My name was forwarded to Chief Duro Onabule, the Chief Press Secretary to President Ibrahim Babangida, as NewBreed’s Dodan Barracks Correspondent. It was sent for routine security screening. So, until the necessary background check had been concluded, I could not resume. Therefore, I dashed to Ife, which had become my second home, to see my “PG hall family”.
Most of them, including Bola Òbí, were doing two-year graduate studies, only few of us did one year graduate programme. I also needed to see my mentor, Dr Biodun Adediran, the wife and the children. Ife was my second home because the Adedirans had reserved a room for me in the main house. Also, I had to see the following people: Prof. Akinjogbin a.k.a “The Department”, Prof. Femi Omosini, Prof. Olajide Aluko and Dr. Sola Ojo. I wish I could call It a “Show-off” trip. But it was not all about my new job. I had to discuss my future with them. I still wanted to do my Ph.d. It was therefore imperative for me to discuss with Dr Sola Ojo who was likely to be my Supervisor as I intended to specialize in Middle East politics and diplomacy. My plan was to commence my Doctorate programme as soon as I finished my Master’s. Since I won’t be doing any course work, I could easily combine my new job with the Doctorate programme.
My discussion with Dr Sola Ojo didn’t go the way I had expected. He gave me three reasons why I shouldn’t commence my Doctorate programme. First, he said that the area of specialization I had chosen required me travelling to some of the countries in the Middle East namely Israel, Syria, Egypt, Palestine and Jordan. He suggested I look for a special grant or scholarship, possibly Commonwealth scholarship, to be able to undertake research trips to those places.
In his usual funny manner, he added that if I didn’t want to take his advice, I could go ahead to obtain the form for the programme but what I would end up with would be “Ph.d olomi tutu (junky Ph.d)”. His second reason was that I should work for one or two years to raise sufficient funds for my research work and for my personal upkeep during the programme. His third reason was very frightening. He wanted to know if I was ready for the “politics of Ph.d”. I asked him what he meant by that.
He laughed and said: “If your supervisor is a controversial person in the Department and he is not the Head of department, you can become “their” target. I won’t say more than that Dapo”. I now shocked him with my own reaction: “Oga, by the way what caused the rift between you and Prof. Aluko and why can’t you seek peace with him being an elderly person and a more senior lecturer”. He was not expecting it so, he took his time before replying. When he was ready for me, he said: “my rift with Aluko is not a power tussle as it is being speculated. Aluko is my Oga. It is all about accountability, probity and honesty. Dapo, I don’t want to say more than that. The Organization involved does not like being mentioned in any rift that would tarnish their image. To your second question. Yes, I can seek peace with him but it must be on my terms. I mean, all the past misdeeds should be corrected and reversed”.
The meetings with my other lecturers went well. Both Prof. Akinjogbin and Dr. Adediran wanted to know if I would continue with my Ph.d programme. I told them what Dr. Sola Ojo said but I didn’t mention the third one touching on politics. It was a deliberate decision because I didn’t want them to blame me for crossing over to a very toxic and divisive Department. They seemed to agree with Dr. Ojo’s position even though they didn’t know there was a third reason. I was unable to see Prof. Femi Omosini and Prof. Aluko. They were said to be out of the country. As for my PG hall family popularly called “Puuss”, I had a nice time with them. We used the “Puuss” slogan to mimic the friendly pussy cats that played around the PG hall especially in the dead of the night. We took pictures, we had fun, we gisted and they were all happy for me and Bola because we were making progress towards the realization of the childhood drama ( “Ere iya ati Baba”) I acted with “Risi Pupa”.
Back in Lagos, I resumed work in Dodan Barracks on Monday, 1 February 1988 after my office had received necessary security clearance from Chief Onabule. That was my first time of meeting the man they called “Double Chief” in Dodan Barracks. I was a regular reader of his column in the National Concord where he was the editor. He was called “Double Chief” because of the combination of his traditional title of Jagunmolu of Ijebu-land and his position as the Chief Press Secretary to President Ibrahim Babangida. I was ushered into his office by his aides on arrival at Dodan Barracks. He gave me a long lecture on Dodan Barracks and Security movements.
His words: “There are areas you could go to and areas you should not go to. There are security areas that you would receive warning if you move close to them and there are very sensitive and strategic security areas that “anything could happen” if you ever move close to them”. I took a very jittery note of that particular statement because I didn’t want “anything” to happen to me. As at the time he was sounding the warning, I had nothing to show for coming into this world. No child, no money, no car, no house, no luxury of any kind. I had not eaten anything if I may sound euphemistic. Only the few ties and two pairs of shoes I just bought at Yaba because my office insisted on corporate dressing. I was a sandals man before then. So, I could not afford to let “anything” happen to me.
That last warning on “anything could happen” became the motto of my life and the nuggets of my fright for the duration of my stay in Dodan Barracks. I thought he had finished. I had started walking towards the exit door when he said: “I have not finished”. “I hope you will not continue with your Cobra journalism here. If you do, we will show you the exit door, that is, if you don’t get locked up for writing nonsense against the government. I am sure you know that I am a very strong advocate of Press freedom. If I am not, you won’t be here because of your antecedents. But, don’t abuse this privilege. Now, you can go”, he concluded. I was not taken aback by the “Cobra” dimension. I had expected it knowing that the story was extensively reported by the National Concord at a time that Onabule was the editor.
From the office of “Double Chief”, I went to the Press centre which was like a “Newsroom” for all the correspondents in Dodan Barracks. They would be there until they were called to attend a function in the Council Chambers. When I arrived, they were scanty but before leaving Dodan Barracks that day, I met virtually all of them except those they called “irregular”. The “regulars” I met that day included: Pat Uriesi of the Federal Ministry of Information, Rock Okocha of Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), Nkem Agetua (New Nigerian), Frank Akinola (Daily Times), Segun Aderiye (NTA), Bosco Ikeakanam (National Concord), Boye Oseni (Daily Sketch). Others were: Ogbeni Tope Awe (Vanguard), Ade Obisesan (AFP), Bashir Umar (Triumph), Isaac Ighure (NAN), Latif Sunmonu (The Herald), Kunle Adekoya (NAN), Segun Fatuase (The Punch), Fola Omololu (Radio Lagos), Goke Awoyode (The Standard), Kelechi Onyemaobi (The Guardian), Tokunbo Oloruntola (The Republic), Chris Agulefo (Daily Star), Chris Agbambu (The Tribune) and Christian Ochiama (Champion newspaper). There were others like: Ndukwe Eke (Statesman), Cecee Onwubuya (A.B.C), Joke Omotunde (BCOS, Ibadan), Remi Oyo (I.P.S), Babs Usigbe ( The Voice), Muhammed Bàbá (Radio Nigeria), Anietie Usen (Newswatch), Onaivi Sulaimon (Nigerian Observer), Ladan Salihu (NTA), Ide Eguabor (ThisWeek), Femi Oredehin (U.P.I), Sola Odunfa (BBC), Laide Somorin (FRCN), Mikhail Mumuni ( Democrat), Yinka Dagunduro (The Republic) and Wale Akin-Aina (The Guardian)
There were also photographers like Ayo Areeson (Daily Times), Moshood Raji (National Concord), Chris Ojokolo (Vanguard), Jimmy Adefolalu (The Republic), Tunde Olaniyi (Punch), Okon Ibanga (The Guardian), Felix Owoh (Daily Star) and Yusuf Balogun (Tribune). The NTA technical crew comprised Babawole Coker, Supo Ibikunle and Nicholas Okechukwu.
On getting home, I reviewed the lecture I received from Chief Onabule with my cousin, Tunde Thomas who was now a big time lawyer. I needed his legal expertise. Our conclusion was that I should always remember the son of who I was by limiting my movements to the main gate, Press Centre and its restrooms, Chief Press Secretary’s office, and the Council Chambers (strictly on invitation). Senior was aware that I had started working as a journalist but I didn’t tell him that I was in Dodan Barracks. If I had told him, his own lecture could take one week. Besides, Senior would broadcast it beyond family frontiers. I didn’t tell my mother too because her own broadcast would be more than that of Senior. All you would be hearing is: “Ko ni da ko ma so fun Baba Saheed, ko ni da ko ma so fún Ìyá ile ọkan. Ko ni da ko ma so fún Bàbá Offa (It won’t be nice if you don’t tell Baba Saheed. It will be unfair to hide it from our next door neighbour. Dont forget to tell Baba Offa”. By the time you were thinking of not offending this person and that person, the whole of Lagos would have heard that you had started working.
The following day, I was at the Press centre by 10 am because there was going to be a meeting of the Supreme Military Council (SMC) to be chaired by President Ibrahim Babangida. He would be assisted by the Chief of General Staff (CGS), Vice Admiral Augustus Aikhomu. At the end of the meeting, we (Dodan Barracks Correspondents) were briefed by the President outside the Council Chambers on the outcome of the meeting. When the news was aired during the NTA 9 o’clock network news, I was so visible among the Correspondents interviewing the President at the end of the meeting. I saw myself and I was smiling. Members of my family saw me on telly and they were also happy for me. However, a very curious dimension was added to this TV drama. I was surprised to see one of my Uncles in our house the following day coming all the way from Isolo to congratulate me for appearing on the television with President Babangida. If a man who is an indigene of Lagos State, Lagos Island for that matter, left his house in Isolo as early as 5 am to come and congratulate his nephew in Surulere for appearing on the television with the President of the country in the course of doing his job, then there must be a hidden motive behind the visit. I was still wondering what the motive could be when I saw another relation of mine arriving in our house for the same purpose. Before I knew what was happening, the number of visitors had increased to four. I had to take them to my room because the embarrassment was becoming too much for me. As soon as we got to my room, they started praying in turns with each of them praying for an average of 7 to 10 minutes. I was hoping that they would leave very soon but I was completely wrong. I didn’t know it was a “cultural visitation”. It was when they started engaging in “investment reminiscences” that I began to suspect that they had come for unscheduled “investors’ AGM” in my house expecting some kinds of dividends on their investment.
For instance, one of them “used style” to remind me of the day I came to his house to collect five naira when I was stranded financially. Another one, pretending to be joking, recollected the day I came to collect garri and raw rice in his house when I was going back to Ife. By the time they were leaving, I had to part with one hundred naira out of the one hundred twenty naira in my hand. As they were leaving, one of them got me angry with a very ridiculous advice: “Dapo, don’t forget that your first salary is for the family. You will give it to your dad (the same Senior that I was not talking to) who will now share it appropriately to members of the family. It is very important”. I dismissed him with a contemptuous”goodbye” in Yoruba “O dabo Uncle. E wa ma lo”.
I thought I had seen it all until I started receiving assorted requests for financial assistance from phoney and funny individuals in and around my neighbourhood. Some of them saw me on telly; some saw me in the newspapers. The bottom line of all this pictorial pilgrimage to my house was to “eat out of the Babangida largesse”. Some thought that I was seeing Babangida everyday and that he was giving me money regularly. I wish I could tell some of them that sometimes my t- fare was a loan from colleagues. Some of them would call me “Alagbara to nba IBB jeun (the powerful man who wines and dines with IBB)”.
Whereas, my colleagues and I in Dodan Barracks were spending our personal money to eat rice and abula in some of the bukas at Obalende. So, I didn’t know where they got the idea that I was winning and dining with Babangida at Dodan Barracks. If I were to write a book on my socio-cultural experience as a result of my deployment to Dodan Barracks, I would give it a title that was close to Walter Rodney’s: “How Dodan Barracks impoverished an innocent journalist”. I didn’t understand why people should be feasting on me on mere perception at a time when my own personality was in need of subsidized charity. It got to a point that I considered relocation as the only prescription for my kind of dilemma. This was when I realized that all my preachment to these people was of no effect for the number of palliative applicants kept increasing by leaps and bounds instead of going down.
In Dodan Barracks, we had our own politics. I was not new to politics any longer. I had become a doyen of politics with what I had seen in the History department and the Department of international relations. I studied the environment and the people in it. When I got to Dodan Barracks, the Correspondents from government media were the reigning champions. They were formidably supported by “Double Chief” who used local and foreign trips to compensate the good boys for their eye service and to punish the bad boys like us for our uncompromising stance. As the Chief Press Secretary to the President, “Double Chief” was the only one deciding which journalists would travel with the President within or outside Nigeria.
I realized that much could not be done if we the so-called “bad boys” did not have a very strong force that would countervail the activities of the “good boys” and their Big Brother. The good boys were mostly those working for government media outfits like NTA, NAN, FRCN, New Nigerian, Daily Times, e.t.c. The “bad boys” were those of us working for private media organisations like NewBreed, The Punch, National Concord, Democrat, The Republic, Vanguard. The government boys enjoyed local and foreign trips regularly and this meant a lot of dollars for them. Any correspondent working in a government media outfit who didn’t enjoy this kind of privilege must have fallen out of favour with “Double Chief”. If there was no sign of repentance or remorse from such a person, “Double Chief ” may call for his replacement immediately and unceremoniously. This was what happened to Segun Aderiye. He had a minor disagreement with “Double Chief” and this resulted in a minor reshuffle of NTA correspondents with Sola Atere replacing Segun Aderiye.
For those of us in the private media organizations, we were frozen for months or years, in some cases. There were no trips for us, local or foreign. “Double Chief” knew that he could not wield much influence on our publishers especially my own publisher, Chris Okolie. Silently, I started plotting a “coup” against the boys of “Double Chief”, and by extension, “Double Chief” himself. I wanted to seize power from them so that we too could enjoy some of the privileges and entitlements that we were being excluded from. The subversion I could not do in Ife, I was now doing it inside Dodan Barracks. The only difference was that it was not against Babangida, it was against his appointee. I knew it was risky but I forged on with some rebels in the House. “Double Chief” got a wind of it and he…
To be continued
