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Tag: Mike Awoyinfa

South-south ta ku

It is not a bad thing that South-south ta ku (is adamant) over who takes the PDP leadership baton from Ahmed Markarfi who is holding it in interim capacity. It is its right given the fact that the seat is zoned to the South of which it is an integral part. And as far as the PDP is concerned, the South-south has more to lose if the party fails.

In the cold embrace of Maryland, United States a fortnight and two days ago, I found myself scanning through what I see as one of journalism’s best books – 50 World Editors written by the legendary Mike Awoyinfa and the phenomenal the late Dimgba Igwe. In it, I read about the headlines considered by defunct NEXT Publisher Dele Olojede as the most famous in American and Nigerian journalism.

My concern here today is about the Nigerian angle. The headline ‘Akintola ta ku’ was cast by The Daily Times at the height of the Western Region crisis which pitched the late Obafemi Awolowo against the late Chief Ladoke Akintola – who insisted no one could remove him as Premier of the defunct Western Region.

This headline came back to me around 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday. All thanks to the insistence of the South-south to decide who leads Nigeria’s once ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

In the beginning, the party’s first substantial chairman was a Northerner. Thereafter it stayed between the North and the Southeast. Of course, the North had more.

This powerful region has led the PDP through its sons, such as Solomon Lar, Ahmadu Ali, Barnabas Gemade, Audu Ogbeh, Bamanga Tukur, Haliru Mohammed and Adamu Muazu. It was in this era that it had a dream of ruling the country for 60 years. But the dream died at less than 20 years. The Southeast produced Vincent Ogbulafor and Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo.

All through this era, the country’s Presidency was in the control of the Southwest, the North and the South-south. The South-south, through Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, led the country for six years. Two of the six were inherited from the first term of Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua who died in office. Jonathan came to power through the ‘Doctrine of Necessity’ because Yar’Adua did not transmit a letter to the National Assembly before becoming incapacitated.

Many were hopeful that Dr. Jonathan was going to be in power for 10 years. His fall which brought in a retired General – Muhammadu Buhari – also saw the PDP falling. It has been reduced to only Ekiti State in the Southwest. Thanks to the people of Taraba and Gombe, it would have been nowhere in the North.

In the Southeast, the party controls Abia, Ebonyi and Enugu. Imo is in the grip of the All Progressives Congress (APC). The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has shown that it has the key to Anambra State with Willie Obiano’s resounding victory about two weeks ago.

In the South-south, the party controls five states: Rivers, Delta, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom and Cross River. Its sixth state, Edo, has, over the years, aligned more with the Southwest. It is led by the APC.

If the number of governors it has in the geo-political zones is anything to go by, the PDP’s strength lies in the South-south. The region’s governors believe so and it is for this reason that they are adamant that it must produce the party’s national chairman at its convention slated for Abuja tomorrow.

Like the Southwest, the South-south has not produced the party’s national chairman. Both believe it is their turn. Rightly, the party has zoned it to the South. The bone of contention is now which of the three geo-political zones in the South should have it. Perhaps because it has led the party twice through Nwodo and Ogbulafor, the Southeast has left the race for the Southwest and the South-south.

Prominent party leaders from the Southwest, such as ex-Governor Gbenga Daniel, Prof. Tunde Adeniran and Chief Bode George, are in the race to lead the party.

In the South-south, there are Africa Independent Television (AIT) founder Chief Raymond Dokpesi and ex-acting National Chair Uche Secondus.

Dokpesi seems to me to be just having fun. Secondus – thanks to Governor Nyesom Wike – has the backing of the power brokers in the region. At a meeting a few days back, which was attended by Wike, Senator Godswill Akpabio, Chief Tom Ikimi, Governor Seriake Dickson and many others, the region made it clear that like it is sustaining Nigeria’s economy, it has also sustained the PDP. Without us, the PDP would have died after the last general elections, the leaders declared. For this reason, it is insisting on leading the party. Dickson said the Southwest was prone to crisis and should not be allowed to lead the party.

I am not too clear on where Dr. Jonathan is in all this. There were speculations of a rift between him and Wike over the governor’s support for Secondus. This was swiftly refuted. Both men have been seen in jolly mood after the reported ‘fight’.

The South-south has an advantage over the Southwest in the sense that it has a clear candidate. The Southwest has been unable to rally around any aspirant. Some have accused its only governor, Ayodele Fayose, of throwing its weight behind Secondus. But this advantage is not enough to get it the leadership of the party. If all the delegates from the region vote in bloc for Secondus and other zones look in another direction, the oil-rich region’s dream will be aborted. It needs others.

As usual with politics in the developing world, money is being thrown around, with the belief that the highest bidder will carry the day. This has made a leader of the party, ex-military President Ibrahim Babangida, to call for caution.

Babangida, in a statement published by newspapers on Monday, urged delegates to learn from the party’s defeat in the last general elections. He listed uncommon initiatives, creativity in ideas and a rich content in character as qualities the next chairman of the party must possess to be able to stabilise the party. The ex-president spoke about the power of the people, inclusive participation and demonetisation of the electoral process.

Senator Buruji Kashamu also shares a similar view. He believes financial support for the party should not be a criterion for foisting a leader on it. The good of all should be the ultimate decider, he argued.

But if experience is anything to go by, delegates do not listen to sermons such as these. They need lifeline and lifeline here means money and nothing more. They believe their leaders have stolen so much from the commonwealth and conventions and elections provide them the opportunity to take a slice of the cake.

Unfortunately for IBB and other founding fathers that have turned political priests, they no longer have access to free funds. The governors have the money. Money is power and they are going to utilise it to the fullest.

Will the North’s governors align with their colleagues in the South-south? Who will the three PDP governors in the Southeast back? Where will delegates from states, led by the APC swing their pendulums? Answers to these questions will go a long way in determining which of the South-south and Southwest gets the coveted seat.

My final take: It is not a bad thing that South-south ta ku (is adamant) over who takes the PDP leadership baton from Ahmed Markarfi who is holding it in interim capacity. It is its right given the fact that the seat is zoned to the South of which it is an integral part. And as far as the PDP is concerned, the South-south has more to lose if the party fails.

It is not only the South-south that has something to lose if PDP fails. Our democracy is also at disadvantage because once there is no strong opposition; the APC – which has not met the expectations of many of us – will have no one to put it on its toes. For the good of our country and for the APC to wake up from its deep sleep and serve the people truly, may the PDP get it right tomorrow. If it chooses to do otherwise, shame to its leaders.

December 8, 2017
A legacy of ‘twin brothers’ of Nigerian journalism

THE Nigeria Institute of International Affairs, Nigeria’s official international affairs think tank, was host yesterday to one of the most important media events this year; the presentation of perhaps the most encyclopaedic book on global journalism authored by two of Nigeria’s best journalists, Mike Awoyinfa and Dimgba Igwe.

It was a happy event but at the same time sad. Happy that the labour of nearly a decade of Awoyinfa and Igwe running after some of the world’s best reporters, editors and publishers in the world for their views on the media finally bore its fruit. And what a fruit it was!

Sadly, however, only one of the two authors was alive to witness the event. Igwe, as we all know, was knocked down one year ago this month – September 6, to be exact – by a hit-and-run driver while jogging in his neighbourhood. The accident proved fatal from lack of prompt medical attention.

Igwe’s painful death must have been one of the most traumatic events in Awoyinfa’s life because of the close bond of friendship that developed between the two, going back to the early years of their careers about three decades ago. So close has been their relationship that they came to be identified by their colleagues, and even those outside their profession, as the “Twin Brothers”, even though one is Yoruba and the other Igbo.

As “Twin Brothers,” the two formed one of only two intimate friendships thrown up by Nigeria’s journalism profession that have left proud legacies in the profession, the other friendship being the older and better known “Three Musketeers” of journalism, namely Aremo Segun Osoba, former governor of Ogun State and one time managing director of Daily Times, Mr Felix Adenaike, a Daily Times alumnus and at various times the most successful managing director of Western Region’s Sketch and the independent Tribune, and the late Mr. Peter Ajayi, an alumnus of Tribune, editor of the Kwara State Herald in its heyday, and managing director of Sketch.

However, whereas the Musketeers left behind a legacy of sound investigative reporting and excellent writing style, the twin brothers popularised tabloid journalism and made it respectable, first as pioneer editors of the rested Weekly Concord and then as pioneer managers of Sun whose owner and publisher is Chief Orji Kalu, two-time governor of Abia State.

As if by coincidence, one of the Musketeers, Osoba, chaired yesterday’s presentation of the twin brothers’ book. He used the occasion to touch on one of the most problematic issues in Nigerian journalism; the poor wages, at least in relative terms, of Nigerian journalists, that is when they get paid at all. A little about this presently.

To return to the book itself, it is, as I said, perhaps the most encyclopaedic book on global journalism. Before it I can remember only one such book. This is the award winning Powers of the Press: The World’s Great Newspapers by Martin Walker, an alumnus of the London Guardian and one of the most successful British journalists, and currently Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of the global news agency, United Press International.

Walker’s 1982 book was a tour de force as an insider’s look at the workings of 12 of the world’s most influential newspapers. His selection were the UK Times, the French Le Monde, the German Die Welt, the Italian Corriere della Sera, the Soviet Union Pravda, the Egyptian Al-Ahram, the Japanese Asahi Shimbun, the American New York Times and Washington Post, the Canadian Toronto Globe & Mail, the Australian Age of Melbourne and the South African Rand Daily Mail.

Whereas both Walker’s book and the twin brothers’ are encyclopaedic, the latter, containing interviews with reporters, editors and publishers of 50 of the world’s best media houses, is obviously more encyclopaedic. Second, whereas Walker’s is limited to newspapers, the twin brothers’ includes broadcast media and news agencies. Third, whereas Walker’s is one man’s insight into the inner workings of top flight journalism the world over, the twin brothers’ is, as the sub-title of the book says, a “Conversation with Journalism Masters on Trends and Best Practices” of the trade. In other words, their book presents the journalistic views of the masters of the profession across the world’s five continents in their own words.

This alone makes the book a fitting legacy to the resourceful twin brothers. It should also make it a must read not only for journalists and journalism schools. It should be so for anyone with an interest in politics and economics. And this, when you think about it, is just about everyone, since we all need information even to survive. And we get that most of the time through the media.

One little weakness of the book, as one which should be a reference for Nigerian journalism students, is that it did not include enough Nigerian journalism icons. Six such were interviewed, namely, the late Alhaji Babatunde Jose, Osoba, Thisday’s Nduka Obaigbena, the Pulitzer prize winning Dele Olojede, The News’ Bayo Onanuga and Channel TV’s John Momoh. Clearly missing from this list is an interview with Malams Adamu Ciroma and Mamman Daura, each as first, editor then managing director of New Nigerian, the most literate and arguably the most authoritative newspaper in Nigeria in the late sixties and seventies.

In the Introduction to the book the authors claim they pioneered Nigeria’s first Saturday newspaper, the highly successful Weekend Concord. I am not so sure they are right about that if their idea is of WC as a tabloidisation of reporting. Before WC, let’s not forget there was the highly popular Lagos Weekend published on Fridays by the Daily Times of Nigeria. And after LW there was Saturday Extra, a four-page pull-out in the New Nigerian on Saturdays which reported stories from human angle and featured prominent columnists like the late Theresa Bowyer, one of the pioneer female journalists of this country.

These, of course, do not detract from the legacy of popularising of tabloid journalism and making it respectable in Nigeria which the twin brothers have built.

As I said earlier, the chair of the occasion and himself a journalism icon, Osoba, seized the opportunity of being in the chair to plead passionately with owners and publishers not only to pay their journalists living wages but to do so as and when due. Much of the terrible “brown envelop” syndrome which has bighted Nigerian journalism for long, he said, can be blamed on owners and publishers of mass media not paying their employees well, or worse, not even paying them at all. One can only hope that his plea will be heeded.

Times, of course, are tough for the industry, as they are for the rest of the economy. But when reporters see their employers living it off from what they see as the proceeds of their sweat – and this seems to be the case with several owners and publishers – it sounds unrealistic to blame journalists for resorting to brown envelops, terrible as it is.

Looking down on yesterday’s occasion from the great beyond, Igwe must be a happy man seeing the way his colleagues trooped in from all corners of the country to attend the presentation of a book he co-authored and at the same time to celebrate his life.

I am not so sure, however, that he would be happy with the way the media, especially newspapers, online and off, have gone into frenzy, hawking speculations as facts, in their reporting of appointments by our new president, Muhammadu Buhari, into key positions in his government of “change”. At least twice now the media got the man wrong in their speculations about his appointments. Yet that has not deterred them from bandying names of prospective ministers around with a certitude that, I suspect, must be amusing to the man himself.

Reading those stories you get a sneaky feeling that the newspapers are merely trying to force his hands by flying kites on behalf of certain self-interested individuals, obviously forgetting the man’s self-advertised guiding principle of belonging to no one and at the same time belonging to everyone. For the newspapers it seems twice bitten means no shy at all.

As Awoyinfa and Igwe have shown, tabloid journalism can be as respectable as serious journalism. But this is only in so far as it respects the basic rule of journalism that only opinion is free; facts must be sacred.

September 16, 2015
The ink dries for Dimgba

That lonesome evening of Saturday, September 6, I was alone, sitting on the sofa in my room, ensconced in thoughts. Suddenly, I looked up to the television set that was doing its own thing unnoticed for some time. Behold the news scroll on the AIT station: “Dimgba Igwe, Vice-Chairman, Sun Newspapers, dies at 58.” At first, it did not as much register in my consciousness as I stared blankly at the television set unable to comprehend whether what I had seen was true, could be true or was totally true. Immediately, I sat up, waiting for the news to come round again. Then it came again and again and again.

By now, the journalistic instinct in me had woken up. I reached out to my cellphone. As I held it, trying to put a call through for more information about the shocking news, the first name that came to mind was Eric Osagie, whom I choose to call “Omonoba”, meaning “Prince”, in Edo language. I have known and bonded with Eric way back to his days of sojourn with the now rested Weekend Concord. Fate joined us together in 1986 and, since then, we have bonded till date. When Eric was with Concord, there was no time we met that his discussion will not veer off to Mike Awoyinfa and Dimgba Igwe, the professional Siamese twins, who were his bosses and were and are still his bosses in the Sun newspapers. I know that Dimgba has transformed from the terrestrial world to the celestial clime, but he is still a boss. As they say, “once a boss is always a boss.” Even though Dimgba is no more, he will forever remain a boss to all those who passed through his tutelage.

During the brief interregnum when Concord went off the streets, Eric still maintained his close contact with the duo of Mike and Dimgba, who had then produced their first book. I remember that Eric was involved in marketing the book as he moved all over the place soliciting for buyers. Soon after, the Sun newspapers hit the newsstands. Eric came on board. Each time we met, he never ceased to talk about Dimgba and Mike in glorious terms. It was through his many narrations that I got to know Mike and Dimgba more. Eric mirrored them. Though he never uttered the word “mentor”, but the innate passion with which he spoke about them with love and stylish fervour, they are, no doubt, his mentors and, by extension, same to so many others.

So that night, I put a call through to Eric. It rang endlessly without any response. That was quite unusual. My worse fear was confirmed when the 10’o clock news that night said Dimgba Igwe’s death was caused by a hit-and-run driver while he was jogging around his neighbourhood in Okota, a suburb of Lagos. I am quite familiar with that Okota axis of Lagos, which I explored in and out for three years, between 1989 and 1991, when I was working at Champion newspapers, located at Ilasamaja. I am also familiar with the Apata Memorial High School, around where the murderous driver decided to end it all for Dimgba. That area, at that time, was highly notorious, perhaps, because of the ethnic concentration in that place.

Anyway, I couldn’t reach Eric that night as he did not return my call. Throughout the night, the thoughts of the life of someone of that status being extinguished in such a reckless and callous manner, punctured and punctuated my sleep all through. It was a sleepless night in which my mind kept wandering while I eagerly awaited the flash of daylight to signify another day. My hope was that the newspapers, which my vendor brings before 7a.m every day, will throw more light on the greatest puzzle of the year that Dimgba’s untimely death represents. The newspapers arrived, as usual, just a few minutes to 7a.m. As they were being handed over to me on the bed, my phone rang. The caller was Eric. Both of us were too much in haste to talk about Dimgba’s death, so much that we could not exchange greetings.

“What happened to Dimgba?” I thundered. Eric answered: “My brother, na so we see am o”. “How did it happen?” I queried further. Eric replied, “You see, nobody really knows exactly what happened, but we heard that he was knocked down by a car while he was jogging early in the morning and somebody picked his phone and called his wife”. Eric and I then went into a long conversation over the incident. Eric blamed his death on the lack of appropriate and adequate medical facilities in the country. He narrated how they took the injured Dimgba to one or two hospitals where there were no surgeons to attend to him, until he was rushed to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, where the surgeons there, tried unsuccessfully to stabilise him before he finally died.

While Eric Osagie was agonising over the dearth of appropriate emergency medical care in the country, which might have hastened the death of Dimgba, I simply told him to look beyond that because it could be a simulated assassination. Let us look at it this way. Jogging around that spot where the incident occurred could have been or was a routine which he did religiously. In that case, he was vulnerable to any hit man or hit men lurking around to commit havoc. All they needed do was to lay ambush ahead of his appearance along that route that unholy morning. As he came around, quite oblivious of the satanic plot, he could have even unknowingly jogged past the vehicle bearing his killer or killers. As soon as the killers were sure of their target, the vehicle would rev into life, move quickly and dangerously crush the target in the usual, crazy manner of driving in Nigeria, particularly in Lagos, to make it look like an accident.

But what could be the motive for such heinous crime? Just anything! Anything that upsets another person could precipitate such criminal act. Here was a man so much married to his job and the gospel. Those close to him say he could not hurt a fly. But he was in business – the business of writing books and, perhaps, some other things along the line. For sure, he couldn’t have been involved in shady deals that might warrant settling scores with death. But then, you never can tell. Petty jealousy and inferiority complex, of which I was a victim in the recent past, could lead an aggrieved person to commit anything. Whatever it is, I believe we all must learn a lesson, or two, from this tragedy.

Moreover, in this era of technological advancement, what has happened to our so-called policy on e-policing? Is it too much to install CCTV at notorious crime scenes and very busy areas? This, I believe, would have solved the puzzle that Dimgba’s death has become. Or at least, keep murderers in check. It’s time we put on our thinking caps. It’s Dimgba’s turn today …

Dimgba lived. Now, he is dead. Stone dead. Never to move either his limbs or fingers again to write the beautiful prose that stood him out in the firmament of journalism in Nigeria. How cruel death is, the monster that devour both the young and the old at will! The dead do not glorify death or tremble at its sight. They just walk away to eternity. It is the living that feels the pain, the anguish, the bereavement and sense of loss. More than a million cries or an ocean of tears can never retrieve the dead. As we weep and gnash our teeth in solemnity with the family, friends and acquaintances left behind by our brother and our comrade-in-arms in the fight against the buccaneers and the oppressors in our midst, we must face the stark reality that Dimgba Igwe has played his part and gone forever. He now sits with the Saints. Well, the police, must fish out whodunit!

September 17, 2014
The private world of Adenuga’s daughter

IN their book, Mike Adenuga: Africa’s Business Guru, Mike Awoyinfa and Dimgba Igwe narrated how elusive Dr. Mike Adenuga, the boss of telecommunication giant, Globacom, can be. Even the Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, attested to this. The 682-page biography of Adenuga noted how dearly the Globacom boss loves privacy and how much he wants same to be respected and protected.

But if Adenuga ever thinks he has perfected the art of elusiveness, he faces a big challenge in his first daughter, Oyin. There would hardly be any silver-spoon kid who detests publicity as much as Oyin Adenuga does. The well-mannered, eligible bachelorette is as self-effacing as she is gorgeous.

We caught sight of the beautiful daughter of one of the world’s richest men at an occasion recently and she was completely without the usual air that surrounds a billionaire’s daughter. But she looked resplendent in her well-tailored outfit and kept her composure as she moved around to exchange pleasantries.

Reports abound of how suitors have been seeking her hand in marriage, but it is not yet clear why she has not considered their proposals. Oyin, who shuttles between Nigeria and her base in the US, has not been linked with any man lately. Those who should know say that even if there is any, her tightly guarded privacy would prevent any clue.

May 31, 2014