Former governor of Ogun State, Olusegun Osoba, has described celebrated wordsmith and co- founder Newswatch magazine, Dan Agbese, as one of the nation’s finest journalist. Speaking at the night of tributes held in honour of Agbese in Lagos recently, Osoba described him as a man of honour, but a little bit introverted.

To Osoba, “I wonder why he veered into column writing because he wrote like a reporter. The training we were given is that no sentence must be more than 15 words. I used to ask him why he abandoned reporting and decided to go into column writing. He would just laugh.

“I’m sure the family is happy because the who is who in journalism are all here. I owe him the honour to be here today because he is a man we hold in a very high esteem. I want the family to know that Dan is not dead and I hope his writings will be compiled into a book which we shall launch at the appropriate time.”

Describing him as an iconic journalist, editor and columnist, another co founder of Newswatch magazine Ray Ekpu recalled, “Dan was older than all of us in age and journalism. But he treated us with respect and decency. That is because of who he was. A decent man.”

Saying Agbese was humble even though he came from a royal family. Ekpu added, “he never wore royalty on his forehead. It was later that most of us knew about his royal credentials. He did not display any superiority complex. He was always calm, even under provocation.”

Speaking further, Ekpu recalled their early years in journalism. To him, “like cobweb, there is an inter connectedness that links the future of Newswatch namely, Dele Giwa, Yakubu Mohammed, Dan Agbese and Ray Ekpu.

“We decided to break the monopoly of government publishing in the country. We did not really know what awaited us. It was like a gamble, the equivalent of flying blind. But we were ready to fly with the belief that our interconnectedness, our friendship and our professionalism would see us through. So we moved freely and fiercely from being friends to being founders. None of us was a religious or ethnic irredentist. None of us was an extremist. We all practiced our faith reasonably and responsibly.”

In addition, Ekpu observed Agbese was not just an editor, but also a mentor. He noted, “his journalism was admirably simple. He did not go for grandiloqience. Even though he was a wordsmith, he preferred short sentences that sparkled. His writing goal was to express not to impress. We were in and out of various court rooms. We were in and out of various detention centres for no just cause.”

In conclusion, Ekpu added, “Dan’s writing style is being studied in some of Nigeria’s universities. He is now free from the thought of death. It is we, the living that ckare is not free from the thought of death.”

On her part, publisher of Realnews magazine and President of Group of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP.) Maureen Chigbo noted, “Agbese was a man of his words. He makes promises and keeps to them. If I’m standing strong as the publisher of Realnews magazine, it is because of the tough discipline he put me through while I was in Newswatch.”