.By Bolaji Kareem
Yesterday, former National Secretary of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Comrade Jola Ogunlusi, clocked 90 years. His friends and associates have planned a thanksgiving service for Saturday, September 28, at the Church of Pentecost, 21, Road, FESTAC Village, to give praise to God for preserving the life of the man who crossed many turbulent waves, along with others to make Journalism and its practitioners get to the Promised Land in professionalism and unionism.
Ogunlusi has cause to praise God for sparing his life. He was humiliated, suffered setbacks, survived a motor accident, was incarcerated and even mocked by his peers in his younger days at Ayedun Ekiti.
Because of his poor background he could not complete his secondary school education. He dropped out at Ansar-Ud-Deen High School, Ikole Ekiti, in Form Four, due to the financial crisis. He ended up as a pupil teacher and studied privately at home for the General Certificate of Education (GCE). His love for politics and the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s ideology made him join the services of Africa Newspapers of Nigeria, Publishers of Nigeria Tribune and Iroyin Yoruba. This was in the early 60s when a political crisis had engulfed the popular Wild, Wild West and Chief Awolowo was incarcerated.
Then it was a crime to buy or read Tribune titles, openly. He joined the Iroyin Yoruba as a reporter under the late Pa Olu Olofin. His passion for welfarism and trade unionism in the 1960s grew as he was influenced by Comrade J. O. James to join the United Labour Congress of Nigeria, as an Assistant Secretary. Because of the poor financial standing and political victimisation of Tribune workers, he orked for months without a salary. Ogunlusi, to keep body and soul together, was also a freelance reporter for Africa Arts Magazine and LAMP Magazine. He was discovered by Chief Ayo Adedun, who eventually made him take up an appointment with Western State Government Newspaper, Sketch Press Limited, where he was seconded to Gboungboun, the Yoruba publication of the newspaper.
Chief Mike Pearse later assisted him in gaining employment with the New Nigeria newspapers. His journey into full-fledged trade unionism started in the late 70s when NUJ was at its peak of leadership crisis, which led to Michael Asaju and Sidi Ali Sirajo’s factions. The union was then operating a controversial constitution. Luckily for Ogunlusi, he found himself in the camp of Asaju’s faction which became the reorganised faction by the government.
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I remember the brunt I had with Igwa’s group when I used the photograph of Chief Asaju to illustrate a page I planned in the Herald Newspaper. At the editorial conference, the Editor, Alhaji Yakubu Abdulazeez, had to put his feet down to overrule views of the likes of Dan Ikunaye and Alfred Ilenre, who were in Sidi Ali Sijaro’s camp. They insisted we must not use Asaju’s photograph. While on a facility tour in Cuba, Sirajo was in charge of his group, mostly Northern journalists, who were sympathetic to his course except Plateau, Borno and Kwara states. There was no active NUJ unionism in the northern states. This was the period that Ogunlusi’s NUJ Secretariat succeeded in dragging the union to a full-fledged professional and trade union body, fighting for oppressed journalists.
Many decrees and draconian laws, like albatross, were hanging on the necks of media practitioners in Nigeria. Despite that the crisis, which started in Jos, was not resolved at the Akure delegates’ conference, which led to the emergence of the Alhaji Bola Adedoja executive, the offshoot of Asaju’s recognised camp, Ogunlusi and his new boss, Adeoja, continued to forge ahead, fighting in all fronts to stabilise journalism practice which was in serious battles with the government and media owners.
At the same time, many journalists lacked a professional background and there was the need to look for avenues to train them within and outside the country.
Having been influenced by Comrade Tunji Otegbeye and Wahab Goodluck, hard-liners in trade unionism, Ogunlusi succeeded in getting training facilities, especially in the socialist Eastern Europe.
At a go, 33 Journalists proceeded on three-month courses at the International Ogranisation of Journalists (IOJ) in Bulgaria. It is on record that during Ogunlusi’s headship of NUJ Secretariat, from Michael Asaju, Bola Adedoja, Geoge Izobor, to Sanni Zoro, 101 journalists were sponsored for various courses in Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Russia and United States as well as other facility tours, outside Africa, apart from local training.
One of the beneficiaries was Prince Mola Olaniyan, who was NUJ Chairman in Kwara State, where I was Vice Chairman while the late Chief Jide Adebayo was secretary. I took over the running of the Kwara NUJ as Acting Chairman when he travelled until I relocated to Oyo State, where I served consecutively as a two-term secretary.
Apart from foreign courses, NUJ, during his tenure as National Secretary, contributed a lot to sustain and project the Nigeria Institute of Journalism (NIJ) as well as laying the foundation for the establishment of the International Institute of Journalism (IIJ). When some females who were not journalists in electronic media were parading themselves as journalists, the George Izobor/Ogunlusi executive cut them to size, by creating the Nigeria Association of Female Journalists (NAWOJ).
NUJ Secretariat under Comrade Ogunlusi became highly respected as an affiliate of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to the extent that NLC would not go for negotiations without one NUJ member on its teams. The Ogunlusi Secretariat, on its own also, fought relentlessly the injustice meted to its members. The sack of Vera Ifudu by the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) for reporting the missing N2.1 billion oil fund was a good example. NUJ declared a trade dispute against the NTA management and got the reporter reinstated.
Many journalists who were laid off in The Herald in Kwara State were reabsorbed by the Tribune, Sketch and Oyo State Ministry of Information due to lobbies from NUJ.
Ogunlusi was a rigid, conservative scribe whose loyalty to his boss on many occasions was his undoing. When a reformation group moved to unseat Alhaji Bola Adedoja to create a more NUJ with a broad outlook, Ogunlusi with some of us from the Western Zone opposed the move, which eventually, dethroned Adedoja and paved the way for George Izobor. This was the beginning of his pending exit from the secretariat. Though George Izobor and his deputy Nasir Zaharadeen meticulously accommodated Ogunlusi to run the affairs of the NUJ, after broadening NUJ secretariat with creation of zones, those who came after them, succeeded in retiring him without making proper arrangements to offset his entitlement, which, unfortunately, are still pending till today.
A cat with many lives, Ogunlusi almost lost his life in a motor accident along Ijebu Ode Road. Unconscious Jola, when he regained his memory at the General Hospital, asked for a pen and piece of paper, where he scribbled “Please tell Governor Segun Osoba that his brother is here and could die any moment as a result of a motor accident.
The hospital workers were disturbed by the write-up, a brother to our serving governor? Was this man insane? They were ruminating until the hospital management took the badly written message to Governor Osoba, who in a convoy with a blasting siren rushed down. Sighting the NUJ secretary on the bed with tears rolling down his cheeks, sobbing Governor Osoba instructed the hospital management to do everything in its power to bring him (Ogunlusi) back to life. Thank God who answered Chief Osoba’s prayer and the cooperation of Ogun State Hospital Management, perhaps this (90) year’s anniversary might have not been possible after all. May God bless his new age.