Before Dele Giwa arrived Nigeria
Before Dele Giwa returned to Nigeria from America to become the features editor of Daily Times on the invitation of Dr. Dele Cole its managing director, there was brobdingnagian journalism. What Dele Giwa only did was to raise the art to a height of cutedge excellence and dynamism.

Enter Peter Enahoro. For instance, as a journalist in the sixties working for Daily Times, the Ishan-born pen pusher wrote a biting column in the newspaper which irritated the nerves of the establishment. When Gowon assumed office as military head of state on July 29, 1996, he found the column unbearable. All subtle military pressure to coerce Peter Enahoro to scale his write-ups down to comfort, pro-government journalism failed. He was then earmarked for arrest and detention by Gowon. The evil plot got to Peter Enahoro’s ears. This led to his flight to self asylum in Germany for over 25 years.

A strain of Dele Giwa’s Brobdingnagian journalism involves standing up for courageous professionalism in media practice. An example. In the 80s, Ray Ekpu ran into troubled editorial waters with his incisive column in Sunday Times. As punishment for this, he was reassigned from his desk as Sunday Times editorial to the “dirty” job of editor, Business Times. Expectedly, as Business Times editor, he wouldn’t be able to craft his irritating no-holds-barred column and reports. To add acid to his injury, his new office was situated near a toilet from where urine and faeces assailed his nostrils.

Daily Times’ plot – supported by the conservative government in power – was to frustrate as well as waste Ray Ekpu for upholding Brobdingnagian journalism. But Dele Giwa, because of his ready willingness to help afflicted daring journalists, offered a lifeline to Ray Ekpu. He invited “Ekpu to join him in the Concord newspaper stable as chairman, editorial board. And Ekpu did. Later, when “Abiola – proprietor of the newspaper – was considered also a pain in the neck of his brobdingnagian journalism Dele Giwa decided to migrate. He assembled Ray Ekpu, Yakubu Mohammed, Dan Agbese and a host of other firebrand, no nonsense journalists. Together, they founded Newswatch, the father of brobdingnagian magazine journalism of which The News, Tell and the Insider are cerebral exponents, today.

Indeed, Dele Giwa’s style of principled journalism, therefore, celebrates media independence at in-house and outhouse levels. The late Babatunde Jose, a veteran journalist and father of modern Nigerian Journalism epitomized what Dele Giwa stood for. In December 1957, Babatunde Jose was made the first Nigerian editor of the behemoth Daily Times. A very rare privilege. A sort of “bribe” by the British colonialist as a reward for his hard, knowledgeable media entrepreneurship.

However, Babatunde Jose like Dele Giwa was a man who could never be bought over by office. So during his acceptance speech as editor he told Cecil King his boss and managing director of Daily Times: “sir, I do not like to be king while someone else is the ruler which is the present position in the Daily Times where a European adviser oversees the work of the Nigerian editor – giving the impression that the Nigerian editor is a mere figure.”

In simple terms, Babatunde Jose as an editor didn’t want to be pushed around. He desired editorial independence to practice Brobdingnagian journalism. Cecil King listened attentively to Jose as he spoke from his unfettered mind. A year later, he gave in to Jose’s demand against the run of colonial logic that it was only a Nigeria’s independence the post of a European editor-in-chief would be dispensed with.

On his part Chief Segun Osoba, former governor of Ogun State, was an exponent of Brobdingnagian journalism as a reporter. As one at Daily Times in the seventies, then a flagship of Nigerian journalism, he was a hard broiled investigative media person. Not the sitting-duck type with an appetite for sleeping in the newsroom waiting for news.

Characteristically, he was a proverbial news hunter. This explained why he scampered out into the street on his vespa motorcycle, almost half-naked on July 29, 1975 when the military coup against Gowon was announced. He didn’t require his editor’s promptings to do this. The lure of Brobdingnagian journalism compelled him to risk his life searching for scoops on an unsafe coup day.

Other exponents of Brobdingnagian journalism
Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor are glowing role models of Brobdingnagian journalism, an element of which is publish fearlessly and be damned or glorified. In 1984, the bold journalists working with The Guardian newspaper carried scoops on the Buhari/Idiagbon military junta.

Unwittingly, therefore the journalists fell foul of the obnoxious Decree 4 of the administration which sought to protect public officers from embarrassing publications whether they are true or not.

A deal was allegedly brokered by the administration to soft pedal on the journalists’ “offence” if only they identified the mole who regularly leaked government secrets to them. The journalists refused to play ball with the administration, realizing that doing so would breach the sacred confidential canon of media practice. Angry, the administration jailed them out of malice.

It is not only these fearless journalists that have been incarcerated in Nigeria. Several others have suffered a similar fate. Ben Charles Obi, editor of Weekend Classique was for instance sent to jail by Abacha for “waging a war against his military junta”. May Ellen Ezekiel, his boss and a student of Dele Giwa’s Brobdingnagian journalism tried to save Ben Charles Obi. She offered herself to be sacrificed in his place. But her plea didn’t cut ice. Obi was imprisoned after a phantom, secret trial by a military tribunal. May Ellen Ezekiel offered succour to him while he was in prison but unfortunately she died before he was released in 1998.

Kunle Ajibade is one of the most self-effacing media persons in Nigeria. He was equally incarcerated by the Abacha military junta as a price for his magazine’s vibrant guerilla journalism that unsettled Abacha. Like Ben Charles Obi, he was set free in 1998 from a life sentence imposed on him by the Abacha junta. Abacha’s death saved both Charles Obi and Kunle Ajibade.

Today, The News as a magazine has not relented in its tradition of upholding courageous, dare-devil journalism. On July 14 and 21, 2008 it went to town with an earthmoving story of a MTN phone conversation between Justice Thomas Naron and Oyinlola’s counsel Otunba Kalejaiye while a petition challenging the governor’s election in 2007 was being heard. It is a great digital breakthrough for he magazine in investigative journalism which showed that a press scoop is still possible without a Freedom of Information Act.

In Edo State, today, Brobdingnagian journalism is in the works. Its consistent exponents are Efe Osafoumwan, moderator of MAN AROUND TOWN in the Independent Radio, Benin; Madam ALL Weather of the same radio station; and famous Lady Alpha, now of the EBS programme You Talk I Talk. It is a breath of fresh air that, although they live and work in a violent state, they fearlessly undertake their biting brand of journalism, ignoring the Anini stares of blood-thirty, greedy political godfather.

Yes, Dele Giwa Lives On
It is 22 years ago Dele Giwa was killed in a letter bomb blast. He was then in his Lagos home eating his breakfast with Kayode Soyinka the London correspondent of his magazine Newswatch. As the world remembers him this season, these words in Corinthians 15 come to mind: “Oh death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”

For Dele Giwa anyway, death had no sting, no victory. This is because his perfected brand of Brobdingnagian journalism still lives in the hearts and minds of Nigerian media workers today. These workers have one advice for those who cannot stand the hellish heat of their reportage, columns and broadcast programmes. His advice? LEAVE THE KITCHEN. Turn a new leaf. Uphold good governance, transparency and public accountability.