a souvenir. Africa The only recurring decimal in this Central maze is a hidden agenda to damage the Nigerian economy by any means necessary because of our intelligence. Our Central Bank Story Of How The Naira Dipped The Nigerian Economy. My Statistician Ex and The Morning After Her First Dip. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-naira-dips-economy-ben-o-edokpayi/?published=t
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5WuIRiMvww
Washington Post! Our newsroom was awarded a Pulitzer Prize And A New York Newsday Recall On The Path To A Pulitzer Prize for a Friend, and Newswatch Co-Worker who served on the Aspen Institute Board With Madeleine Albright
Here is what The Post Said In Their Announcement
The Washington Post has won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for public service
This week, the staff of The Washington Post won the most prestigious award in American journalism: the Pulitzer Prize for public service for our coverage of the causes, costs and aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol. The Post was also honored in three additional categories as a finalist.
This award recognizes the meaningful work of our tireless newsroom.
Support our mission by becoming a subscriber.” At this point I think the best support for the Post is a recall of my application for the John S. Knight Fellowship at Stanford a few years before my friend Dele Olojede who collaborated with former Daily Times editor and UN Staff Onukaba Adinoyi Ojo to author a book on our assassinated Newswatch Editor Dele Giwa tilted “Born to Run” won the Pulitzer Prize. #InsideTheWarpedMindsOfVirginiaAnalysts! #MeThinksTheBookTitle #FosteredTheMisuseOfDGsPixelatedBody #BlownToPiecesFromTheWasteDown https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/999593391002121
Pulitzer Prizes Spotlight Jan. 6 Capitol Riot and Mideast Air Wars Coverage https://nyti.ms/3skh5IP
And Here Is Important Historical Perspectives About My Newswatch Co-Worker Who Recommended me for the Program at Stanford and a job with National Geographic
“Journalism has enabled me to understand the world better. And as a new American immigrant early in the 90’s I had two opportunities that would have enabled me to expand my global perspective. One was an opportunity to join the editorial staff of the prestigious National Geographic and the other a once in a lifetime opportunity to become a Stanford Fellow when I was invited to apply for the John S. Knight journalism fellowship. Although both opportunities never materialized the rigorous selection process, including recommendations from from NY Newsday foreign editor and Pulitzer prize winner and my former colleague at Newswatch Dele Olojede, involved (including a legends writing caption exercise on the island of Puerto Rico for National Geographic — I made it to the Top Five People For That Job) made me a better journalist, and eventually paved the way for my first journalism job in America with the Fairfield-based Daily Republic in 1992, that led to my coverage of the 1994 world cup for them. Here is the original essay for the John Knight Fellowship!
My Academic Plan- Submitted to the John S. Knight Fellowship at Stanford University
By Ben Edokpayi
I knew very early on in my life that I would thrive well in a people-related career. And so at the University of Calabar, Nigeria where I graduated in 1982 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Literary studies, I placed emphasis on selecting courses that would broaden my knowledge of the world, improve my communication, logic and reasoning skills. I did not restrict myself to studies within the African context. I ventured into areas like: World Theater Survey; European Renaissance Literature and Modern Thought; Harlem Renaissance and the Sociology of Literature among many others.
That same game-plan of knowledge, communication and reason, would be applied if I am accepted for the John S. Knight fellowship at Stanford University. As an African journalist reporting events in the United States of America to the African continent, my duties cover a wide spectrum. They include coverage of African activities in the U.S., write-ups on U.S. government policies, decisions concerning African issues and nations and interviews with important personalities here and visiting the U.S. from Africa.
This unique responsibility can be enhanced with the academic enrichment that the John S. Knight fellowship provides at Stanford.
After nine years as a journalist with Newswatch, I have traveled to various parts of the World and associated with colleagues of various backgrounds. All this has brought me to the conclusion that African journalists do not lack in ability but technologically have some catching up to do. No doubt the World has become a smaller place due to technological feats in broadcast and print journalism. An opportunity at Stanford would keep me abreast with some of these advancements, especially in computer and information management systems.
I am aware of the presence of the Hoover institute on war, revolution and peace and the Center for Research in International Studies at Stanford and I know that any seasoned journalist would crave the opportunity to not only expand their horizon on global affairs, but also learn from the thoughts and lectures of important figures who pay regular visits to these World renowned institutions. Spending some time here would enable me to interpret World issues as they affect Africa progressively, and occasionally afford me the opportunity to interview some of these World figures for publication.
Because journalism is a people-oriented profession it also involves the management of human resources and a perfect understanding of human inclinations, which is why I would like to take advantage of Stanford’s reputed schools of Business and Law. This would not only improve my awareness of some of the legal landmines that exist in the profession but also satisfy my yearning for a background in public administration. Many media organizations in Africa do not place too much emphasis on the human management side of the profession, oftentimes leaving their employees with very low morale. With stints at the business and law schools, perhaps, I can contribute toward improving this situation.
If accepted for the 1992/93 John F. Knight fellowship I would also use the period to establish contacts that I know would stand me in good stead for the profession. During the period my areas of concentration would include taking classes in the various departments already indicated; doing research work on projects such as:
• The coverage of Africa in the American media
• What role the press can play in an evolving democratic process like Nigeria’s
I would also extensively use library facilities and participate in social activities on campus to help in networking.
Stanford is more likely than not to be chosen as one of the 1994 World Cup Sites, so attending the fellowship there would not only broaden my knowledge of world affairs, but also enable me to lay the foundation for coverage of this monumental event to soccer-crazy Africans. The benefits from the fellowship would not be one-sided. My unique experiences on the job and peculiar background will also benefit other fellows. With Newswatch, I have traveled to over 15 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and South America on assignment. In September, 1986 for instance, I was in Cameroon to report on the mysterious Lake Nyos gas leak that killed more than 1,000 people in a mountainous region of that west African country. I have never seen so many dead animals and humans in one place. I returned from that trip, my first international assignment, with a very keen eye for news.
Aside from Newswatch I have also done freelance work for the English to Africa Service of the Voice of America. This is in addition to numerous articles for publications like the African Guardian newspapers, Complete Football Magazine, Quality weekly and the African Commentary, a Boston-based publication. Some of my work has also been cited in international publications including the Commonwealth Journalists Association (CJA). With this kind of background, I can only become a more accomplished journalist with the kind of academic enlightenment that the John F. Knight fellowships offer.
Africa, no doubt, has been under-reported and sometimes maligned in western media reports. But the John F. Knight fellowship has as one of its ideals an improvement in “the quality of news and information reaching the American public through the news media.”
I believe that as an African journalist versed in the social, political and economic conditions of the continent, the John F. Knight fellowships would enhance my position in the flow of information between the United States and Africa.
In this picture At the Unilag Sports Complex on the Newswatch Soccer team in the late 80’s with colleagues Anietie Usen and Angela Emuwa nee Aboderin (owners of The Punch newspapers).
Looking forward to seeing Angela Emuwa and her family next time I am in Lagos.
Thanks for the Historical Recall Adepoju.
https://www.aspeninstitute.org/
A Gay Lie! The Newswatch Football team is seen at the University of Lagos Stadium for a Nigerian Union of Journalists Football Tournament. Far left are Nosa Igiebor, editor of Tell Magazine and next to him is Dele Olojede former foreign editor of New York Newsday and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his work covering the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide and a member of the Aspen Institute in Colorado. Behind me with outstretched arms is AusTen Oghuma, Director of Marketing & Public Relations at American Heritage University of Southern California. Now you know why we are passionate about setting the record straight. This is how they mischievously start foreign wars. Divide and Conquer!
