I knew DrNyaknno Abasi (Nyaknno Osso) before I knew him.
As an addict of Newswatch magazine from its founding week, I encountered him through the Editor-in-Chief’s corner of the groundbreaking magazine. His work as the librarian who sought relevant information for the big and not-so-big contents of the publication were well documented on that page.
I finally met the research enigma in early 1993 when I decamped from TimesWeek (Daily Times‘ news magazine) to Newswatch as Assistant Editor. In my first full week, the task of writing the flagship story – the magazine’s cover – fell on me. Deputy governors had constituted themselves into a trade union. They no longer wanted to play the spare tyre role the constitution had outlined for them.
Military president (a contraption) Ibrahim Babangida had conducted elections at every government level except for his own office. Lagos State had elected a governor by chance in Sir Michael Otedola, whose name apparently worked for him as he benefitted from the internal ote (enmity) within the Social Democratic Party, which was more popular in the state than Otedola’s National Republican Party.
Otedola’s deputy, Alhaja Sinatu Ojikutu led the charge of her colleagues in the other 29 states (there were 30 states then). Today, she would have been addressed as Chairperson of the Deputy Governors Forum!
Immediately I stepped out of the editorial conference that Monday afternoon at our Oregun (now Kudirat Abiola) Road office, I found a file on my table. Neatly package newspaper clippings and other relevant information were in the file with the mark, “Deputy Governors”. I wondered who dropped that file that turned out to be a goldmine, and solved the research aspect of my task.
I can’t remember whether he walked to my desk or I did to his section, but that was how i was introduced into the world of this great man, who lives and breathes his work. If you found Newswatch a fascinating publication that thrived on well informed facts and deep history, do not look elsewhere for the brain behind that feat.
Till today, Pastor Nyaknno remains at the apex in the research and documentation sector, no wonder he was a presidential aide with that portfolio in Olusegun Obasanjo years as civilian leader. And his Biographical Legacy and Research Foundation (BLERF) is the Who-is-Who you must have to produce profound writings on prominent and not-so-prominent people. Before this, he had worked with virtually his blood to found the highly regarded Newswatch‘s Who-is-Who, which had several editions.
His home – wife, Angela; and children – welcomed me in Abuja several times. We collaborated on several projects in his area of expertise, and beyond. Highlights included ghost writing for his then boss (President Obasanjo) during his tenure and shortly after, and the book on former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Obong Ufot Ekaette.
Pastor Nyaknno travelled far and wide, particularly to presidential libraries in the United States to conceive and develop the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Abeokuta. He searched every corner of the world to harness and preserve everything and anything about Obasanjo (from his birth in Ibogun) and neatly arranged them at his principal’s residence at Ita-Oko Abeokuta, while OOPL was under construction.
A Pastor in the Redeemed Church of God, Nyaknno lives true to his calling. Perhaps that was why he went in and out government and remains his unassuming self.
Today, my brother is 70. Platinum surely looks good on him.
70 hearty returns, the great man, Nyaknno!!!
