It was on this same couch in this same freezing cold weather, precisely two years ago that I typed the most difficult and painful message I had ever written. No, it was not a tribute. It was a message of my intention to leave The Multimedia Group. Today, I write an even more difficult message. This time, a tribute. Both messages relate to the same man, Elvis Kwashie, I called him Bald Head Mugabe.

When I decided to leave the organization where I had spent more than a decade since leaving journalism school, two people made it almost imponderable – Elvis was one, Kwasi Twum the other.

It was difficult to tell Elvis I was leaving because we had over the many years of work, fights, disagreements – both private and public – forged a relationship founded on trust and mutual respect for each other, that it was unthinkable to break that relationship by leaving the ship that helped us build that bond.

After weeks and days of pondering, typing, deleting, retyping, rephrasing, editing, and weighing the meaning and impact of every word, I finally finished and it would take days to finally hit send.

A few hours after sending the mail, I received a call, one I had been dreading. ‘Alhaji’, that was how he called me, (he had a name for everyone in the newsroom), ‘I received your love letter, are you coming back to Ghana? Can we at least talk?’ 

When I joined Multimedia in February 2008 (while in my final year in journalism school), Elvis was not there, if he was, I didn’t know him. I joined myjoyonline.com which then operated from the company’s corporate office at Trust Towers, Adabraka. There was little contact between us and Kokomlemle.

One afternoon in 2011 or thereabout, Kwasi Twum came around with a bald-headed, not a very tall man with round glasses and introduced him as the new News Editor. Matilda Asante had left and this unassuming man was her replacement.

After that introduction, I never heard or interacted with Elvis again until 2012 when Myjoyonline moved to the radio building at Kokomlemle. 

One afternoon in July 2012, I got a surprised call from the then HR Manager for Joy FM, Tina Nai. She wanted to see me for an important discussion. “Your new boss, Elvis, just left here. He spoke highly of you. I have asked him to go and put it on paper,” she said.

I was both confused and surprised because I had not worked under Elvis. Technically, Myjoyonline was not under Joy FM until then. My boss was Isaac Yeboah who in June that year left the company. Management then decided to put Myjoyonline under Joy FM and under Elvis. How much did he know about me to go and speak highly of me? I wondered. But that was Elvis Kwashie, a man with the knack to identify talent and to pursue same without prompting.

Without a doubt, there most likely would not be the Malik Daabu who became but for Elvis. Admittedly, Kofi Owusu, once a famous Programmes Director of Joy FM was the one who first attempted to move me from Myjoyonline to Joy FM in 2008 because, in his view, I showed industry in producing the story relating to then-candidate Mills’ Running Mate and the dismissal of Victor Smith as Aide to former President Jerry Rawlings. He later left the company.

But in 2013 or thereabout – I can’t remember anymore, my brain is foggy, my eyes teary – the then governing National Democratic Congress held a delegates congress to elect its national officers. As is the practice, Joy FM’s coverage started in the morning and would last until the declaration of results and the final speeches. All the key presenters were tired and knocked off by midnight, leaving the veteran Dzifa Bampoh alone in the studio. Elvis walked to my desk and said, “Alhaji, go and help Dzifa, she is tired.” There was just a wall between Myjoyonline and the studio. I went into the studio and grabbed a seat. Barely an hour into the discussion, Elvis walked in, gave me a long look, followed by a long clap. “Alhaji, you know all these and you have been sitting here. I’m impressed. You guys have no idea the feedback I’m receiving about your analysis. Wow! Dzifa confirmed she had received some, too. “What should I bring you, tea, milo, coffee?” Elvis asked. A few minutes later he returned with two plastic cups of tea and milo – one for me the other for Dzifa.  That was Elvis, the boss who made tea for his subordinates. The discussion run till 5 am.

A few days later, Elvis would beckon me, “Alhaji zo” (Alhaji come, in Hausa). “I have decided to create a number of desks in the newsroom, you and Evans will lead the Politics Desk, you and Araba will lead the Total Recall Desk. Alhaji I need your help to make this work. I believe you can do it,” he went on. That is how I became Deputy Head of JoyNews’ Politics Desk and gained notoriety for political analysis that earned me friends and foes in equal measure.

On Tuesday afternoon, September 1, 2015, I got a call from Evans Mensah, ‘Elvis de call you!’ I ran across the road to the TV building where Elvis’ office was.“Evans says you are looking for me,” I said trying to catch my breath. “Alhaji, you are hosting PM: Express this evening. Can you do it? He asked nonchalantly while I was editing a story. “As for can, I can, you should be asking whether I will,” I replied. “I am not giving you a choice,” he cut in, still looking intently on his laptop and typing ferociously. When he was done with his editing, he called Jennifer Jane Asante, who was then the producer of the show and told her I was hosting the show that night.

It was the first time ever that I was going to host a tv show and PM: Express had been hosted by great men and women including Nii Arday Clegg, Samson Lardy Anyenini, Bernard Nasara Shaibu, Steven Anti, Martha Acquah, Nana Ansah Kwao, the list goes. Elvis had no problems throwing me in there. The next morning, he would come and ask me to assess myself since he went to church before going home (as he often did) and by the time he got home I was signing out.

You may have been bored by now reading the accounts of young men and women who were all given a lifeline by Elvis when no one gave them any credit or trusted their abilities. You may have read that he stood up against his fellow managers when he insisted on giving young people the opportunity to grow and defended their right to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes. 

In my 2017 end of year assessment, he stated as my weakness, constant defence of my team at Myjoyonline. I disagreed with him and pointed out that he did exactly that – defend his people before executive management. He laughed loudly, “I hear you, but I am not changing it.” We both laughed.

Manasseh Azure Awuni has written extensively about Elvis’ character. I do not have much to add except to emphasise that if JoyNews today boasts fearless journalism, it is largely down to Elvis. While the point must be made that Executive Management built a formidable culture of fearlessness, Elvis as managing news editor gave this culture oxygen to grow. He did not stand in the way of reporters as long they crosschecked all their facts. Elvis, like all frontline journalists, had close friends in high places – politics, business, academia, name it. In spite of this vast network of relations, Elvis never tried to stop the broadcast and publication of stories involving these persons and some of those stories really hurt people – his friends and church members. He was resolute in his belief that ‘it happens, we report.’ On some occasions when the often-unjustified criticisms got to him, he would retort, “Are we fools, why are we always with the opposition?”

Elvis was authentic, he made no pretences, his love was genuine. His guidance and counsel were generous, his feedback, brutal and frank. I was tried on the Super Morning Show, Joy FM’s flagship programme, one that has proven to be the preserve people whose parents were teachers and Elvis entered the studio and gave me a long disapproving look. I knew my feedback was waiting. As soon I stepped out of the studio, he was waiting. “Alhaji, the morning show is not your thing. If you are not careful you will destroy yourself. You were terrible. This is not what you are known for, Alhaji!” I told him it wasn’t my decision, he said he understood that but I should play to my strength.

While Elvis was willing to throw any challenge at me, as he did to the other team members, he fiercely resisted any attempt to throw me into the water without a life-jacket, however glorious it seemed, and he was not afraid to express his doubts about your weakness in your presence. On December 30 2015, he and I went up to see the Chief Operating Officer of the Joy brands then, Ekyi Quarm to discuss the performance of the business units in the year and plans for the next year. In that meeting, Ekyi Quarm said he had decided that they should prepare me as a sit-in host for Newsfile. Elvis instantly said he thought that should be another colleague. Ekyi said the person’s strength was in other areas. Elvis insisted. Now Elvis and I went to Ekyi’s office holding hands and chatting amongst ourselves, but he had no problems saying no in my presence when the suggestion concerned me. That was Elvis. Authentic to the core.

Even when I left the newsroom, we kept in touch. He mostly got in touch either through a WhatsApp message or a phone. Ken Ansah and KT do too. On August 3, 2021, he sent a message, “I know you are a big man but hello once in a while is in order. I salute you Alhaji. I trust the family is doing well, sir.”

The last conversation I had with Elvis was via a phone call somewhere in October 2021.

I never heard of him until December 16 when in a random conversation I asked of him and a former colleague said he was unwell. I immediately reached out to Dzifa Bampoh to enquire about him. I would later call Elvis’ wife, Cynthia, and get information that would numb me for days.

I have lost people close to me, but this hurt really badly. Elvis was a good man. He stood up for those who had no power against the powerful but did it with respect. He led where many would buckle and did it with courage and dignity. He counselled with sincerity and prayed unceasingly that no one would die under his leadership. He would joke that one of my targets for the year was to become a Christian and would constantly remind me as the year progressed that I hadn’t achieved that target yet.

Who else would lead with such courage of conviction, with such integrity, honesty, and touch the lives of so many? Just who?

Indeed, we will miss you, Elvis Koku Kwashie!