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

-- The Road to Bandar Reminiscences of a development journalist journalist Part III - Amatokwu et al, thank you all! Akoka to Bandar
-- 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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