I was as enthusiastic about my first ever paying job at Newslink magazine, Makurdi, as I was behind the microphones of Radio Benue. I had done one year of full-fledged broadcasting. Now it was time to do all the talking on paper. I found myself sufficiently equipped to handle the demands of both, as they presented themselves to me.
I had always wanted to be a writer, to see my script, if not my book, in the hands of a reader or on the popular shelves of a bookshop, and to enjoy the virtue of expressing myself to the understanding of another with complimentary results following. If I had to start off as a cub reporter before getting to the level of famous pundits like Dan Agbese and Ray Ekpu, I was willing to learn.
I was not close to Ukor Ayem, publisher of the magazine, even though he was a senior editor at Radio Benue . But when our mutual friend, Fred Gusha approached me with an invitation to report for the pages of a new magazine called Newslink , I thought it was a good place to start a career after national youth service. I had no formal training in journalism, but I had been reading newspapers and magazines from the time I was a boy. Given a fair chance, I felt I could fill up the pages in like manner.
Fred’s confidence in me was massive, and that came as a big boost. Journalism, he said, was literature written in a hurry, and I could pass for a good student of literature. It was also history unfolding from day to day, and the duty of the journalist was to monitor and record events by the hour, follow up on breaking news, be as current as possible, and be objective in telling a rounded story.
Two events presented themselves as current at the time I began work, and I came under obligation to submit my humble scripts for hard-nosed editorial scrutiny before Sebastian Agbinda, general editor, who had also left the Radio Benue newsroom to join his colleague on the new magazine. The first topical event was the pronouncement of a fatwa by the Muslim cleric, Ayatollah Khomeini, on the British novelist of Indian extraction, Salman Rushdie, following the publication of his novel, The Satanic Verses , which was said to have maligned Islam and blasphemed the prophet.
The book was nowhere to be seen yet, but tremendous literature was being churned out on a daily basis, defending the right to self expression, or else castigating the author for his excesses. The least expected of me was to glean enough facts from all that tirade, and articulate a readable script that would be adjudged fair, balanced and worthy of publication. I was overjoyed, in the end, to see my story occupying two whole pages in the foreign affairs section of the magazine, suitably illustrated with pictures of Rushdie and the Ayatollah. I couldn’t stop flipping to those pages and reading my copy over and over again.
The next big story that came on my lap broke from Pretoria. Nelson Mandela had just been released from prison, and his face was all over the world. The most striking photo perhaps showed Mandela in a friendly handshake with President Frederick de Klerk of South Africa, with whom he was to share the Nobel Prize for Peace in the course of time. Like the rest of the civilized world, I was seeing the new face of the world’s most famous prisoner of conscience for the first time, after 27 years of incarceration.
The change in the facial features of the man from Robben Island was evident.
The popular pictures in newspapers of the youthful lawyer and activist with a broad face, a bold central parting in the hair, and a shock of beard on his chin, stood in sharp contradistinction with the cheerful old man who stepped out from behind bars in a black suit, waving to a tumultuous crowd with fisted salutes of Amandla , amid a flutter of flags brandishing the rainbow colours of South Africa. The difference, in perspective and circumstance, was so acute that it inspired me no end. I gave the report all the historic gravity it deserved, bringing poetic lens to bear on the new reality, and hoping for a better, more humane South Africa, without the monster called apartheid.
But my first real test as a journalist on the prowl came to me when the editors became ambitious enough to send out reporters to gather news from neighbouring states on topical issues of national import that would constitute our cover story, all in a bid to give the magazine a country-wide character. Our opening gambit was a foray into the growth and progress of agricultural ventures in Nigeria. The adventurous reporter was at liberty to file in additional stories that he might stumble upon in the course of the trip.
I was promptly dispatched to the relatively young state of Akwa-Ibom and its next-door parent, Cross River. I signed for my travelling allowance and decided to go first to Akwa-Ibom, and then climb back up to Benue through Calabar and Ogoja. And so I headed straight for Uyo, capital of Akwa-Ibom State. I was impressed with the outlay of the roads and the relatively sparse traffic. I checked into a hotel and, after lunch and a short rest, thought it wise to take a general look around town.
That was how I came to this very busy terminal that had space only for motorcycles. Till then, I had never seen such a vast concentration of motorbikes in one place. Clearly, this was the most popular means of transport in Uyo. The call for a bike, in the parlance of the streets, was a question. Aka-uke ? Meaning: where are you going? It was used by the biker and the passenger alike, but the question mark was summarily thrown away so that Akauke became the name of every bike man.
I had boarded one which stopped me at this terminal, and my instincts as a journalist were just coming awake. I couldn’t resist the grand photographic appeal of the scene before me, so many motorcycles gathered in one uproarious assembly, each mounted by a rider revving the engine and asking every prospective passenger the invariable question. Aka-uke ?
I could imagine this picture on the cover of our news magazine. I thought the spectacle would make a great photo-story, a remarkable stand-alone, an eloquent photo-speak. By whatever name you called it, this was good to behold. So I took a vantage position, brought out my camera, raised it to eye level, focused the lens properly, and clicked one, two, three times. Apparently, I was not discreet enough. One enthusiastic rider had taken notice of me, and raised an alarm at the top of his voice.
It was as if I had committed a truly heinous crime. Before I could move, the pack of riders had surrounded me, vexation on their faces, their engines turbo-charged like mindless ghosts raising dust all around. Perhaps they expected me to run for it. I didn’t see why I should. That might have made matters worse. I stood transfixed at the centre of that unruly crowd, everyone yelling at the top of their voices, hurling insults at me, and shouting instructions as to what should be done with me for taking random pictures of people on the streets of Uyo. What did I think I was doing? Who sent me?
I stood petrified at this completely unexpected reaction, wondering if this was the kind of threat every journalist faced in the line of duty. This was my first ever outing doing the leg work as a press man on the lookout for news, far away from familiar territory, and here was I in trouble already just for taking a winning photo shot. The mob swarmed around me relentlessly, and I felt like such a small fry that could easily have been roasted in that immoderate stampede. I managed to raise my voice above the din, pleading my identity as a reporter, and that I meant no harm.
For some inexplicable reason, no one raised a finger to strike me. And just then, the okada rider who had picked me up in the first place, switched to the Ibibio language and spoke frantically in my defence. The crowd began to cool off, but not before someone snatched the camera from me, flung it to the ground, and attempted to destroy it altogether underfoot. On second thoughts, he picked it up, ripped out the entire roll of film and handed the carcass back to me. I took it from him with gratitude, and watched with great relief as the mob retreated like a tired wave, and left me to my devices.
I lost all the pictures I had taken between Makurdi and that moment in Uyo. But thank God I was alive and well to tell the story. Since then, in all subsequent media houses that I joined, from Eko magazine to Newswatch to The Tide On Sunday to Weekend Waves, I have lived with the lesson from that experience. Now I take pictures only when I know it’s safe, and I don’t risk being attacked by a barbarian horde. I do well to secure the consent of folks before I snap, or else I do so, where necessary, with great surreptitious caution, especially when I chance upon a great perspective that is bound to appeal to discerning eyes other than mine.
