One day, a certain fellow burst through the door with a tentative, if boyish smile, twirling a sheet of paper. His greeting revealed a guttural gift as he strolled into Tunji Bello’s office. This was in the 1990’s in Concord Press.
I was to learn later that that young man had more than a guttural gift. Added to that, he had a gift of guts and grit. The first thing I heard after that visit was a word of praise from Bello. If his smile was tentative, his competence illuminated.
He said the young man was working downstairs. He was not a journalist. He was Louis Odion and wrote this, showing me the write-up. He wanted it published and he had encouraged him to keep writing because he was a damn good – not his words – man of letters. I took a look at his script later, and I wondered if he had strode through the walls of the university because he wrote better than many who had their master’s degree in literature. Bello said he had not. He was working as a stenographer.
Bello’s idea – this gift would not waste. His plan – he had to find a route for him to journalism. He was a penman that must not be penned.
In his writing, I saw guts and grits, and one more quality: elegance, a muscular sort of beauty. You could almost hear his guttural voice leap out of his syntax. He was doing his job downstairs, but his joy figured in the words and figures of speech in the sheets of paper he transported upstairs.
We were in the political desk of the newspaper, and Bello was the political editor who wanted to get the new kid on the block with a blockbuster style into the swing of political writing, or any writing he wanted.
He did. From my recollection, June 12 and the adversity of the military ban on Concord newspapers opened the way for Bello to edit an interim newspaper, The Daily News, and Odion was an easy pick to work in the team. From then on, dream and chance met never to part.
After the ban, Bello had him join the journalism aspect of business. Since then, Louis has risen from the obscure role of a backwoods staff of a newspaper to a star player in the firmament of the profession, earning the name capacity in humour and in deed. He has been editor, columnist, editor-in-chief. Along the way, he has gulped a variety of accolades, including quite a few as columnist of the year from the Nigerian Media Merit Awards and Informed commentary from Diamond Awards for Media Excellence. His writing has entertained many, ripped many a powerful man and woman, amused with its sometimes subversive humour. He has had tea and dinner with personages with the titles of president, governor, diplomat and Nobel laureate. His writing has shown a great sense of history, political insights and immersion in literary traditions.
Odion, knowing that he had to work himself through the university portal, decided to study and grab a degree in English at the University of Lagos. I recall in our days in Sunday Concord when we discussed subjects and shared books on some important themes in world and African literature.
But he is not just a good man in his profession, but in his relations. During my American sojourn, he became my editor as he accommodated my weekly columns when he shepherded the Sunday Sun. Of course, with the blessings of Mike Awoyinfa, the editor-in-chief. He also, for good humour, became my literary agent, as every money due to me in the newspaper for my work he secured. I never took any of the money for myself, but he did me the duty of parceling sums with zest and integrity to every loved one I wanted to have it. It is an honour I would not forget.
During that time, I had the joy to read his every column, including a moving one about his grueling visit to a dentist, a thing that made me wonder privately what damage it might have inflicted on his toothy smile.
Odion is a study in loyalty. He sticks with his friends, and he is a man who does not forget a good deed that comes his way. He has a serenity of vision to life, and looks at people from the viewpoint of cooperation.
He does not like soccer. His favorite sport is boxing. I recall, too, his love of Phil Collins. The pugilist and Collins, a punch in the eye and song for the heart. I saw the symmetry in Odion’s soul, the pugilist for the foe, the song for the friend. You saw him more with Collins in those days than any conversational foray into Alli or Fraser. But the boxer was always lurking.
Since our days in Concord, he has been a social centre of the OPEC group with such stalwarts as Kayode Komolafe (alias KK) and, of course, Bello. I also remember when I visited Nigeria from the United States and he put a car at my service throughout my stay and afforded many other acts of friendship I cannot ever repay.
His show of loyalty should never be taken for granted. He was on the side of Governor Adams Oshiomhole under whom he served as information commissioner. I attended the swearing-in in Benin City, and at that moment, I could not but muse on how the trajectory of a man’s life can take unexpected turn. What if he did not offer his articles and Bello was a stiff who would not look at a star but stanch him in the bud? In this life we have seen too many talents who never had opportunity, who had energies but fell into the wrong projects, who had opportunity but not the reward, who had promise without promises, who had plums without a job. As the Bible says, the race is not for the swift.
But he had to leave that position because he was also his own man. He took it in his stride. Yet, he has outgrown the pain of that time and he is in good stead with the former governor.
His grit came into play for me when he escaped the hands of assassins in Benin, and how he confronted the kingpin of bloodhounds in the city. He made headlines puncturing the ego of a man who many feared. He did not fall hostage to any fear but held the man to account.
On a personal note, I have seen him break lances in my defence on a number of occasions, including my last encounter with a mass of unbridled political rabble who took a misunderstanding of my writing as license and war cry.
Few who see him know little about his sense of humour. You only need to see him needle the great KK, or hang around Azu, or spar with Yomi Idowu. The thing about this is that Louis Odion is just turning 50, but all these men are over a decade older. Yet, he blends because his wisdom has outgrown the bones in his head.
As he takes a turn to his fifth decade, Odion still abounds with the sparkle and elan of the boy I first met in the 1990’s, with all his optimism, brilliance and sap. Congratulations.
