Below are excerpts from Sunday Dare’s book “Guerrilla Journalism: Dispatches from the Underground”. The excerpts capture the modus operandi of The News/ Tempo magazines under military administration of self-styled military President Ibrahim Babangida.
The News magazine team led by Bayo Onanuga was in the forefront of the actualisation of Abiola’s mandate. It paid dearly for it. But it birthed a new culture in Nigeria’s journalism. From the book Guerrilla Journalism: Dispatches from the Underground”, authored by Sunday Dare, a staff of The News/Tempo magazine, we are served intricate details of that struggle.
“Then came the June 12 elections and the triumph that The News beat everyone to the punch by publishing the comprehensive results of the presidential elections for Nigerians and the world to see. This was the story that Bayo Onanuga once said gave him the greatest satisfaction.
Against all odds, operating underground in defiance of proscription laws, and with depleted operational resources, the magazine still came out with an edition that revealed the results of the polls. They showed Chief MKO Abiola, a Muslim Yoruba Southerner, in a clear lead and within a hair’s breadth of electoral victory. The military rulers had the same figures and moved to totally erase the results from the country’s memory. The military ordered the nation’s electoral body, based in Abuja, to stop releasing the results as they came in from all states. Millions of shocked Nigerians waited with baited breath for a pronouncement from the military announcing the winner. It never came.
One of the biggest cover stories that angered the military perhaps, was The News’ edition of June 28, 1993, titled: “Conspiracy: Desperate Attempt to Abort Democracy.” The story zeroed in on the foot-dragging and indecisiveness of the military government to declare and accept the result of the June 12, 1993 elections. Yinka Tella, the Bureau Chief in Abuja, pieced together exclusive details and information about secret meetings and the sinister agenda of some military generals. They, and a few traditional rulers and civilians, connived to derail the return of democracy to Nigeria.
The magazine published these stories and many more while underground, with its operations scattered, after security agents had taken over its offices. In fact, after the big raid in May 1993, in a fit of paranoia, Gen. Babangida proscribed The News by means of a military decree. The decree outlawed the production, reproduction, circulation and consumption of the titles from the Independent Communications Network Limited’s stable, but the letter of proscription was unsigned, just like the letter that announced the annulment of the June 12 elections. The magazine was clearly under the hammer for publishing stories that frontally attacked the military government and demanded accountability in all facets of the country’s national life. After months of unsuccessful covert and overt attempts to arrest journalists of The News and to locate and shut down their new operational base, the regime wielded its big stick.
When the proscription came, the reaction was that of defiance: We resolved to ignore the law and continue to publish. Undaunted, the team soldiered on. From this time on, things on all fronts were never the same. On the reporting, production and circulation fronts, every day became a battle. Though not fully prepared for such hostility, we all embraced it with rare determination.
In his book, Jailed for Life, Kunle Ajibade recalls that the most popular of the cover stories produced from the underground was the interview with the former military ruler, Gen. Mohammed Buhari, anchored by Dapo Olorunyomi. After several months of making contacts, telephone calls, and vigils at the General’s gate, spearheaded primarily by the late Kaduna State correspondent of The News, Baguada Kaltho, the Gen finally agreed to an interview. It was an exclusive, which sent shock-waves through the corridors of power. In the interview, titled “Why I was Toppled,” Gen. Buhari was unsparing in his criticism of the Gen. Babangida regime, speaking up for the first time about the toppling of his government, his experience in detention, and bluntly handing the current dictator red cards on several issues. In the interview, Gen. Buhari did not spare his own constituency; he blamed the military for some of the problems that continue to hold Nigeria down. It was a ringing indictment: “…this military institution we know best has been desecrated, infiltrated and perverted.”
That edition of The News sold over one hundred thousand copies. Around the country, many Nigerians made (photo) copies because they could not find the original to buy. The interview so jolted Gen. Babangida, who was repeatedly described by Buhari as “the fifth columnist,” that he immediately declared the five founding editors of the magazine, Bayo Onanuga, Babafemi Ojudu, Dapo Olorunyomi, Kunle Ajibade and Seye Kehinde wanted men by the military government on national television.
With the hammer dangling, proscription in hand, being harassed out of newsrooms and with no base, troops scattered, the publication almost ran out of operational funds. With security agents on its principal’s heels, the immediate fate of The News hung in the balance. Under these circumstances, The News’ editors met to decide their next steps. Olorunyomi recalls that historic meeting that spawned guerrilla journalism.
“What next? That was the crux of the meeting. The editorial captains spoke. The consensus was in support of defiance. The nature and form was in question… That was the real beginning. Thus, the beginning of defiant journalism can be located at this juncture in time and not in mood. In mood, it had always been there. Because, we knew that this operation will not succeed without paying some price.”
Up to this point, the magazine was still being published under its title, The News. The May 1993 proscription of the magazine, the enormous risk and attacks being inflicted on journalists working for it, on vendors who sold the magazine, and on the Nigerians who dared to read the now prohibited magazine led to the founding of Tempo magazine, which can best be described as a “child of circumstance.”
The swift decision to push Tempo into the market was taken when the initial attempt to produce The News, after its ban, in a tabloid-paper form, met with stiff resistance by security agents. Virtually all of the forty thousand copies of The News’ edition published in tabloid form were seized. Tempo continued in the tradition of The News with a bolder prosecutorial brand of journalism that held the feet of those in power to fire; it dared all and feared none. Like a light set upon a hill, every week Tempo made it to the newsstand, and it lighted the way for the struggle to continue. Though writing and publishing most of these stories was daring and difficult, yet Tempo never relented.
The courageous decisions of The News to defy the military decree proscribing it and continue to publish underground made many Nigerian journalists realize they could establish their publications and tread a similar path of defiance. Publications like Dateline, from the Tell magazine stable, on June 12, Razor and others soon emerged. Each time a publication was banned or its copies were seized another publication surfaced from the underground. In our case, we simply went back to produce new copies of any seized edition, to the chargrin of the state security officers.
This new trend in Nigerian journalism, was captured by Rotimi Sankore when he observed that:
“The experience of The News made other journalists realize that it was possible to publish without having a known or permanent office. As a result, a plethora of publications sprang up to challenge the military.”
And, like The News which had been proscribed, Tempo carried interviews with activists, opposition leaders, retired generals, and it published investigative reports about the government that other media dared not use. It was rewarded for its courage by an unprecedented increase in its patronage and, perhaps, for the first time in the history of media investments in Nigeria, sales revenue was able to pay the way of the magazine, due to the appreciation of Nigerians who never stopped buying it. Tempo’s birth continued the tradition of defiant journalism and, in the years that followed, signposted a new journalistic brazenness never before witnessed in the annals of Nigeria’s media-cum-political history.
Gbile Oshadipe’s courage and the venom of his pen compensated for his petit size.
A pioneer member of staff of The News who joined from The Guardian newspapers was, like others, at the center of the transition from The News to Tempo. Nick-named the “compact giant” by Prof Adebayo Williams, Gbile’s role was most significant because, apart from being the first Editor of Tempo, it was actually in his house on A Close, 3rd Avenue, Gowon Estate, that the founders of The News – Dapo Olorunyomi, Idowu Obasa, Kunle Ajibade, Seye Kehinde and Femi Ojudu, decided to respond to the proscription of The News. Gbile recalls an earlier meeting he had with Bayo Onanuga at The News office, off Osolo Way, Lagos:
“Bayo wanted to know whether I had the capacity to ensure that The News will be on the newsstands the following Monday morning, whatever happens.”
With the proscription of The News, Gbile was named the head of the editorial team of Tempo, which made him, in effect, the editor. Tempo was published by Bookmate Publications, one of the companies registered by The News group at its inception. Gbile then believed, with the benefit of hindsight, that he was saddled with this responsibility because the thinking of the founders at that particular time was that the magazine’s problems would probably be for a short while. Unknown to them, it was the beginning of a long, dark, difficult and dangerous journey.
But Gbile was left in good company. The network of crack and intrepid correspondents spread around the country, who had been tutored largely by the cerebral and most intrepid of all reporters, Olorunyomi, were running the ground and churning out great stories and interviews. In Lagos, the brilliant minds of Ayo Arowolo, Akin Adesokan, Ebenezer Obadare, Simidele Awosika, Jenkins Alumona, Ike Okonta, Bayo Fayoyin, an exceptional graphics designer, and his assistant, Adeyemi Akinlabi and photographer, Monday Emoni, teamed up to ensure the magazine never lost is bite and reputation.
This rag-tag team of The News magazine, now Tempo, were holed up in a dingy office-space in central Lagos, often with no electricity or running water, no air-conditioners except a couple of fans to help cool the over-worked and over-heated computers. Its rickety wooden stairs were equally a challenge to climb. This editorial bunker in the Bamgbose area of Lagos, owned by a friend of one of the founding editors, Gbenga Fagbemi, was a most brazen location for them to operate from. It was less than a mile from the popular Dodan Barracks, a military fortress that served as the State House, from which Nigeria’s military rulers ruled. For an “illegal” publication, which already had all its editors wanted and the journalists working for it in serious danger, to choose to operate from a location very close to its pursuers was unthinkable. But, that was what happened. The team was willing to take any risk to ensure that the magazine never died.
The first edition of Tempo came out 19th of July, 1993.
From this point on, there was no let-up. Every new edition was anticipated and expected by millions of Nigerians who had become enamored of the freshness of our reports and, most especially, by the courage that went into writing and publishing these stories in the face of enormous dangers.
On the other hand, those in power waited in fear and anger for each new edition of Tempo magazine. Fear, because their illegal deeds might be exposed and anger because they had no way of stopping us with our blistering guerrilla style. In fact, the first print run of 50,000 copies of the Tempo magazine was seized. The magazine simply ordered a reprint. Once the magazine hit the streets, we went back into the underground to begin work on the next edition. If the proscribed The News magazine gave the military regime goose pimples, the arrival of the underground publication, Tempo made them sweat. And, they did everything to make sure it never survived. Copies were impounded at printing houses and seized on the streets. Vendors were beaten to a pulp on the streets by the security for daring to sell Tempo and Nigerians were hauled off buses and cars and harassed for daring to read it.
In spite of the odds, the magazine continued to circulate. Almost all of us working with the magazine became vendors as did our friends and family members who bought several copies and sold them. Both in Jos and while in Abuja, I personally sold hundreds of copies each week by moving from one office to another. Most Nigerians soon perfected a novel way to make re-prints by making copies of the original, because the magazine sold out quickly in most locations while in some areas, only few were available, the original copies having been seized by the security.
We never failed to make it to the newsstands each week. The new operational procedure took shape. Secrecy was the most important asset we employed. From the production that was divided into many different stages, to the printing of the magazines that was done at different printing houses scattered around Lagos and the several “drop” locations for journalists to leave their stories, secrecy was a guiding principle.
With its proscription, the magazine’s journey to the underground began, unknown to many. The News magazine defied the military regime and went ahead to gather and publish news and information. The first chapter of guerrilla journalism in Nigeria commenced, albeit unconsciously, when in 1993, The News magazine defied the military regime and went ahead to gather and publish news and information. Rotimi Sankore, a Nigerian journalist and founding campaign secretary of the Nigerian Journalists for Democratic Rights (JODER) wrote this about the condition under which the press operated and how The News and Tempo birthed guerrilla journalism. “Although virtually all independent media (and some state-owned ones) suffered from the arbitrariness of military rule, none suffered as much as the ‘guerrilla press,’ made up of a number of weekly news and magazines. These magazines published stories which others would simply not consider. The leaders of the guerrilla press were and still are The News and Tempo weekly magazines.”
The life of my colleagues and myself soon became a nomadic one with the incessant attacks, harassment and trailing by the government security agencies. Bayo Onanuga, Dapo Olorunyomi, Babafemi Ojudu, Seye Kehinde, Yinka Tella and a host of other editorial team members of the magazine, became constant guests of the state security agents.
Ojudu, the magazine’s managing editor, who was locked up a record 14 times during the years of our underground operations, in an interview with Sun News online, described the time as challenging and interesting. “There were days when, sometimes, I sat down and asked how, collectively, we were able to do this …”
During this period and thereafter, Prof Williams was a principal figure in providing the hounded magazine editors and reporters a semblance of cover while they went underground.
Prof Soyinka went on to recall how: “When two or three years later, Gen Abacha came into power, their guerrilla tactics appeared to have been already honed. The garage behind my office on Lalubu Street was perhaps the earliest mobile office of the Samizdat…”
Guerrilla journalism turned us into nomadic journalists, constantly on the move, with no fixed address. What was fixed was that the magazine always showed up on the streets every week.
We were constantly on the move, watching over our shoulders. Chased out of our offices, we found different alternatives to continue to do our work.
For me, the initial phase of the underground operation commenced when I was in the Middle Belt as a correspondent. But, just as the fame and reputation of our stories and writings reached across the country, so also did the security dragnet for journalists around the country, aimed at us.
Odia Ofeimun, who can without doubt, be described as a political scientist, essayist, prolific poet, writer, polemicist and perhaps one of the longest-serving bachelors in Nigeria, was the editorial board chairman of The News and Tempo magazines. A cerebral scholar and political scientist, Odia’s analysis of political events were most perceptive and searing. His very distinctive work and journey as the assistant to the political sage, Obafemi Awolowo, have defined his reputation and rise as an indispensable intellect and mind on political administration.
“No one who was not a guerrilla journalist could practise properly without the kind of ambience provided by guerrilla journalism. And the so-called guerrilla journalist had an edge over the others for one reason. Those who sneered at them always had to follow their lead. They set the agenda in a lot of ways. If other newspapers failed to carry a particular item but the guerrilla journalist featured it, it would become public property. Therefore other newspapers had to try hard to catch up with the guerrilla journalists ….Suffice it to say that if there was no guerrilla journalism, there probably would not have been an end to military rule,” Odia asserted convincingly.
While in Jos, I knew little peace. This was between 1993 and 1995. I was, for the most part, incognito. Constantly on the move, if I told anyone I was headed downtown in Jos, I made straight for the uptown of the city. If I told even some of my colleagues I was headed out of town, I remained and operated underground. Like my colleagues in The News, I relied on my instincts. I disappeared immediately from any place as soon as I felt danger. I used different offices and methods to send in my stories. Sometimes, through human courier or fax, or I simply dictated it on the phone. If the story was an exclusive or too hot, my editors asked me to travel down to Lagos for a debriefing. Then I sat down to weave the cover story with the help of other journalists on the team.
The work of the defiant press eventually centered on The News and Tempo magazines. For me, it was, in a way, somehow anticipated. I remember we had spoken about the need for an editorial philosophy of partisan objectivity on the side of truth. So, it was an attempt to bring in the social responsibility of the media in our own kind of society and also the professional disinterestedness of an arbiter, and, rather than pretend that, okay, you won’t be partisan or pretend that you could be objective, we spoke around the synthesis of what we call, then, partisan objectivity.
