He was our kind of person. You will always know your kind of person if you are truthful to yourself. Snooper mourns the passing last Tuesday of Chief Duro Onabule, aka double Chief. We were neither friends nor professional acolytes. But there was something about his proud carriage, his stubborn defiance and unapologetic disdain for political correctness which made a lasting impression on yours sincerely. Neither an obsequious placeman, nor a syrupy palace jester, he was every inch an Ijebu nobleman.
The late chief was born in September, 1939 in Ijebu-Ode to a humble family. His father was a newspaper vendor. Perhaps struck by a hint of future destiny or simply mesmerized by the famous men of letter who manned the profession that gave him is daily bread, Onabule senior promptly nicknamed his son “editor”.
And a notable editor and engaging columnist he did become eventually after steadily rising through the ranks. The story recalls the hero of Joseph Heller’s classic, Catch 22, who was named Major at birth. Upon joining the army, his superior commanders saw the opportunity for a practical joke. He was promptly promoted major. There the joke ended. The catch was that he could not be promoted any further. Colonel Major would have been an obtrusive joke taken too far.
For a proud self-made man like Duro Onabule, climbing up the greasy pole of journalism and all its arcane rituals, its occasionally self-abasing obeisance, could not have been an easy task. He was not a whizz kid like some of his famous contemporaries. With his middling education, he must have known that if he fell, there was nowhere to go but all the way down. He bore it all with uncommon fortitude and calm self-possession. His career is a study in scrupulous integrity and a proud defiance of gravity.
Read Also: Duro Onabule (1939 – 2022)
It was from his editorship of Abiola’s Concord that he was said to have been “donated” to the new military president, the then Major General Ibrahim Babangida, as his spokesperson. He served his principal very well, with quiet aplomb, honour, dignity and unobtrusive integrity. This was the high noon of his career.
He discharged his professional obligations to the mercurial and ever-gaming general so well that man of the pen and manager of professional violence parted with mutual respect and much cordiality. Onabule himself had the outward discipline and focused reserve of the famous and archetypal Prussian general.
Thereafter, he retreated behind a wall of icy reserve and disobliging courtesy. He was so tight lipped and self-restrained that he could not be caught in public making unwarranted commentaries. On the very few occasions that our paths crossed in public, the usually curt but not unfriendly exchange of polite formalities ended on a glum note of offside tactics.
Yet as somebody deeply intrigued by the IBB persona and the confounding circumstances of the annulment of the freest and fairest election in the history of the country as well as the high octave military intrigues surrounding his last days in power, there remains many unanswered questions. Yet despite all attempts to cauterize it, the June 12 debacle remains an open wound for the country.
For example, what did IBB think he was doing when four days after announcing his step-aside, he got the self-same double chief to announce from his Minna redoubt new service postings for the military. In the name of what authority was he acting? A posthumous beneficence to his surviving military acolytes after losing command?
It is interesting that the duo of Abacha and Diya swiftly countermanded the postings in the interest of service expediency. Abacha may be cerebrally undistinguished but he had a superior military brains than many of his better fancied peers. It ought to have been clear to IBB from that point on that Abacha was relentlessly inching his way to power.
It is obvious that the late chief carried with him many secrets to his final resting place. Like an ancient Yoruba gnome, he knew where the corpses and sarcophagus are interred or disinterred as the case may be. But the code of omerta is not for nothing. Despite his closeness to the deep state, Onabule took no hostages in his column. There were times that one felt he had taken his bristling hostility to certain Yoruba personages too far. But that is the essence of the man.
But despite all that, the late double chief was not without a puckish and impish sense of humour. When Newswatch magazine ran into a huge storm with IBB over its unauthorised publication of the report of the Political Bureau, the youthful Dele Olojede accosted Onabule for an interview at his Dodan Barracks redoubt. The double chief calmly fielded all the questions. But as Olojede was heading out, Onabule hollered at him: “By the way, where are you going to publish that?”
Unknown to Olojede at that point in time, Newswatch had been summarily proscribed by the military authorities for its infraction and daring contumely. The death sentence was later reduced to a six-month ban. Duro Onabule was quite a character. Last Wednesday, IBB returned the full compliment to his fallen friend in a brilliant and stirring tribute. May his plucky soul rest in peace.