It was the job offer from New Nigerian Newspapers that brought us together in 1982 in Kaduna. But then, it was not just the two of us. There were others, including “Oyibo” Abdullahi, the son of a former high court judge, who was sent to be educated overseas only to return some years later with mouthfuls of anti women curse words). We were all deployed in the editorial department but Abdullahi, the ever rolling stone that he was, rolled away almost immediately.
So what was it that started a truly special relationship between Yawe and me that would span over 4 decades? Our names, perhaps? He was Emmanuel Yawe and I am Tawey Zakka, both from old Gongola state; he Tiv and I Kuteb. Yawe, Tawey. Many people couldn’t tell the one from the other. My visitors often were misdirected to Yawe and his to me. If you shouted my name from afar and Yawe heard before I did, he would think he was the one being called. It was the case with me too. The near closeness in the way Yawe and Tawey sounded was the reason for the confusion. But it also was the alchemy that created the unique bond between us.
The bonding crystallized in the New Nigerian crucible where the competition for front page bylines was intense but largely healthy. I was taken to the newsroom of the flagship tabloid while Yawe went to the sister Sunday New Nigerian as it was then called. As Reporter 1 (my starting point), I was assigned beats like the Kaduna airport, the courts, Kaduna Polytechnic and Ahmadu Bello University and the Nigerian Civil Aviation College, both in nearby Zaria. At SNN, Yawe was desk bound, handling features because he had writing experience, having reported previously for the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) from Yola, the capital of Gongola state. As for me, I was coming in as a rookie though my degree was in Mass Communication from Bayero University, Kano. Yawe read History at the University of Ibadan. Our busy schedules meant we hardly saw each other during working hours but there were occasional catch-ups in the library and food canteen. But we made the most of the weekends, taking the town apart. (Know what I mean!)
Then came the rupture. In 1983, the Kano state PRP government of gov. Abubakar Rimi had just set up the Triumph newspaper and made Abba Dabo, Yawe’s former editor at Sunday New Nigerian the pioneer General Manager. He whisked Yawe away with him to Kano. From there, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur who had just won a second term as Gongola governor took Yawe to be his Chief Press Secretary. However, on Dec. 31 of the same year, the military, led by Major General Muhammadu Buhari, overthrew the elected government of President Shehu Shagari and removed all state governors including Bamanga Tukur. A year later, on the 27th of August 1985, Buhari was removed, in a bloodless palace coup, by General Ibrahim Babangida. From that point, Yawe and I lost touch.
In 1986, Yawe ‘found’ me. I was on an annual vacation at home in Takum, awaiting a posting to New Nigerian’s Lagos office as News Editor (South). Then the new military administrator of Gongola, Group Captain Jonah David Jang had appointed Yawe as the General Manager of the government owned Gongola State Publishing Corporation, publishers of the “Weekly Scope” newspaper. I received a posted from him inviting me to be his guest in Yola. I arrived two days later and in the night, over dinner, he explained why he had asked me over. He needed an editor to make “Weekly Scope” a paper Gongolans would like to “buy to read”. The next morning, we drove to the GPC. Yawe took me from office to office, introducing me to key editorial and production staff. The reception was cold; I felt unwanted instantly. Back in Yawe’s office, I told him I felt like a cat among the pigeons. Somebody thought I had come to take his job and was ready to instigate an insurrection. I told Yawe this was no place for me. Back home in the night, we reviewed the situation and he agreed with me. The next day I set out on my way back to Kaduna and from there to Lagos, my new station. The following year, New Nigerian sent me on a journalist exchange programme in newly independent Zimbabwe in Southern Africa.
I returned to Nigeria in 1990, a day after my father’s passing on. My mom had died eight years earlier, the same year New Nigerian took me on. Yawe, too, had left Yola, Gongola having been split into Adamawa and Taraba states on the 27th of August 1991. He moved over to Abuja, where I later learned he was editing “Crystal” magazine, published by Triple Heritage, owned by former President Ibrahim Babangida. That very year, I was snapped up by Mohammed Haruna, who employed me at New Nigerian. He had set up his own newsmagazine, “Citizen” and wanted me to come on board. Here, I met some old faces at NN, including the late Bilkisu Yusuf, Adamu Adamu and Mohammed Bomoi. There was also Tijjani Isa (TJ). Mahmud Jega was new but we worked together very well. We are still good friends. Regrettably, the paper, like a beautiful flower, flourished in the cool of the morning and shriveled under intense financial heat in 1993. I found myself in the job market for three years. In 1996, I crawled back to New Nigerian. Here Mahmud and I met again.
In 2008, I left NN once more and joined newly founded “Peoples Daily”, a publication of Peoples Media Limited owned by few Daily Trust rebels. Yawe came back into my life or I his. He accommodated me in his rented quarters at Prince and Princess Estate, Abuja until September 2009 when I was able to have my own accommodation. I convinced him to join the editorial board of Peoples Daily and to start a column which he kept writing without fail. Even when the paper began to falter he kept going.
As the years rolled by, the hectic days and sleepless nights began to take a heavy toll on Yawe’s health. And mine also. One morning in December 2021, he called me from Garki Hospital to say he was on admission there. I barely could pick out his words on phone. I promised to visit him as soon as I could stand on my feet because I, too, was down. He said he was fed up and wanted to go home. I pleaded with him to wait for the doctors to declare him fit to return home. He did recover and soon resumed his routine, including his new job as the publicity secretary of Arewa Consultative Forum.
I was unable to visit him at home because my health wasn’t getting any better but we kept talking on the phone. Until March 11 2022. Mike Reis, another old New Nigerian colleague, called me. His very early morning phone call surprised me because he hardly called me. I told him so. He ignored my remark and said curtly, “Yawe is gone.” A year plus on, I still cannot bring myself to accept that reality. To me , it is just like yesterday. Today, as I think of him, I recall these lines from the Commodores’ song “Nightshift”: “It seems like yesterday when we were working out/
Jackie, you set the world on fire/
You came and gifted us, your love, it lifted us higher and higher … “.
