•Laolu Akande
I always like to make the point each time I get the opportunity to refer to the Nigerian Tribune as Nigeria’s oldest surviving private newspaper. Just do a quick check, you will not find too many organisations today in Nigeria with that life span. So Tribune has always been a thing of pride right from the days of its founding. Many are those who wear the Tribune tag-it was and remains indeed a badge of honour.
Yes, the newspaper organisation has gone through the valleys and the mountain, but it’s pride of place abides. And I am just so delighted to be a part of this inspiring story!
There are few things you don’t forget in life. For me my time at the African Newspapers of Nigeria, ANN, the publishers of the Tribune titles is one.
For instance, it is in Tribune and around our encounters and experiences there at Imalefalafia that I forged some of the best friendships of my life, which today are still soaring. And this is where my recollections ought to start.
Wale Adebanwi, Adeolu Akande, Johnson Otitoyomi, Segun Olatunji, Bode Opeseitan etc represent for me, not just a bulwark for a young man trying to understand the contradictions between an imagination of a great country and people on the one hand, but also make sense of the fact that the nation is led by a rather underwhelming governmental leadership-mainly then the soldiers who forced themselves on us all in this space called Nigeria.
As young people, these friends of mine and myself, we were almost obsessed by the national question and we didn’t only debate the many controversial developments of those days – especially in the early 90s, but we saw ourselves being journalists as well-positioned to create the awareness that can bring change.
This was part of the reason i chose to become a journalist.
We all tapped in the vision and example of the Sage Papa Obafemi Awolowo and resultantly formed the audacity to question our leaders if things weren’t going the way we knew it ought to.
I started freelance reporting in 1989 during my final session at the University of Ibadan and did a few articles in Tribune and then The Guardian. Indeed by the time I graduated in 1990 and finished my national service I had a letter of employment from Tribune. The editor then, the quintessential journalist and one of our mentors, Mr. Folu Olamiti gave me the offer.
But while my friends were already working there by then, I didn’t quite join as a staff until 1995. Mr. Biodun Oduwole was then the Editor- in- Chief. Mr. Segun Olatunji about that time too had become the Editor of Tribune on Saturday, while Adeolu Akande and Wale Adebanwi were line editors or Bureau Head as the case may be.
Oduwole invoked the image of the debonair director of the stage of life that was Tribune in those years. One thing you would grant him is the ability to pin-point the right man for the job in the newsroom, with limitations though as he still had to revert often to a Managing Director who wasn’t a journalist.
So he gave me the job as Special Projects Editor on the Tribune titles with my friends-particularly Adebanwi, making the pitch for me as they were already there. I worked directly under his editorial guidance and he deployed me to some major news developments including the banishing of the Sultan by Abacha and the eventual passing of the Great Zik.
I can never forget the stunt I pulled when the Sultan, Ibrahim Dasuki, was banished from the throne. Oduwole had enough confidence to deploy me even though I could barely speak Hausa. He said I should go and get the exclusives! Well that was the deal we reached for him to offer me the job in the first instance-to get the exclusives! So i did special news and special reports.
So back to the Sultan Dasuki story. As his banishment was announced I went to his private house in Kaduna and found my way to his living room, where I sat with other dignitaries and sympathisers, like I was one of them. That was where I got all my exclusive stories, sitting down like one of the important dignitaries and there were quite a few, not too much though in the sitting room.
So I heard his relatives and associates speaking to the people often in Hausa but mainly in English since there were many of his non Hausa friends and associates also seated. No one could even go look for him in Sokoto anyway since the banishment was announced, that was how his private residence in Dogondaji area of Kaduna became the default venue for well wishers.
So I heard his family and relatives first hand what they told people about the dynamics, reasons why he was removed and so on. I didn’t know how I found courage to sit down with the people there because I was literally a stranger who gate-crashed into Dasuki’s home called Dogondaji House in Kaduna. Dignitaries were trooping in and out and saying lots of things but nobody challenged me. So, I wrote an exclusive story about it, but asked my editors not to use my byline that could blow my top!
As special projects editor, those were the kind of national stories that I covered.
So I flew around Lagos, Sokoto and Kaduna pursuing different leads. This was in April 1996. The next month that same year, I was sent to Nnewi in Anambra State when the Great Zik, Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe passed on May 11.
Then, in January 1997, I became the editor of the Nigerian Tribune on Saturday. I think three of us did the written test and were interviewed for the role. A senior newsroom colleague Mr. Akinjide Akintola came second. I did overall better than him by just one point. I became then one of the youngest newspaper editors in the country having graduated about 7 years ago. Tribune gave me that rare opportunity!
I remember the Editor in Chief telling me then “Laolu you got it just by the skin of your teeth;” Mr. Oduwole was a top notch master of the English Language.
Now as an editor in charge of a weekly publication, I felt there was now a fairly significant platform to fight for the restoration of democracy and civil rule. So with my formidable team of reporters such as then Mrs. Dupe Olubanjo, Mrs. Omotayo Lewis, Sanya Adejokun, Rotimi Oladunjoye, Bayo Oladeji, Bode Odeseye and several good others, we balanced my quest with adequate local human angle stories.
We did several stories about how Nigerians abroad were giving the military regime a tough time because of its reputation. I remember there was a time that the United Nations was considering imposing sanctions on Nigeria after the Commonwealth had imposed sanctions over the execution of the Ogoni nine including Ken Saro-Wiwa.
One of such US based prodemocracy copies was when the Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka and then Nigeria’s Ambassador to the United Nations did a face to face oral confrontation before the New York City Council who were considering renaming the street besides the Nigerian House in Manhattan, New York-just a stone throw from the UN headquarters-after late Kudirat Abiola. Gambari opposed it on behalf of the Federal Military Government of Nigeria while Soyinka supported it on behalf of different Nigerian groups abroad including NADECO. It was a front page story on Tribune on Saturday.
But the defining moment was the story we did on then Chief of General Staff and number two to General Sani Abacha-Lt. Gen Oladipo Diya. That was the story responsible for my final decision to leave the country for 17 years!
It was sometime in November of 1997, i think. The advance team of Gen Oladipo Diya, discovered that there was a bomb that was planted in his jet when he was supposed to travel. While he was still on his way from the presidential villa to the airport in Abuja, the bomb detonated, and he cancelled the flight.
So, we did the story, Who Wants Diya Dead, for the Tribune Saturday edition, which I was the editor.
I think either on that day or on the Sunday after my story came out, there was an announcement that Diya had been arrested alongside other people because they planned a coup.
I have since read the Editor in Chief, Mr. Oduwole’s recollections of this unnerving event, how he was caught up in Abuja on the same day!
My brother-in-law was Diya’s chief security officer, Major Seun Fadipe. He knew nothing about the story.
Our reporter in Abuja, Mr. Bisi Abidoye, wrote the story, and as the editor, I fleshed it up and cast the headline myself.
After the story was published, the Editor in Chief told me point blank
that I was in trouble with then much dreaded State Security Services (SSS). It was in fact possible they were already trailing me. It was a very dark moment for me because on the family end there was turmoil and fears over the fate of Major Fadipe and the other “coup plotters.” Thank God there lives were spared eventually but by then I took no chances-was already cooling my heels in New York and the rest is history!
So Tribune was indeed a rugged platform for those who believe in the greatest good for the greatest number. I benefited from its largesse in that wise and we used it as a voice for the voiceless and a voice of reason just like Papa Obafemi Awolowo had envisioned. What a badge of honour that we all who had the unique opportunity to serve and work in Tribune wear.
With our dear aunty, Dr. Tokunbo Awolowo-Dosunmu now at the helm, let the banner keep flying! Congratulations to Apa ma ku at 75!
*Laolu Akande who is currently Host of INSIDE SOURCES TV SHOW, was presidential spokesperson 2015 to 2023 & Editor Emeritus, Tribune on Saturday 1997 -1998.
