How ‘Nkan Nbe’ Became Nigeria’s Most Feared Show

For example, the founder of Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), ​​​​​​​​TB Joshua was rumoured to have assassinated him in connection to the exposés on Joshua’s church that Olawuyi conducted in 1996. Although I could not find the original audio recordings of those investigations online or on any mainstream streaming platforms, from reports like that of the columnist Abimbola Adelakun, it is clear that Olawuyi had revealed a series of evidence that exposed the church as ‘a mix of cultic and occultic practices.’ There were also rumours that Olawuyi had been murdered as retaliation for the investigation he conducted on the ghost town in Benin Republic. Olawuyi had travelled to a village in Benin Republic that was rumoured to be abandoned, haunted and controlled by supernatural forces. There, he found that what was rumoured as a ‘ghost town’ was actually a front used by an organized occult group which manufactured local superstitions—such as strange lights, eerie noises and orchestrated disappearances—to terrify locals into suppression and keep outsiders​​​​ away.

Another widely circulated rumour claimed Olawuyi fell ill and died shortly after he hired workers to fell an ancient tree growing in his compound, in defiance of clear warnings from the previous occupants about the tree’s spiritual significance. There were also speculations about Olawuyi’s membership in an occultic group, which the rumours claimed had shaved his head after his death. The journalist had impressed a mystical image on his audiences’ minds. By visiting shrines, interviewing people who claimed to have had spiritual encounters, investigating stories of great mystery from across southwestern Nigeria, and presenting it all in his elaborate elderly-man costume, for many viewers, he was a powerful man who straddled the seen and unseen worlds. And when he died, that shaped how they thought of his death.

Almost two decades later, the public still finds it difficult to believe that Olawuyi had simply died after a brief illness, as was reported. These towering rumours persist, even though Abimbola Olawuyi, Olawuyi’s widow until her death this year, repeatedly dismissed them. ​​​​They demonstrate the immense power of the media in shaping public perception and cognition, transforming a journalist into a larger-than-life figure who became inseparable, in his audiences’ view, from the mysteries he unravelled. Paradoxically, the public’s fierce refusal to accept a straightforward explanation for his passing might be testament to the critical success of his life’s work. This scepticism, which Olawuyi nurtured in his audiences, might be Nkan Nbe’s most enduring legacy.

Young Olawuyi started his media career as a radio broadcaster at the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) in Ibadan. From ​​​​the 1980s to 1992, he was a regular voice on Radio Nigeria 1, where, alongside the late Ashamu Akinrinde and Babatunde Olaniyi, he co-hosted Káàárọ̀, o ò Jíire?, a morning programme every Thursday...