Dr Olatunji Dare, foremost journalism teacher and columnist, will be 70 on July 17. In this interview with JOSEPH JIBUEZE, Dare speaks on how he almost dropped out of university, why he left The Guardian, how UNILAG refused his request for an official car despite his peculiar circumstances, the need for a rule to limit election spending, his autistic child and his plans for life after retirement.
As university teacher with experience in Nigeria and the United States, how would you compare the two systems?
Let me begin with the US system. There is an abundance of literature and teaching material. The media environment reinforces what happens in the classroom, so that you are always in a position to learn. The academic environment too is very stable. For example by May of this year, students had already registered for the courses they’re going to take in the next academic year. I already know what I’m going to teach, what classrooms have been assigned for the course; the textbooks for the course are already in the bookstore well before classes begin. The system is very predictable. You can plan.
I regret to say you cannot say much the same about the system in Nigeria, with a very unstable system. The literature is scarce; there is some good reinforcing material – some good journalism, but there is also some bad journalism that tends to subvert whatever is taught in the classroom. In the US, journalism training in conducted in an ethical context, and the ethics very strongly upheld. Here you find a kind of ethical vacuum, where journalism is disconnected from the ethical value. This is not generally the case, but in some media establishments you see a lack of commitment to strong ethical values, and I don’t think this makes for good journalism.
Also in the US, most of the people who teach in journalism schools have worked in the media before and so are in a position to combine academic work with practical instruction. I wish this was also true of the Nigerian situation. Here we think because somebody has an M.Sc or PhD in Mass Communication, that qualifies him or her to be in the journalism profession. A marriage of the two – practical experience plus academic qualification – makes for the best instruction.
What would you attribute Nigeria’s falling education standard to?
The proliferation of universities, which has meant a dilusion in the faculty pool available, which I believe has undermined the quality of instruction. Also, lack of textbooks, computer labs. I doubt if there’s any journalism institution in Nigeria that produces a weekly newspaper where students can put their learning into practice and build up a portfolio that will enable them to get jobs. When I was applying for admission, there were only five universities in Nigeria. Today there must be almost a hundred. The faculty has not grown as fast as the universities have.
Some of your students describe you in various ways. While some say you’re so strict, others say they’re so enthralled they won’t want an end to your classes. How do you endeavour to strike a balance with your students?
Again unlike Nigeria, your students evaluate at the end of each semester any course you teach. Some of the things they take into account are: Do you come to class prepared? Are the textbooks relevant? Are you accessible? Is your grading fair? You have students who are highly motivated, who want to make the best of the course. They pay attention, and I think my international experience here, in the US, my academic background and my cultural experience enable me to produce the kind of instruction different from what they are used to, and some of them value it a great deal. But there are others who are so insular and cannot see immediately beyond the US and they think all that kind of wide experiences from which I draw is a waste of time – ‘Just give us the stuff that we need and cut out all the crap.’
What do I care about? Students say all kinds of things, some of them very constructive, some of them very mean. I’ve heard students say in their evaluation: ‘Please give us a professor who speaks English’. I used to think that I spoke English until I got to the US. There are others who say: ‘This guy is the most knowledgeable instructor we’ve had.’ The two things that I really care about, that would hurt me if students said them, are: That I didn’t know what I was talking about. No student has ever said that about me. Two, if students said I wasn’t fair. Again, no student has said that about me. Strict, yes, but fair. If you want to learn, if you don’t want an easy grade with empty content, this is the guy to go to. He drives you hard, but in the end you’re grateful for it.
You’re one of Nigeria’s best known newspapermen. How do you view journalism when you began and now?
I find a great deal that is encouraging. The profession has been virtually taken over by young men and women who have the best training that the Nigerian system can offer. Many of them are fired by idealism. They want to change society through journalism, and that is the reason most of us got into journalism, hoping that through your work, you can make an impact and help change a few things or call attention to a few things.
The old journalism was analog journalism. It was hard-going and much of it lacked the sophistication that we have today in terms of technology. But there were some pillars, some really, really good role models whom we younger ones tried to emulate, people like Peter Pan, Sam Amuka, the late Alade Odunewu. I’m hoping that today’s younger men and women, people like you, will also find some role models worth emulating and studying. I am encouraged by the standard of writing, reporting and commenting among the generation coming after us.
Are you satisfied with the media’s contributions to democratic growth since 1999?
I don’t find an overarching commitment of the media to democracy in Nigeria. When it comes to democracy and larger issues, the media is still largely instrumental. Take the issue of June 12 for example. We thought the issues were fairly straightforward. An election has been held. Somebody has won. The results were frozen midway after they were already available to the world. I thought, whether you liked the candidate or not, we had a duty to support the process and insist on an outcome. But again, all kinds of things crept in: ownership structure, politics, ethnic issues. I was so happy that it was a Muslim-Muslim ticket, because if we had added religion to that combustible mixture, the country would have exploded. We tend to insist on a democratic outcome if it serves our purpose. If it doesn’t quite serve our purpose, to hell with democracy. This is what I meant by the media tending to be instrumental rather than committed to principle. That’s not the way to build the country. We have to insist on principle.
Could it be the fact that a good number of media houses are not capitalised enough?
Maybe, but I’m not sure. I think in critical situations like that, professionalism should trump existential considerations. You want to be respected as a professional and not as somebody who is fixated only on existential issues. We can hold different political views, but when professional issues are concerned, I don’t think there’s an ethnic, religious or economic cleavage when it comes to professional issues.
The media as business in the US and Nigeria. What’s your take?
Yes, you do have the media as a business and even ideologically driven media. When you watch Fox TV in the US for example, or read the Op-Ed pages of the Wall Street Journal, you know that you’re getting a conservative viewpoint. When you read the New York Times and the Washington Post, you know you’re getting the liberal viewpoint. I think they agree basically on the facts. ‘This is the situation and this is our take on the situation, this is their take, but we agree basically that this is the situation; we agree on the facts of the matter; our interpretations may be different.’ You know the title of the famous book in 1960s by Wolfgang Gestolfo, the American economist loaned to Nigeria from the Ford Foundation to help draw up the first national development plan. The book is appropriately titled: Planning without facts. What are the facts? We have to establish the facts, agree on them, and then we can have divergent interpretations of what those facts mean.
You were a victim of the events of June 12, 1993, culminating in your resignation from The Guardian as editorial board chairman. Could you give us an insight into what led to your decision?
Being a liberal newspaper, we saw a process unfolding; a process that we have been given to understand was designed to achieve a certain goal. We followed it religiously and insisted on the process. Apparently this was too much for the authorities, and they closed the paper, even while our publisher was serving as a member of Sani Abacha’s cabinet. One day, he was given to understand that if he apologised to the regime and promised not to do anything that might get the regime angry in future, they would un-ban the paper. For that purpose Alex Ibru said we should go to Abuja to meet with Abacha. They didn’t disclose the agenda but I’d found out that was the agenda for going to Abuja, and I didn’t go with them. My position was that if we had broken any law in Nigeria, charge us to court.The Guardian had always insisted on the primacy of the rule of law. We can’t go and apologise for an unspecified crime. If we had committed a crime under the laws of Nigeria, the place to charge us was the court; we’d defend ourselves; and that if we went on this mission and apologised to Abacha, we could never with a straight face write an editorial advocating the primacy of the rule of law anymore. It would ring hollow. So, I didn’t go. They went and apologised to Abacha. He said he was lifting the ban. Thereafter, I considered that I was done at The Guardian. Having refused to join them in their mission of apology, I decided that I could not in good faith partake of the fruit of that apology, and for me that was the end. The day after they came back, I tendered my letter of resignation. I never went back.
Before The Guardian was the University of Lagos (UNILAG). What were your fondest memories of UNILAG and what were your not-so fond memories?
My fondest memories were one, my instructors in the Department of Mass Communication: the late Frank Ugboaja; James Scotton, dean of what they called the institute of mass communication at the time. In fact at the end of my first year in UNILAG, I had no scholarship. I sponsored myself and I had run out funds. I have this Nigerian Certificate in Education. I was qualified to teach physics and chemistry. I said would leave the University for one year, work, make enough money, return to finish up. I told James Scotton and he said: ‘My fear is that you may go to work and may not come back. Why didn’t you have a scholarship?’ I said I applied to the Kwara State Government then and they wouldn’t give me a scholarship. He said he would write them a letter. He wrote them this beautiful letter, saying ‘this guy has run into problems, he deserves a scholarship and if we don’t give him one, we’ll be missing a good opportunity to help build a future for him, a future in which he can make some vital contributions to society, so please reconsider.’ A few weeks letter I got a letter offering me a scholarship. There was Mary Riley, who taught journalistic writing; and Alan Herbert who taught French. I entered university as a fairly mature student, and surprisingly all my instructors always called me Mr Dare (laughter). Much to my embarrassment they always said Mr Dare. They had such high expectations of me. I was at times very uncomfortable. I didn’t want to disappoint them, so that kept me focused on my studies. This was also when we had Ayodele Awojobi on campus.
Does that explain your First Class degree?
The First Class came as a surprise to me. It didn’t come as a surprise to them. The bar then was so high. Mine was the first journalism First Class in UNILAG. Even up till today, I think there have been only five or six.
My not so fond memories: When I came back after my masters degree, I confidently expected to be appointed lecturer grade two. It was the practice that in a professional programme like Mass Communication, Accounting, if you came with a Masters degree, they appointed you lecture grade two. In my own case I was offered Assistant Lecturer, which meant I was not entitled to university housing, and the rest of it. I protested and my head of department said all the precedents I cited, he didn’t create them, so he was not bound by those precedents. I raised a petition, which succeeded. He was overruled.
After my PhD, I paid the obligatory visit to my dean, and he was asking about my family. He wanted to know everything about my family. I then had to tell him I had a handicapped son who suffers from autism. He asked how was I coping? I said it’s tough. I don’t have a car. I can’t be taking him round in danfos and molues; that if he gets lost in a crowd, he wouldn’t know his way back and that he has to be under constant supervision. He said: ‘You just made an excellent case for getting a university loan to buy a car. Go and write an application, state your case, I’ll endorse it and send it to the deputy Vice-Chancellor, who is in charge of car loans.’ I made the application. One month, two months, three months, no response. I ran into the dean one day and he said: ‘Have you not heard from the DVC?’ I said: ‘If the DVC wrote me, he has to route the letter through you in any case since the application went through you as my dean.’ He said okay, let’s send them a reminder. Two months later, there came the reply, with two terse sentences: “With regard to your application for a car loan, I am to inform you that the university car loan programme has been suspended. When the programme is revived, your application will be considered along with others.” Nothing was said about my son. Nothing. Nothing saying: ‘Sorry we didn’t know you were going through this, we can’t help you at this time, but we’ll keep it in mind.’ Nothing about my son. I was fighting back tears when I got that letter. Even if I was working for an enemy, someone who had every right to detest me, when it comes to children or health, I expected that they would show some sympathy. My heart left the university that day. My heart left that environment that day. What kind of people are these?
Fortunately I got an invitation from Stanley Macebuh, Managing Director at The Guardian, asking me to take a leave of absence to come and work there for one year. I applied. It was approved. And within my one year at The Guardian I was able to buy a brand new car. Even while at The Guardian, technically on leave of absence, I was teaching at UNILAG without pay. I volunteered to teach two courses without pay. At the end of the year, Stanley Macebuh said: ‘Listen, must you go back to the university?’ I found the work environment really nice. I asked for an extension of my leave of absence by one year, they said no, no, no, the department of mass communication would collapse if you didn’t return. It will collapse if I didn’t return? They said yes. That’s alright. If it’s going to collapse, let it collapse, I’m not coming back. It wasn’t going to collapse. I was still offering to teach without pay, but departmental envy and that kind of thing… ‘Hey this guy comes and goes. He left here empty-handed, now he has a brand new car. He wants to have the best of both worlds.’ So, I left. The thing about my son and the car loan were really my saddest memory of UNILAG.
Ahead of the 2015 election, do you have any fears for Nigeria?
No so much fears as anxiety. In this country elections seem to be a civil war by another name. It’s not about ideas and programmes. It’s about everything else except ideas and programmes and if there are rules, they are not strictly followed. Look at what happened in Ekiti for instance – somebody openly distributing rice and that kind of thing on the eve of election. I don’t know whether there’s a rule governing that kind of thing or not. There’s supposed to be a rule on limiting election spending. It’s absolutely unenforceable. A situation in which winner takes all; if you’re already in charge, it makes you think you must do everything to remain in charge; if you’re on the outside, you would think that you have to do whatever needs to be done to get on the inside. No rules, no restraints.
Those on the outside, if they can’t get in there, decamp to the successful party and the situation gets really confusing. One of my anxieties is that from now until the election, the country is totally on hold. Nothing is moving. The election seems to be the only business in town. The business of governance is almost in abeyance. Everything is targeted towards 2015, with all the problems on the ground. I can say that for the past six months, everything has been about 2015. INEC seems to be learning and getting better with each election, but the desperation; the winner takes all mentality; the desire to capture territory that doesn’t belong to you; to turn constituencies into battlegrounds literally and figuratively. These are the anxieties I have about 2015.
President Jonathan’s administration has been severely criticised for his handling of the Boko Haram insurgency. Do you agree that he has failed?
Given all that is happening around, and given how reticent he himself has been about telling the public what substantive measures he’s taking, I would have to say that he has failed. There is no way of finessing it. I would have to say that he has failed. I am appalled that after so many days after the abduction of the Chibok girls, has he summoned the parents of those girls to talk to them one on one, or summon them as a group and talk to them? Each time he’s asked, have you any message for the parents of those girls, he says: ‘I’m appealing to them to cooperate with the government.’ It’s almost as if it’s their alleged failure to cooperate that is responsible for the impasse in getting those girls back. He has not shown enough empathy towards the victims. He underestimates the size of the problem. Just because America and France came in offering help, Jonathan says with the involvement of these outside forces, we can begin to see the end of the Boko Haram insurgency. And even they now are saying that they don’t know where the girls are.
These people have their own agenda. They come in, harvest data which they don’t share with you, and for use against the future. By one account there were more troops in Ekiti for the election than have been deployed in the Chibok area so far. When you take all this into consideration, you have to say that he has not shown the empathy required. He has not shown the muscle and the firepower required; that he underestimates the problem. When you take all this into account, you have to say that he has failed in this respect.
People do say the art of column writing has declined over the years, despite the fact that purportedly more educated people are coming on board. What’s your comment on that?
I don’t agree. At the time people like Peter Enahoro, Alade, Gbolagbo Ogunsanwo and Sam Amuka were writing, it was almost a unidirectional effort, very little feedback; maybe an occasional letter to the editor, unlike now where you have text messages, social media and that kind of thing. At that time you had only five universities in the country. We didn’t have the kind of sophisticated readership that you have today. Those guys were almost like oracles. Today some of us are almost like punching bags. You’re writing for people who are at least as knowledgeable as yourself, who can take you apart. Those guys who we used to idolise in those days got away with what contemporary columnists cannot get away with. We’re dealing with a much more enlightened, much more sophisticated, and much more critical readership. So I don’t think there has been a decline in the quality or art of column writing.
What’s your view of the Nigerian column reader?
It’s almost an oxymoron when you talk of social media at least in the Nigerian context. It is anything but social (laughter). The amount of cursing, the amount of swearing, the violence of the language – uncouth, and they’re not even addressing the issues you raised. Whereas in most other climes – I read the rejoinders to columns in the New York Times and others – they discuss the ideas contained in the column. It has nothing to do with the personality of the writer, his ethnicity or religion. Here, we abuse, we curse to the next generation; in fact, curse five generations back in the vilest language conceivable. I heard it being discussed on TV the other day. I think it was based on a comment that Prof Wole Soyinka made, that social media in Nigeria is devoted more to abuse than to a discussion of serious issues.
You’re known to have a wide network of friends, including politicians, but you are never prejudiced or inhibited in your views. What is your guiding principle?
Stick as much as possible to discussing ideas and concepts. Analyse the issues and the ideas and their implications, and of course don’t sound like an oracle. Try not to sound like you know it all, that this is the only way to think about an issue. ‘This is just one way of thinking about the issue. There are other possibilities.’ Don’t get too carried away by your own arguments or by your own brilliance. Just say: ‘This is my take.’ Have your say and move on. Let others have their say. Try not to answer back.
One of the ‘oracular’ columnists Dan Agbese who turned 70 recently had a prescription: ‘Express, but don’t try to impress’. What’s your take on that?
I think it’s two sides of the same coin really. In a way it may actually be a distinction without a difference. The impression comes from the way you express yourself, rather than from a desire to show how brilliant you are. The way you handle ideas, the way you present your arguments, the way you express yourself, the way you choose the precise words – this total expression is what is going to impress the reader, not the parade of learning and quoting people and showing how encyclopedic you are.
You will be 70 on July 17. How does it feel to reach this landmark age?
I almost can’t believe it myself (laughter). In the 70s, there was a columnist called J.V Clinton. He was 70-years-old, and he was like a dinosaur, as if from another age altogether. People marveled at the fact that this man is 70 and was doing a column for a whole Sunday Times. Now you just mentioned my good friend and contemporary at Colombia University Dan Agbese, who’s 70. There are others approaching that age. It’s a good feeling in a country where they say the lifespan is about 50. So, it’s good to have exceeded that lifespan. But at the same time, it’s a signal that what lies ahead is far less than what you had behind you.
It’s a good feeling, I’m thankful for it, that I have enjoyed good health and have remained mentally productive, but there is no escaping it. When I walk through the news room…there was a day I asked for one of the desk chiefs; they said he wasn’t around. The next day I went into the next room and somebody day ‘Hey daddy…the man you’re asking for is now around.’ I said: ‘Me? Daddy?’ (laughter). I had a visitor and he told somebody he was looking for me and the fellow was trying to be helpful. So he called another fellow and asked: ‘Do you know where that Baba Dare has his office?’ (Laughter). Or when you meet the young men who greet you reverentially; staffers who come here and almost prostrate; girls who courtesy deeply and that kind of thing, you know that you have attained the status of a senior citizen and you had better not mess up. So one gets those reminders. Memory fades. There was a time when I used to feel that if something was worth remembering, I wasn’t likely to forget it. I had telephone numbers and all kinds of things in my head. I hardly put stuff down in writing. I said if I don’t remember it, it’s because it’s not worth remembering. Nowadays if I don’t put it down I may not remember it. That happens, but I’m consoled by the fact that as a colleague of mine who’s much older, says: ‘All those things about Alzheimer and memory getting fuzzy, if you can’t find your car key when you need it, don’t worry. It happens even to younger people. What you should worry about is when you have forgotten how to drive.’ It happens. When Alzheimer strikes, you forget so many things, like how to drive. You even forget who you are. Ronald Reagan, in his dying years, had no memory of his presidency – he was president for two terms. It is a terrible thing.
Are you pleased with the country as it is now? If you’re not, how can it be salvaged?
One of the things that puzzles so many Nigerians is: How can a country so richly endowed be so thoroughly messed up? All kinds of factors have been blamed for it: leadership and the unwieldy nature and structure of the country and all that. All the countries that were at the same level with us – Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea – have moved on to greater things. See where we are, we can’t even generate enough electricity. I was reading somewhere that there is platinum mine in South Africa that generates more electricity for its own internal operations than the whole of Nigeria generates for public consumption – a platinum mine. When people say no lessons have been learnt, I ask: Have any lessons been taught? Those who have hijacked the national patrimony, those who have desecrated our value system, those who have siphoned the nation’s wealth – we make a noise and go through the motions of prosecuting; they come back to even higher offices. Abacha’s son now wants to be governor of Kano State. Fayose has been returned as governor of Ekiti State.
As the Ekiti election results were unfolding, I was discussing with somebody. He said Fayose was going to sweep the whole thing. I said what about that integrated poultry project that gulped several billion naira and didn’t produce a single egg? Not one egg. The fellow laughed. He said people have forgotten, and those who haven’t forgotten don’t care. He’s back there. We don’t punish those who are found wrong, and so impunity thrives, because we don’t make an example of those who have run afoul of the law or committed some wrongdoing. So, until we get serious about punishing those who are found to have been in breach of the law; until we make examples of those who have broken the law, and we learn lessons of the past, I’m afraid we’ll continue to go round and round in ever shrinking cycles.
Babangida tried to grow wheat; the thing was a disastrous failure. They’re trying to do the same thing now. Babangida banned rice. It was unsustainable. In fact, there was more rice in the country after the ban than there was before. We had motor assembly plants – Peugeot, Volkswagen, Leyland and all the rest of them. They collapsed. We’re going back to the same policy again, without even finding out why they failed, just going round and round in an ever shrinking cycle. All that can be fixed.
What really, really worries me the most is the collapse of the value system. There was a time we could say this was wrong and unacceptable and everybody would agree, nobody would quibble about it. Now you cannot say that this is wrong or right. It depends on what you can get away with. If you can get away with it, it’s right. This is what really worries me. The economy you can always rebuild. When the value system collapses, it takes a generation or even longer to rebuild it. This is my worry about all that is going on in the country now. The collapse of the value system is not being addressed, and in fact everything that is being done today further debases the value system. This is my worry. The political arrangement and the economy can be fixed, but once the value system collapses, it takes a long, long time to re-establish it.
What’s your assessment of commitment to service in Nigeria?
One thing that keeps the USA going, and we have little of that in this country, is volunteerism – people who volunteer for all kinds of things. ‘I still have the skills; I still have the health; I can help teach a course here, I can provide some service here and hope that my expertise will motivate others and show how things are done’ – people who don’t need the money. I was scandalised that only four people turned down they N4million that they were being offered at this constitutional conference. Many of them are millionaires. They don’t need the money. What can be greater than being asked to serve your country at a critical moment of its history? Only four out of almost 500 rejected the money. That’s a measure of the level to which the commitment to public service has sunk in this country. We had in the second republic people like Dafinone – he wasn’t even taking a salary as a Senator. He said he didn’t need it. The country has given so much to many of us and if we could just give back – let the example spread, use our knowledge, influence and try in our own little way to make things better.
What are your plans after retirement?
I would be interested in continuing to impart knowledge. Two, I told you earlier that I have an autistic son. The problem is more widespread than is generally realised in Nigeria. People are not aware of the extent. It is very, very widespread. I had an idea of it while I was on assignment in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia. A Nigerian diplomat there organised lunch for me. In attendance were the ambassador, myself, a Nigerian diplomat accredited to a UN agency in Rome and another Nigerian diplomat in the embassy, four of us. I was meeting them for the first time. As we were discussing, one thing led to another. It turned out that all four of us had autistic children. All four. My host said his wife couldn’t handle it, that she just ran away. She just abandoned him. The diplomat accredited to the Nigerian embassy said each time he was traveling, he had to drug his son, really drug him hard, so that he would not be active during the flight. That gave me the idea that the problem may be more widespread than is generally realised and I have seen signs of it elsewhere. The symptoms are fairly easy to recognise. There is a Nigerian Society for Autism, but I don’t know how active it is.
So, one of the things I plan to be actively engaged in is spreading awareness of autism, the level in society, and using whatever little influence I may have to raise awareness, to raise funds and generally help improve the quality of life of autistic children in Nigeria. That’s one of the goals I have set for myself at retirement.
