The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Celebrating

  • Bode Alalade: Mourning and celebrating!

    Bode Alalade: Mourning and celebrating!

    When Bode Alalade died on October 9, 2012 at 75, there followed a mixed reaction that brought forth two schools. One grieved over the amiable broadcaster’s departure, saying it marked one more phase in the staggered extinction of excellence in electronic journalism. These mourners referred to the death of two other distinguished performers, the affable Ikenna Ndaguba and the matronly Stella Bassey, to push the view that finally the apocalypse had come for the profession.

    The second school of thought has been in tears too. But they are tears of joy, very much like the one who would speak of a half full cup of water rather than one which is half empty! This class is celebrating Bode Alalade because by their reckoning he died not leaving behind an industry of orphans. He didn’t take his prime trade mark of mentorship, passion, thoroughness, professional discipline and news room conviviality to the grave.

    Indeed Alalade had all these and most likely more. He exhibited them where he worked. However the broadcaster went the extra mile: he conducted “formal” and “informal” training for younger and serious journalists so they could be of use to themselves, the profession, the society and the generations to come.

    You may refer to his post-Nigerian Television Authority Network News and Radio Nigerian days as the period of “informal” training. He was later at some private broadcast stations where through “formal “ training programs he tried to restore the dying virtues of passion, precision and perfection to a profession that had been taken over by uncommitted lucre-minded men and women. Bode Alalade was alleged to have been humiliated in some of these places. For, what he taught was gibberish to an age that worshipped wealth as an end and held selfless service in contempt.

    Bode Alalade made little sense if he taught that the TV newscaster owed it a duty to his / her teeming viewers and the information seekers to report in the newsroom and take part in packaging the news of the day . it was anathema if he insisted that the newsreader should subject himself to the news editor and consult all the variants of the dictionary– Thesaurus, pronunciation, language etc – during production while rehearsing for the news and proofreading.

    Now if today’s “professionals” and their nouveaux riches employers didn’t allow Alalade a fulfilling stay, it didn’t matter.

    Because back then at Radio Nigeria and in the glorious days of NTA Network News (God be blessed for that era!) he had made an indelible mark through exquisite and humble service as a trainer, news manager, news reader and agreeable colleague.

    We watched Bode Alalade at close quarters during our time with him at the then NTA headquarters on Victoria Island, Lagos in the late 70s and 80s. He had a carriage that reminded you of the equally unforgettable Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense in the cinema industry. But in oga Alalade, there lurked no element of suspense.

    If it was possible to rehearse 24 hours ahead for the delivery on air, Bode Alalade would do it! There was no one, no matter how junior, he wouldn’t consult in order to give the viewer the best the situation demanded. If an Urhobo name cropped up you wouldn’t catch Alalade napping. He had an Emakpore to corner for an accurate pronunciation so “I don’t offend that corner of the viewing public and smear the reputation of NTA”. For a Ghanaian tongue, he had an Ojewale , his junior .

    Once, the name of Helmut Schmidt, then West German Chancellor, was in the news. Trust Alalade! He went for Atobatele who had studied and stayed in Germany for years .Was it so he wouldn’t offend the diplomatic corps, who in those days never left the TV in order to watch NTA’s Network News?

    Alalade matched his professional consummation with a spotless sartorial and facial outlook as if nature had decreed a rhyming policy for everything on earth. He was clean – shaven even as he went on air in flawless flowing agbada that seemed to be a celebration of his Ibadan culture. He had hesitant side boards that hardly threatened the hairless childlike face.

    Alalade never gave gratuitous gesticulation or false drama in newscast as we see today. But you would observe natural smiles run over his rotund Hitchcock – visage. You’d also notice a near speck-free face that, as the years wore on, still refused to acquire warts. He appeared, on account of his avuncular nature, openness and good looks, to enjoy more than a fair share of the company of the fair sex .it was decent relationship forced upon him by the joviality of the news room .

    We can mourn Chief Bode Alalade because he’s no longer with us physically. This is only human. In the long run however, our grief is lessened by his life of eminence in broadcasting and by what he offered in turn to society. He taught us to be humble, diligent and studious in our profession. He warned against sloppy approach as we process our findings to inform, educate and entertain the public. Bode Alalade has given his younger and junior colleagues the baton to continue the race, empowered by the rubric that sustained him.

    May the legacy endure to build society!

    • Emakpore, Atobatele , Adewusi and Ojewale were Alalade’s younger colleagues at NTA Network News.

  • Celebrating Nigeria’s true heroes

    Celebrating Nigeria’s true heroes

    If people should remember and celebrate Nigeria’s independence at 52, it should be ordinary Nigerians. Yes, those Nigerians we see on the streets, who toil hard to get daily bread and who bear the brunt of the reckless policies of the government.

    It is this group of Nigerians whose unkempt houses have been washed away by the flood ravaging the nation. Their means of livelihood have been liquidated by the rage of this natural disaster. The lives of their family members, relatives, friends, brothers and sisters are cut short daily on Nigerian roads, which have all become slaughtering slabs for promising Nigerians. Yet, they still hope for a better tomorrow.

    It is this group of Nigerians who queue under the scorching sun to vote their choice candidates and who, at times, die in the process with the same hope and prayer that there will be change, only to be visited with the same story of lie and deceit while politicians smile to the bank at their expense.

    It is this group of Nigerians who rots away in jail without trial. They die in detention while awaiting trial. Some of them may not even have committed punishable offences, but because they were unfortunate to fall into the hands of our ruthless policemen with no money to secure their way out. They rot in jail without trial.

    These are the Nigerians who have heard, seen and experienced the brutality of the political class, whose main aim includes stealing the country blind while millions of their compatriots wallow in penury and abject poverty. They are the Nigerians who have had to endure the high-powered sleaze on the corridor of power – Ettehgate, Hembegate, Otehgate, Faroukgate – and who will still live through many other gates that are yet to unravel.

    They are the Nigerians whose family members were roasted to charred barbecue when the third-hand airplane that plied the Nigerian skies went up in flames. Their woes are compounded when airline officials play politics with the manifest. The grief notwithstanding, government will still hold on to the charred bodies as though they are its properties.

    I can go on and on; suffice it to say that Nigerians are extremely resilient. For, it is only in this country that suffering people still remain cheerful with the hope of a better tomorrow. This is why this set of Nigerians must celebrate the country’s independence, at least, for surviving the harsh policies of government, if not for anything.

    And we have survived the hardship for 52 years; it is quite a feat. It is no mean feat that a country with a population of over 150 million people could generate a paltry 4,500 megawatts to power the houses and industries on its landscape. Billions of money in local and foreign currencies have been invested in the sector, yet Nigerians sleep in darkness.

    What is more, we still import resources we have in abundance in the country. Is it any surprise that government pays huge cash to oil importers even when we have refineries? A country as small and as poor as Niger Republic has a functional refinery. Yet Nigeria is the largest producer of oil in Africa and the sixth largest producer in the world.

    For all the noise about job creation, record shows that unemployment is not only on the increase; in fact, Nigeria has the worst youth unemployment rate in sub-Saharan Africa – 21.1 per cent in 2010 to 23.9 per cent in the current year, according to the 2012 release by the United Nations body, African Economic Outlook.

    With all these problems and more, Nigerians have remained steadfast, cheerful and hopeful of a better country. Even when their relatives and friends who escape the bullets of armed robbers on the highway are mercilessly cut down in their numbers in churches and mosques with bombs and IEDs, their faith in the entity called Nigeria has not wavered.

    These Nigerians are the true heroes of Nigeria at 52. Not those celebrated Nigerians who have fed fat and are still feeding on the country; who steal from the country to maintain ostentatious life styles. Not those Nigerians who cash in on the collective sufferings of Nigerians to make themselves richer. Ordinary people are certainly not the Nigerians the government will confer with national honours or invite for the independence celebrations in Abuja. But we know who our true heroes are.

     

    Philips, 400-Level Information Technology, MAUTECH YOLA