After two months in the labour room, born-again Newswatch is finally out of the press, this time as a newspaper rather than the iconic weekly newsmagazine it used to be.

Yesterday, the preview edition of the newspaper was presented to vendors and newspaper agents in Lagos, the publishing and economic capital of Nigeria.

The event, held at Ikeja Club, was graced by the management team of Newswatch Newspapers and a large crowd of newspaper agents and vendors. The paper’s publisher, Barrister Jimoh Ibrahim, sent a goodwill message.

News Express learnt that Ibrahim travelled to the United Kingdom to print the newspaper and returned with it on Thursday. The publicity blitz to precede the newspaper’s arrival on the newsstands is scheduled to start tomorrow with wrap-around advertisements in five selected Nigerian newspapers.

Ibrahim, who used the same strategy to launch his other newspaper, National Mirror, on Friday, December 17, 2010, acquired controlling shares in Newswatch in 2011. He controversially took over the management of Newswatch last August and decided to turn the 27 years old weekly magazine into a newspaper while also retaining the magazine format. Barrister Ibrahim and Newswatch Founding Directors are presently in court over his seizure of the company.

“Saturday Newswatch will hit the newsstands next Saturday, January 19, and the Sunday edition will follow the next day, with the daily edition hitting the streets next month. The Saturday and Sunday editions will be 96 all-colour,” a competent source close told News Express.

Meanwhile, things are not rosy for Newswatch staff under the new regime of Barrister Ibrahim. Though they started work last November 1, News Express learnt that those in the magazine section have yet to receive any salary while those in the newspaper have been paid only for the month of November. 

One of the workers who spoke with News Express said: “Things are not rosy as we expected but we are hoping that there’ll be an improvement as the papers finally enter the market.”