Minere Amakiri Dies After Protracted Illness

Foremost journalist and  publisher of the Beacon Newspaper in Port Harcourt, Mr Minere Amakiri is dead.

According to a statement issued by Mr Isikima Harry, chairman of the Independent Publishers Association in Rivers State, Mr Amakiri died Friday night after a protracted illness.

The late Amakiri will be remembered for his controversy when he was the correspondent of The Observer Newspaper in the defunct Bendel State in the early seventies.

He came to limelight when he criticized Navy Commander Alfred Diette Spiff, then Military Governor of old Rivers State, for celebrating his birthday when teachers in the state were on strike over non payment of salaries.

The report attracted the wrath of the governor who ordered his immediate arrest and had his hair shaved with broken bottle.

The issue attracted widespread condemnation. He instituted a legal action and won and was paid damages.

As publisher of the Beacon Newspaper in Port Harcourt, he was also known to have been very  critical of the Governor Peter Odili’s administration between 1999 and 2007.

Reacting to the death of Mr Minere Amakiri, in a telephone interview with The Tide in Port Harcourt yesterday, former Editor of the Sunday Tide, Chief Wofuru Okparaolu described late Amakiri as one of the think tank of journalism profession in Nigeria.

Chief Okparaolu who was also a former chairman of Nigeria Union of Journalists, Rivers State Council, said late Amakiri was a crusader-reporter who set precedence in investigative journalism, adding that journalists and the journalism profession would miss him.