By Frank Oshanugor
The death of Chief Dan Agbese on Monday 17th November, 2025 sadly came as a big depletion in the comity of veterans in Nigeria’s journalism space. Though, he did not die at premature age, yet his passage is unarguably a disheartening one for those of us who could recall with nostalgia the place he and his co-founders of NEWSWATCH Magazine in 1984 occupied in Nigeria’s journalism parlance for years.
NEWSWATCH was certainly not his first port of call in his journalism career on his return to Nigeria after his post-graduate studies in the United States of America, but it was obviously at NEWSWATCH that many young Nigerians with interest in the breezy and intellectually stimulating write ups coming out from the magazine that some of us began to reckon seriously with Dan and his colleagues. The four musketeers of Dele Giwa, Ray Ekpu, Yakubu Mohammed and Dan Agbese himself had unarguably converged to pioneer a journalism style that would ultimately redefine the pen-pushing profession with respect to investigative journalism.
Born on May 12, 1944, in Agila, Dan-Msugh Agbese was a product of humble rural roots. His early life in the rustic surroundings of Benue State gave him what he would later describe as “a grounding in the realities of ordinary people”—a grounding that would shape his journalism for decades after he had acquired the proverbial golden fleece at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, New York where he obtained a Master of Science degree.
His quest for professional refinement took him to America, believed to be the centre of modern day journalism practice. He had earlier graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mass Communication at the University of Lagos. While in America, he won the Pitman Prize, marking him as one of the brightest young journalists of his generation. Truly, he lived up to it, as his return to Nigeria took him round several organisations before he settled to co-found NEWSWATCH magazine with his colleagues who had also garnered enough industry experience that would guarantee their professional stability in the new venture.
Prior to co-founding NEWSWATCH, Dan Agbese had worked variously as Editor, The Nigeria Standard, Editor, New Nigerian, and General Manager, Radio Benue, Makurdi. Remarkably these roles placed him at the center of some of Nigeria’s most critical political moments with his stewardship in each organisation demonstrating a consistent belief that journalism must illuminate, not entertain; it must interrogate, not appease.
As one of the titans at NEWSWATCH, Agbese displayed a high degree of team work spirit, maintaining a robust and balanced camaraderie among his colleagues with a strong focus on the vision and mission of NEWSWATCH – a pioneer in the 20th Century investigative journalism that ultimately laid foundation for what obtains in the 21st Century. His style of writing was not only assertive but professionally challenging even as his mastery of the language of communication aptly garbed him in an uncommon dress reserved for only the masters in the journalism profession.
He may not have displayed journalistic combativeness in his writings to drive home his arguments, particularly on national issues but the finesse with which he pursued his pen-trade created some masterly ambience that had often provoked deep rooted conviction on what his argument was all about. As a columnist, he was a master in crispy discourse that left no ambiguity. For this, he had some large followership.
Practicing journalism in Nigeria during one of the worst critical and deadly periods in history when the military held sway in the corridors of power and were not given to unchecked freedom in the media space, Dan Agbese and his colleagues at NEWSWATCH and other main stream publications had severally “dared the lion” through their high-stake investigations, critical analysis of important issues that tended to promote national interest and check corruption in the system. It was unarguably through such painstaking ventures, rightly or wrongly that the pioneer editor-in-chief of the magazine, Dele Giwa was killed through a letter bomb delivered to his private residence.
It was certainly to the credit of Dan Agbese and his other colleagues, that NEWSWATCH did not die with Giwa. They upped their game and remained undaunting in the face of greater danger to the admiration of a larger number of readers in Nigeria. Though, NEWSWATCH magazine may have died physically now as a publication, but it lives where-ever the names of Dele Giwa, Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese, Yakubu Mohammed and others are mentioned. Agbese like his colleagues gave his best to Nigeria at a time the journalism profession was looking for a redefinition. He would always be appreciated even in death, but regrettably his death remains a minus to the profession.
