Former Deputy Editor of The Guardian Mr. Ben Tomoloju is a man of many parts. He is a theatre artist, writer, musician and cultural activist, who has dedicated his life to the promotion of arts and culture. He was with The Guardian between 1985 and 1993. Askari, Aminatu, Jankariwo and Flowers’ Introspect are some of his published plays and books. Last Thursday, he turned 60. In this interview with Arts reporters, Tomoloju reflects on his career, activism, politics and art journalism. Arts Editor Ozolua Uhakheme was there.
You pioneered art journalism in the country, how did it start?
I had the facility to add value to journalism through my literary enterprise. And I didn’t fail. If I had, people would have complained about the Punch editorial from April 1982 to late 1983. As the lay reader (the title then for Chairman, Editorial Board), I was in charge of the editorial in addition to my work as English Language Teacher at Agege Grammar School. When I was in the Punch, I also observed that people were writing about what was supposed to be the arts, but what they were writing was pedestal things which didn’t go to the nitty-gritty of art appreciation – theatre, performing, visual or literary arts.
It was all about musicians and other things that were outside the realms of arts. I then asked for a page that was when my name came into the limelight as an art writer. I asked for a page or at least a column every Saturday called Portrait of an Artist and I started showcasing talents and when the opportunity came for me to be invited to join another paper – The Democrat in Kaduna- I was invited to be a member of the editorial board based on my antecedents in the Punch, but I refused, I said I would prefer to be the Arts Editor, which is my passion in journalism.
So, in the last quarter of 1983 before the Buhari-Idiagbon coup, I was given a letter of appointment as Review Editor of the Democrat weekly. Being the Review Editor, my job included aspects of features writing and so I combined them with arts writing. I also did a few things, which I suppose posterity should evaluate, one of which was to identify that the couples of literature written on the Nigerian civil war should be a subject of study. I wrote a whole broadsheet (full page) on that, proposing that it should be a subject of study. I believe that by now it has been very well articulated in scholarship.
That was what journalism did in terms of giving direction and perception of the proper development of literature. We also talked about some potential like Barbra Soki… We interviewed her and went to town with her story. The following week, we got a call from some media organisations, they wanted her to model for them, and so we were creating values. The literary aspects of what we were writing in The Democrat, our big bosses – Stanley Macebuh, Lade Bonuola, Femi Osofisan, Yemi Ogunbiyi, Odia Ofeimun felt I should come and join The Guardian, and there was no dispute about it, so, in 1985, I joined The Guardian as the pioneer Arts Editor and another journey began from there.
I really flourished in The Guardian, I did a lot. I want to say that the arts journalists should be leaders! In recent times, I was reading through the literatures of June 12, I don’t know if there is any scholar in this country that has identified June 12 literatures! It is a whole, big collection on June 12 or pro-democracy literature. That is literature inter-relating with politics and the democratisation process. Beautiful prose work, fantastic narratives, thorough and in-depth analysis. It is for the journalist to point it out. This is the kind of thing we should be pointing out. That is the kind of thing I felt I ought to be doing in those active days in journalism. Thereafter, we went to put arts journalism on the Television, but the mercantilism choked us up. This is a little bit of the excursion, there is much to say about arts journalism.
At what point did the advocacy start?
Almost immediately! The very fact that we felt that arts was not being given a good deal in journalism was the beginning of the advocacy. I read about a very fantastic reggae artist, producer and multi-instrumentalist being written about, but what the journalist felt was the best to write about him was that he had no car, and that he was… around the town! For God sake! That is a reflection of mercantile society. The society that is abraded by materialism! The beginning of the advocacy was that we should face another dimension to journalistic reportage, review and analysis of the arts, instead of the mundane things that come in form of entertainment. The advocacy went on from there. We projected very powerful productions to national reckoning. We (with my colleagues) also reported every development in policy and implementation in the country’s cultural sector. We recall that Prof. Bayo Oduneye was the chairman of the review committee of film and theatre in the 80s and thereafter, we had the stakeholders’ meeting on the cultural sector when Col. Tunde Akogun came in. In fact, it was a very serious thing, because, we, on the Arts Desk of The Guardian, had given Col. Tunde Akogun an elaborate interview and we had transcribed to publish in two parts: we published part one in 1986, before we could publish the second part, there was the Babangida’s coup, nobody knew which typhoon would sweep any officer away, but our page was there empty and so what do we do?
We had a meeting to decide that whether Akogun remains as the sole administrator of culture or not, we would run the interview. We have not received any information that he has been thrown out of the army and so we went on with the interview and so we were also independent as journalists to run the ideas embedded in the interview and so we carried part 2. Behold Akogun had a bigger promotion and that was part of the advocacy.
Thereafter, we went into copyright. We were following Tony Okoroji, Onyeka Onwenu, Charly Boy and Sunny Ade, and before you know it, we were also part of the advocacy. We were in the committees representing the media without apology to anybody, because I could as well go there as an artist. And some people branded us – my humble self and Jahman…, they called us ‘Journartist’. But we were opening doors and creating professionals for the future- those people skilled in arts; mass communication, and they applied their skills to the development of Arts Journalism.
We followed it up to the National Troupe of Nigeria, to a point that we almost camped at Ososa. The first thing was, they didn’t know that arts could make great news. So, when we first had a tour with the Federal Sole Administrator for Culture, Col. Akogun, I didn’t leave it to my reporters alone. We wrote the stuff together, slammed my byline with reports from… and hit the front page. Then, the Permanent Secretary, Asumbole, saw it and read it in The Guardian. He liked it. Col Akogun also went to visit Baba Ogunde and Asumbole came back and found out the following morning that it was on the front page of The Guardian again! Then Anthony Ukpo, Minister for Information and Culture found it very interesting and exciting. We conferred status, but with sound judgment.
Babangida, then, had been reading, he sent a message. He wanted a command performance of the Ososa experiment and Baba Ogunde brought a classic, the main bowl was fully air-conditioned and we were all part of the advocacy. This guy in Galaxy now – Steve Ojo was a young engineer then, he promised that he was going to turn around the air-conditioning system of the main bowl; that they didn’t need to go to Belgium, and they did the chiller and it was wonderful.
Col. Akogun gave the contract to Ojo’s company. So, we had the command performance of the National Troupe. Babangida sent Abacha to represent him and sent a statement that from that moment on, the performance should be the nucleus of the National Troupe of Nigeria. It was followed by a decree and the National Troupe was formed. Babangida noted the progression of the reports in The Guardian. We keep saying this not because we are boastful, it is a collaboration, sometimes our journalists would sleep at locations or carry the arts desk to places where events were happening. Then when there were no internet or phones, we would do a relay race with the reports to the newsroom, where somebody was waiting to do the re-write.
So also the National Gallery of Arts; the National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO); National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC); NAFEST and so on. I sent people all over the country to cover events and culture- related issues. Sometime in 1988 a government official loosely said that NAFEST would host in Lagos and we caught on it and I sent a reporter to go and meet the Commissioner of Information and Culture in Lagos State, Modupe Adeogun I think… I said, ‘go to her, but don’t ask her are you going to host NAFEST, ask her, how are you preparing to host NAFEST? Because the man, who is in charge of culture nationwide, had said NAFEST would be in Lagos.
Are you satisfied with the sustenance of the art model you pioneered?
I am not happy by the spasmodic approach to pagination created mostly by commercial needs of the newspaper. I would have celebrated the fact that the tradition is maintained and sustained. That is, there is always an arts page to read in a day in the newspapers, but people must have faith in the industry to be able to excel, especially when there are models. If you want to commercialise, I keep telling media people at different forums that the arts desk is the biggest place to generate adverts. The only thing is that the credit is not given to them. All these telecommunications adverts are all arts informed. We own the media pages – service providers are ours. I think the adverts people have to be educated on the cultures of adverts regarding arts. You have to encourage the publishing industries — how do you sensitise them to advertise and so there is a problem, which is a disconnect between the marketing side of news magazine and the editorial side. I think our editors of today need to be firm; a reporter who reports arts is now pulled away to cover Maritime, I think the newspaper employers need some re-orientation.
Quality of art reporting now compared to then.
There are some disappointing moments; you find people lifting press statements, it is wrong, you don’t report one-sided things, there are some things that need to be well detailed before it is reported. There are some fantastic culture journalists who are heartwarming, and they are critics who do well because they are in it.
Arts community’s response to arts and culture reporting
If the person written about does not care then it is because the subject of the article is not penchant enough to indict, appraise and appreciate on a fundamental basis. If for instance, they have been ripping off their workers and it goes to the press with facts and figures, they will care. When Barbra Soki released an album, somebody told her that she confined herself to her acting and she shouldn’t try music, and I don’t think she has tried music ever since. The critical and status conferral dimension to journalism should be based on fundamental principles and there should be no patronisation of anybody, the more patronising you are, the more important they feel. Like Bayo Onanuga said about his political journalism career, that he wants his own brand of journalism that will make political leaders feel uncomfortable, which will make them sit up. They will respect you more as an art journalist if you are sound in criticism, creative in reporting, friendly in appreciation but not patronising.
