Date Published: 12/23/10

THISDAY editor brawls over seized official car

THISDAY newspaper’s editor in the Nation’s capital, Ms. Constance Ikokwu on Tuesday got a shocking Christmas ‘gift’, as her employer’s security officers in commando-style forcefully retrieved her official car, a Kia Optima following her suspension from office by her boss and editor of the newspaper, Mr. Simon Kolawole.

Since her appointment earlier in the year, Ms. Ikokwu had reportedly been having a running battle with Kolawole over what sources described as “editorial and extra-editorial issues.” Ironically, Ms. Ikokwu’s predecessor, Mr. Paul Ibe, was suspended and later sacked under related circumstances.

Sources close to the company’s corporate head office on Creek Road, Apapa, Lagos, told Pointblanknews.com that Kolawole was often in the habit of complaining to his kinsman and Group Executive Director of the newspaper, Mr. Eniola Bello, over “Constance’s high-handedness in running the Abuja office.” Bello, who is naturally taciturn, was reported to have on a particular occasion chided Kolawole to “stop complaining and do something about it!”

“We were therefore not surprised that editor (Kolawole) on Tuesday sent Constance a mail asking her to proceed on an indefinite suspension,” offered a managerial staff, however adding, “What we didn’t know was the embarrassing dimension it would take.”

Pointblanknews.com gathered that no sooner had Constance got the mail notifying her of the indefinite suspension than she packed her personal belongings and made to drive off in her official car. Unknown to her, continued the sources, Kolawole had reportedly instructed the Chief Security Officer, requesting him not to allow Ms. Ikokwu “drive off in the company’s car as he was no longer sure of her status as an employee of THISDAY.”

As the lady made for the gate, one of the security men told Pointblanknews.com, “we ordered her to reverse and park the car in the car park as we have information that she has been sacked from the company.” He added: “You know that Constance is one proud lady. She tried to shout at us, and we warned her to stop that as she was no longer in charge. So when she continued and refused to cooperate, we had no option than to forcefully take the car keys from her not minding her screams.”

A top management staff of THISDAY told Pointblanknews.com that Constance’s humiliation has heightened the worry on the company’s mounting refusal to abide by any known labour laws.

“As we speak,” he told Pointblanknews.com, “we are being owed a minimum of three months’ salaries, and there is no hope that we would get our salaries before Christmas. And on top of this, people who have put in 15 years are just sacked like casual labourers and they do not get a Naira in benefits or entitlements.”

Another top editor blamed the duo of Eniola Bello and Simon Kolawole for what he described as “pre-World War I working conditions” THISDAY. “They are only hypocritically courageous as far as their columns which they have commercialised are concerned. Neither Eni-B (as Eniola Bello is also known) nor Simon can look the publisher (Nduka Obaigbena) in the face and tell him this or that is wrong or not good,” said the editor, lamenting, “that is how bad things have become in THISDAY which we claim is driven by truth and reason.”

The editor cited the instance of the meeting of media owners early in the year where they jointly issued a communiqué urging the then ailing President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to relinquish powers to his then vice, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.

“You may recall that even though Eni-B represented THISDAY at the said meeting, he however refused to sign the communiqué on the grounds that he did not have the mandate to sign any document. If the group executive director of a newspaper cannot sign a simple communiqué, please tell me who can?” quizzed the editor.

A title editor frowned at what he said was the increasing bastardization of the THISDAY editorial policies by the duo of Eni-B and Kolawole, “to the extent that we have become a laughing stock in the industry.”

He pointed out what he claimed was a 360 degree swing of the editorial policy of THISDAY from being 100 percent anti-Goodluck Jonathan to become the official mouthpiece of the Jonathan administration.

“Our main worry is not even this editorial prostitution, but the fate of those of us who have spent a considerable chunk of our editorial lives in THISDAY in the face of this growing resort to arbitrary suspensions and dismissals without benefits,” he expressed.

Pointblanknews.com gathered that this year alone, no fewer than six top staff of the newspaper have been affected by this gale of arbitrary suspensions and sack in its Abuja bureau.

Early in the year, the newspaper’s State House editor, Mr. George Oji was given the boot over a missed story on the Christian cleric’s visit to Yar’Adua on his “recovery” bed. Oji had put in over 15 years.

To follow was the newspaper’s Abuja editor, Mr. Paul Ibe, who had put in over 10 years. Ibe was sacked for forgetting to send a news story. No sooner had Ibe been shown the way out than the newspaper slammed an indefinite suspension on its Abuja judicial correspondent, Mr. Funso Muriana “for missing a judiciary story.”

After over three months on suspension, Muriana was reluctantly recalled, but immediately took ill. Dejected and broke, Muriana from his sick bed appealed to his colleagues in Abuja to send him “something.” Unfortunately, he died before any “something” could get to him. Curiously, when THISDAY announced his obituary, Funso Muriana was described as the paper’s “Abuja Judicial Editor,” suggesting he must have been promoted posthumously.

The newspaper’s divisional director (marketing) Mr. Benjie Ihenyen, as well as his colleague in operations, Mallam Nuhu, are on suspension. With Ms. Ikoku’s indefinite suspension, it is not clear who takes charge of the Abuja office of the newspaper which boasts of 15 years of “robust journalism.”