The Road to Bandar Reminiscences Of A
Development Journalist Part II - Day One at
Imalefalafia: Inside Abiola's Concord; Reporting from
Yola
12 August 2012
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The Road to Bandar Reminiscences of a development
journalist journalist Part III - Amatokwu et al, thank
you all! Akoka to Bandar
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The Road to Bandar Reminiscences Of A Development
Journalist Part I - On The Hot Political Desk;
Budding Of A Board Member: Berth at Ikoyi;; Flight To
Bandar; Nesting At Ikorodu
By Abdulwarees Solanke
Day One at Imalefalafia
It was the end of the 2006/2007 academic session, my
Year III at the University of Lagos. During the long
vacation, it was the practice of holidaying students
to fix themselves with the media houses of their
choice to gain practical experience before entering
the final year. As I was an Ibadan based student, the
Nigerian Tribune was my choice newspaper to test my
grasp of what I have learnt so far as a budding
journalist.
I remember Biodun Oduwole, as the News Editor then,
accepting my introductory letter from the Department
of mass Communication, University of Lagos for holiday
internship in 1987. I also remember fair-skinned Tunde
Laniyan, his deputy, being the able newsroom commander
and deputy news editor, polishing all scripts from
reporters to be fit for public consumption as news
materials. I remember akin Onipede, the dark-skinned
tall and robust assistant editor filing stories from
the Lagos office. I remember the fastidious petite mrs.
Bisi Yomi Layinka as a very competent female
journalist. I recall eagle-eyed Muda Ganiyu as the
chief -sub doing some yeoman's job to ensure our
stories make meaning while cutting them to size to fit
the precious newsholes .
I recollect Mr. Banji kuroloja as the no-nonsense
editor of the Nigerian Tribune and the magisterial Mr.
Felix Adenaike, a very sartorial gentleman with his
trademark black staff as the MD.
I remember my first challenging assignment, apart from
writing and re-wring some short news stories on the
desk, the coverage of the visit of a USIS delegation
to the Tribune. No senior journalist was around for
the 10.00am visit, and as an intern who must report at
the newsroom latest 9.00 am, the lot fell on me to
join the senior editors and the management staff to
receive the visitors and cover the discussion, sadly
without a tape recorder, a luxury for an intern like
me. Here was I, straining my ears to pick the drawling
English of the visiting Yankees , jotting down in
shorthand and abbreviations, in phrases and incomplete
sentences to make meaning a good stuff out of the
visit, fit for usage, after the news editor and
editor's clearance on a strategic page with my by-line
in the second and first editions.
My internship at the Tribune lasted six week and but
continued at Ile-Akede, as the Broadcasting
Corporation of Oyo State, Ibadan is known. At BCOS, I
remember being fixed on the Current Affairs Department
of the television arm of BCOS, following senior
journalists on special coverage and doing some reports
myself, and rushing home to listen to my voice on the
7.00pm news….Abdulwarees Solanke, reporting for BCOS
News. I remember being tasked to cover an emergency
press conference at Oke Mapo on the Ibadan Municipal
Government closure of Orita-merin market to force the
traders to relocate to the New Bodija market. Again,
no senior journalist was on ground. As the rookie on
the desk, I was commandeered to be at Mapo with a
cameran and an official car driving me there to cover
the press conference. Scripting and voicing for 7.00 o
clock television news on arrival from the impromptu
assignment, I was stupefied, being called to do a live
report of the assignment as the 6.00 clock radio news
bulletin was underway. I had to do an Usain Boltl dash
between the staff quarters offices of the TV Current
Affairs Department and the radio studio in the main
complex, some four to five hundred meters apart.
Panting, I had to adjust and adapt the TV script to
the radio right on the spot. I landed safely with
Abdulwarees Solanke, reporting for Radio O-Y=O, Ile
Akede, Ibadan.
I remember my one year service at Sokoto, joining the
third batch of the 1988/1989 in April 1989 and
concluding my service in 1990. The one year service
with the Envoy newspaper, published by Emman Usman
Shehu, the christian scholar in the seat of the
caliphate. Designated as the paper's news editor and
given free hand to write many incisive editorials in
the biting newspaper, service in the Envoy in Sokoto
groomed me in all practical aspects of newspaper
production beyond what I learnt at Unilag, up to
manual collation and distribution/marketing.
Inside Abiola's Concord; Reporting
from Yola
On completing the one-year NYSC during which I made
some useful friends, I remember moving straight to
Concord. I remember liad Tella, Deputy Editor's sermon
to me, I don't want to see your face, I want to see
your name on the pages, one afternoon that I went to
his office and he yelled at me, my friend, I've not
being seeing you, and I replied that I come to the
office every day. From that day, I pledged to write
myself to stupor. During the Orkar coup in 1990, I
remember daring the odds to report at Ewutuntun to
join the team of reporter on ground to report on the
failed on the failed coup that threaten the unity of
Nigeria. I received a letter of commendation before an
appointment letter in Concord for the act of bravery
in coming out to join the league of Concord reporters
on the red day.
I remember the wizardry of Wole Agunbiade, and his
lieutenants and successors: niyi Obaremi, Soni Ehi
Asuelimen, south-pawed Akin Ogunrinde and
fire-spitting kunmi olayiwola as news editors
marshalling the newsroom to make Concord very
competitive and authoritative. I remember my posting
to Yola as Bureau chief, the very day I received my
appointment letter. I remember the mercurial editor,
Nsikak Essien giving me the first litmust test on my
ability to report for National concord prior to
departing for Yola. Nsikak, a no-nonsense editor,
directed that the news Editor, Niyi Obaremi give me a
copy brief to do a special report on the scarcity of
Liquefied petroleum Gas. The very comprehensive story
written jointly with Abdulfatth Oladeinde, my alter
ego and twin brother in Concord, was published after
we had settled in our new stations. Abdulfattah was
also posted to Port Harcourt.
I remember the very good professional friends and
acquaintances I made in yola: the Ibrahim Moddibbo's,
the Zedekiah Shamaki's and the Akin Adesokans. I
remember Mallam Abubakr jijiwa, the then General
manager of Gongola State Broadcasting Corporation
facilitating for me the necessary network of contacts
to enrich my reporting from yola for my name to be
splashed on the front and back pages. I remember
striking very good rapport with Drs. Musa Moda and
Saleh M Toro who respectively headed National Agency
for Adult and Non-Formal Education and the upper Benue
River Benue Development Authority in the state. They
were my resource persons and development and
agricultural and Water resources policies. I remember
mr. Thomas Nathaniel, a very senior servant who was a
commissioner in the Local Government Service
Commission initiating me in the understanding of the
dynamics of politics in Gongola and Adamawa states for
me to write authoritatively without offending any
sensibility, ethnic or religious, in the vastly
diverse north eastern state that is the power house of
politics in Nigeria, unknown to many.
Through my experience in Yola, I developed a theorem
on political reporting that places political actors at
the low end of the indices of analysis, but looking at
the interests, issues, forces, trends as the drivers
while actors or people are just symbolic. So any
person can be a mouth piece of the other indices.
Reporting politics from Yola, I always ask a question:
Is the majority the minority or are the minorities in
majority. Usman Toungo, a very cerebral journalist in
the Fulfulde Service of Voice of Nigeria was later to
clarify the thesis further by differentiating between
the political majority and the numerical majority.
In real terms, the political majority are usually the
numerical minority in most polities in the third using
the numerical majority to achieve their political
goals and interests. The numerical minority is always
in power no matter the power calculation because they
command all the apparatus of power: intellectual,
economic and political, distributing only to those who
are their useful, pliable tools, clients and allies
among the numerical majority who are now the political
minority.
I remember the privilege of being drafted into the
Gongola State Muslim Council as the conveyor of
Bashorun MKO Abiola's zakat fund to Gongola/Adamawa
State attending meetings with the khadis and the
Lamido and being addressed as Dan Jerida Concord da
Wakilin Abiola in the council.
Yola was fulfilling for me professionally, as the
city to hone my political reporting skills and the
Polity. I returned to Lagos in my third year in Yola
as Concord Correspondent, marching to the political
desk, informed by my contributions to the political
pages of Concord newspapers while in the north eastern
state of Nigeria. But I still had eyes on the
editorial board, for that was where my heart was…being
in the company of eggheads and analysts, right from
Akoka having tasted a course in editorial writing at
the feet of the guru, Professor Luke Uka Uche, whose
model of cultural triangulation in explaining media
imperialism in the Third World is yet to be faulted in
the academic circles.
AbdulWarees Solanke, Head, Voice of Nigeria
Training Centre (Transmitting Station, ikorodu),
Lagos, studied Mass Communication at the University of
Lagos and Public Policy at the Universiti Brunei
Darusslam and writes
viakorewarith@yahoo.com ,
korewarith@voiceofnigeria.org
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