Billionaire Jimoh Ibrahim fired the managing director of Newswatch magazine today for failing to pay their journalists and other staff.
Ibrahim owns Newswatch and National Mirror.
Journalists from both papers demonstrated today at Nicon Luxury Hotel, the venue of the Energy Group 5th GMD conference, while the tycoon himself was giving a speech televised live on AIT.
The protesters claimed they hadn’t been paid for over a year.
The demonstration disrupted the conference and Ibrahim was apparently angry with the newspaper executives. He then pronounced Bolu Afolayan, the Newswatch MD, fired and announced editor Demola Abimboye as replacement.
All of this happened on live TV.
Ibrahim blamed the papers’ management for the pay situation and said it wasn’t his role to pay their staff.
“I cannot borrow to pay their salaries. It is not sustainable,” he said.
Jimoh Ibrahim bought National Mirror in 2008. The paper was founded by Prince Emeka Obasi in 2006.
Newswatch is a Nigerian weekly news magazine formed by Nigerian journalists Dele Giwa , Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese and Yakubu Mohammed in 1984. Its first editor in chief was Giwa, who was killed two years later in his home by a mail bomb.