I cannot describe how newspaper reporting happens these days. A lot has happened to redefine the approach and requirements. My own ways have been overtaken. These days, reporters hardly hunt for news from one location to another, the way we were doing in the 80s and 90s. Space and time have been bridged by disruptive technologies to make the universe smaller than my village in Agbarha-Otor. It is now possible to be everywhere from nowhere. The remotest piece of information or idea could either be a phone call or a touch of the button away. In one location, a reporter can profile the whole wide world. It is not even wise to raise queries and push for diligence.
That would be like holding down journalism from moving forward. Amid the prevalent advantages, it has become possible for a reporter to give eye-witness account of an event that he didn’t witness. With so many instant multi-media platforms at his disposal, a reporter does not need to witness a kidnapping scene, for instance, before reporting same with precision and in graphic details. It saves both media owners and operators a lot of trouble. If reporters were still roving the length and breath of the country like Calabar Rovers for news, more reporters than school children and priests, would have become the targets of kidnappers, bandits and jihadists. So far and good, journalists have managed to remain within safety bounds. Apart from two or so cases, they have not constituted the news of kidnapping. Others get kidnapped while reporters maintain their safe distances to report the news of the kidnap of other Nigerians.
Any reporter in my generation is a true Nigerian. I shall explain. I started as a magazine writer with the African Guardian. It meant writing the news behind the news or features stories. This kind of writing is a creative blend of narrative, descriptive and expository compositions. It can only derive from actual experience of the events that constitute the narration, description and exposition. On one occasion, I was saddled with the task to unravel the character behind a pro-establishment advertorial called the Third Eye that was exposed weekly in the Tribune and Sketch newspapers, both based in Ibadan. The enabler was equally an Ibadan based businessman called Chief Akanni Aluko. I had instruction from my editor to have his voice on tape. And that was the problem. The chief knew that publishing Third Eye in defence of General Ibrahim Babangida was not a noble venture. He had therefore tried to stay far from the publication.
It was one assignment that intensively introduced me into the inner recesses of the ancient city of Ibadan. I also closed in on his close aides including one Joe Abiola whom I traced to Apata in Ibadan. I followed up to Ilesa in search of Aluko. He remained elusive. I took every risk to establish his without meeting him physically. I visited Fiditi Grammar School where he worked as a bursar before going into private business. I went into the town to interview an old man who was the principal when Aluko was a bursar in the school. To gain sympathy, I had disguised as a final year student of the Communication Department of University of Ibadan on a field work to gather information to help my long essay on: Third Eye and the Limit of Propaganda.
Other times, the exploration was in the creeks of the Niger Delta. Once I was on water for three hours to Nembe from Port Harcourt to report a shooting war between the Ogbolomabiri and Bassambiri quarters in Nembe. Nothing crossed my mind except the news ahead. I went, saw, recorded and returned to base without incident. That was to the east. To the west, Igbokoda became a second home. From the waterfront at Igbokoda, I pushed inward beyond Aiyetoro and through the Chevron created canal into the Atlantic. From Lagos, I would veer off the Benin-Sagamu Expressway at Omotoso junction into Okitipupa and then to Igbokoda in Ilaje.
Chief Sola Ebiseni, the then chairman of Ilaje/Ese Odo Local Government Area and his team, did everything to make me forget going back to Lagos. He studied Law at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University). He and his noisy Ife team had a way of thinking that no university existed outside Ife. I had held high my Malabite flag against their push for supremacy. Ebiseni could not reconcile me with the University of Calabar. He told me that I would have been a lot better than myself if I had attended “Great Ife”. We robustly debated the issues of the day. It was the heat of the politics of Social Democratic Party and the National Republican Congress. In fact, we were in the middle of a debate on the 12 June 1993 presidential election in Ebiseni’s office when Babaginda announced the annulment of the election, 12 days later, on 24 June 1993.
At whatever time of the day or night, we moved freely to and back from Okitupupa to access provisions that laid beyond the economy and sociology of Igbokoda. No danger lurked anywhere on the same road where the Oluwa Glass Factory is located. I had actually moved to Ikale after my sojourn in Ilaje. Both are like the two sides of a coin. From Ore through the thick forest to Irele was a smooth movement. Beyond Irele to Ajagba, Ijosun and Akotogbo on the bank of the Siluko River was a peaceful route. A few times, I went by “sea: on the Owena River from Okitipupa into Irele. It took less than 10 minutes instead of the long journey by road.
Let me quickly shift to Kogi State. I knew everything about the Ajakuta Steel Complex like the back of my hand. I would enter Okene from Lagos before the onward push to Ajakuta through Adogo, the hometown of former Chief Of Army Staff, Lt. General Ibrahim Salisu (rtd.). That same road between Okene and the steel complex that was harmless and allowed smooth and peaceful commuting now breathes death. Occasionally, I yielded to adventure and crossed the Niger to the heartland of Igala and returned to my hotel in Okene without incidents. My contact was Alhaji Ali Baba, then secretary of Ajakuta Local Government Area. He was a wonderful host. Then public affairs manager of the complex, Alhaji Arugungun, was also wonderful. We moved everywhere and at any time without incident. In 1992, I was on ground in Ajakuta when Babangida commissioned the delivery systems to take iron ore from the abundant surface deposits in Itakpe to the furnace at the steel complex.
And then the Sani Abacha military administration shut down The Guardian on 15 August 1994. This gave rise to a fresh challenge. An existential game that stretched me to the limits to weather the sudden storm. I became a yam merchant. To be successful, I must move yams from where they were produced to where they were consumed. I got to the Oyo yam zone through Ilorin in Kwara State. It is the same Kwara State that has been redefined by banditry and violent death. Then, however, it was a smooth ride through day and night from Ilorin to Kesi, Gbeti and Igboho to load tubers of different sizes into a truck and drive all night to Mile 12 in Lagos. Nothing happened to me. I successfully ended the business upon the reopening of The Guardian on 1 October 1995 without incidents.
On another day, I and my boss, Kingsley Osadolor, landed at Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano and continued on road to Jigawa State. We were not on guard. In fact, we completely lowered our guards as we savoured the beautiful scenery of the countryside. We saw firsthand the visible threats from the desert and some feeble responses, by way of tree planting, from the state authorities to stem the scourge. We returned the same way after we had finished at Dutse, the Jigawa State capital. Both of us had also moved between Calabar and Uyo. The narration is too loaded for a single outing.
At different times, I had been on the major connecting routes in the entire country. Between Kano and Jos, Cross River and Benue, within the Southeast, the Federal Capital Territory and elsewhere in vast Nigeria. I didn’t have to worry about safety in the context of today’s worries. I only worried about taking back to my editor a good story.
It is on this note that I wish to thank the West; not west in the sense of Western Nigeria, most sincerely for all the improvements in technology that have saved the reporter in Nigeria from becoming ready content for media headlines. It is not too palatable for newsmen to turn newsmakers. For reporters to be reported.
First published in Nigerian Tribune, 28 November 2025
