Awoko Newspaper 2.0.1

Early History of Awoko Newspaper

Awoko Newspaper was born out of the desire to present accurate and up to date news to the people of Sierra Leone.

The idea

It began with the realisation that during the war, most newspaper and radio journalists were picking up the news from international radio and websites when the news was happening in their backyard.

These news stories had been supplied by a small band of local journalists working for international news agencies like Reuters, Associated Press (AP), Agence France Presse (AFP), British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Voice of America (VOA), Radio France International (RFI) and others.

The journalists working for local news outlets were thus not going out to find the news from the source like their counterparts working for the international agencies, rather they sat back and copied what had been investigated and put out by the international agencies.

The Political Climate

This was a period when Sierra Leone had come out of military rule by the NPRC and had gone through a successful transition to civilian rule in March 1996. However, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) led rebel war was still raging. The military has just capitulated with a coupe on the democratically elected government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabba, which had been forced into exile on 25th May 1997. The military had joined forces with the RUF rebels to form the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC).

In February 1998 ECOMOG forces evicted the AFRC from State House in an intervention led by then Colonel Mitikishe Maxwell Khobe of the Nigerian Army.

On 10th March 1998, the democratically elected government was re-instated by Nigeria’s President Sani Abacha at the national stadium. The war was not yet over, but the rebels had been pushed outside of the capital Freetown.

This was an eventful period and the absence of this commitment to go out and search for credible first-hand news by local journalists forced the formation of Awoko Newspaper.

The Proprietor(s)

Three friends, David Tam-Baryoh, Joseph Rahall and Kelvin Lewis came together to form Awoko Newspaper. All three had practised as journalists, and Kelvin Lewis was actively working for VOA, English service of Rfi and Radio Deutsche Welle (Voice of Germany) by then.

David Tam-Baryoh was operating a media NGO dealing with training and capacitating the media and had temporarily closed his newspaper The Punch.

Joe Rahall still had leanings with For Di People newspaper and had worked together with Kelvin Lewis as his Deputy in setting up and establishing The Quill newspaper during the reign of the NPRC military regime.

The three put together two million Leones (Le2,000,000.00) each and registered the newspaper as a partnership.

Kelvin was to be the Editor and David would be the Deputy Editor and act in the absence of Kelvin while Joe Rahall would handle the finances.

Later that year (1998) both Joe Rahall and David Tam-Baryoh expressed their desire to pull out of the partnership because of growing financial problems and having to put in monies for just about each and every publication. By mutual consent, they were both bought out by Kelvin Lewis who remained the sole proprietor.

The Name

Several names were considered for the newspaper, including a lot of English related names live Daily Times, Sentinel and Observer etc. However, with the desire to go international one day it was decided we go for a local name, which would not clash with an international newspapers name.

We were pressured into making this decision by the late Tom Caurray. He became one of our very regular columnists. A fiery character and an uncompromising African, he was a forthright critic and an unwavering campaigner for the Rights of People.

Read more from our Website at
https://awokonewspaper.com/about-us/