Mr. Banji Ogundele was Editor of the Nigerian Tribune over 40 years ago, after his stint at the Daily Times in Lagos. He tells SAM NWAOKO how he started and some of his memorable times as a journalist.
You practised journalism in the hey days. How did you get into journalism?
When I left the University of Ibadan in 1970, I went to teach in Annunciation College, Ikere-Ekiti, my alma mater. In 1972, there was an advert in the Daily Times which said they were looking for people who would like to train in journalism. When I was in Annunciation (we were the first set of students there in 1957), I was always writing. I love writing. So, I applied and 13 of us were selected. Incidentally, I was the only one on that list who had never practised journalism before. We had a one-year intensive training under Chief Tony Momoh. He was our training manager at the Daily Times Training School (called Daily Times Training Centre that time). To the glory of God, I came first in the final examination. The New Nigerian offered me employment; Drum Magazine too asked me to come but Alhaji Babatunde Jose insisted that I should work in the Daily Times since I trained there. I also got a typewriter as the prize for coming first and it was published on the front page of the Daily Times. I was then posted to Spear Magazine as the Features Editor. From there, I was seconded to the news room as assistant news editor to Chief Theo Ola. He was one of the best news editors ever. Soon after, I was privileged to be among 13 people who were selected to go to England for training. I served in England at Lynn News and Advertisers for six months. When I arrived, there was this Joint Action Committee at the Daily Times when Chief Segun Osoba was appointed Editor and Chief Areoye Oyebola was promoted as Managing Editor. This caused a row that saw Alhaji Jose being demoted to Managing Director instead of Chairman/Managing Director. When there was an opening, I applied as the Editor of Spear Magazine and after written tests and an oral interview, including page-planning etc, I came first by the grace of God and I was appointed in 1976 as Editor of The Spear magazine.
Who were some of your colleagues in training at the Daily Times Training Centre?
Like I said, I was the only one who was not sponsored by any institution but trainees came from The Punch and the Nigerian Army. Four soldiers were part of the training. The Nigerian Army was trying to form the NPRO – the military public relations unit at that time. Brigadier-General Chukwu, who was their PRO in Ibadan; General Adeniyi Makanju, who was a lawyer and one other soldier were part of the training that year.
How did you get to the Nigerian Tribune?
When General Olusegun Obasanjo and General Murtala Mohammed took over government, their government took 51 per cent of the shares of Daily Times. So, we had to report through the Federal Ministry of Information. They were controlling stories in the Daily Times from that time. So, I felt discouraged. Luckily, there was an opening; Alhaji Lateef Jakande was leaving Ibadan to contest as governor of Lagos State in 1978. I wrote to him. I had a file of the editorials written by the Nigerian Tribune. I had cuttings for a whole year in some files. When he saw it, he said ‘this man likes Tribune, let us take him’. So, he asked me to come to Ibadan. Jakande gave me a letter of appointment and told me to present it to Chief J. S. Oni, who was the Managing Director. That was how I came to Ibadan. I was to become the Editor, Nigerian Tribune but I was told to go to Sunday Tribune because Mr. Peter Apesin, who was my senior, was already editing the title. So, I had to edit Sunday Tribune for a year. After that, my good friend, classmate and boss, Chief Tola Adeniyi, who was Managing Editor then, made me the Editor of the Nigerian Tribune. That was in 1979, one year after I had been the Editor of Sunday Tribune.
How was it then when you look back – the roles journalists played that time compared to what obtains now?
There was this joy of serving the public; the joy of dishing out good, useful information to the public. I remember that Tribune gave me a Volkswagen as official car as an Editor while I brought a Datsun 180K from Lagos. When I was the Editor of Nigerian Tribune, we declared the first profit in Tribune. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, in disbelief, sent his own internal auditor to verify and he certified that indeed, we made profit. That day, Chief Awolowo christened Tribune “Apamaku”, that is “something you cannot destroy.” We declared the first profit in 1979 because of the massive support we got from some Northern elements in the Great Nigeria Peoples Party (GNPP) and the massive adverts we got on the Land Use Decree. That was how we were able to break even and declared profit for the first time. What were our interests? The people – the masses. One thing about Tribune is that we always spoke the truth. The military didn’t like us and we had a lot of court cases. We were arrested several times, a lot of libel cases were slammed on us but I was never convicted for one throughout my 10-year stay in Tribune. Not once did we have to pay damages to anybody for my 10 years. So, there was that joy that you are contributing to the uplift of the society. When Chief Awolowo contested in 1979, we were sleeping in the newsroom, we made four editions in a day to meet the demands of the market in the North, the Mid West, Lagos and Ibadan. There was excitement that you were serving in a popular paper that was accepted by the people.
There was a day they arrested me in Imalefalafia. A convoy of military men came at about 4am because we published an article on Muhammadu Buhari (in his first coming). The article was about N2.8billion missing oil money. They came to arrest me and Pa Solarin, who wrote the article which I published. They took us to Lagos and charged us to a revenue court. G.O.K. Ajayi was my lawyer and he told them that it was wrong to charge a criminal case to a revenue court. They wanted to use their powers to convict us at the revenue court. Unfortunately for Buhari, he was toppled by Babangida and that was how we were saved from a certain jail. We would have gone to jail. Luckily for us, there was a coup and the case just died.
Is the N2.8billion the same one Fela sang about?
Yes, it was the same money. Later on, we learnt that the money was at a bank in London. But, like I said, we didn’t have any concrete proof.
Back in your days, there was no specific training in journalism or Mass Communication in Nigerian universities. You got trained after graduation. What did you study at the University of Ibadan sir?
I studied Latin and French from 1966 to 1970. However, the Daily Times started a graduate training programme. Alhaji Babatunde Jose, who was not a university graduate, started the graduate training programme to train graduates who did not study Mass Communication to become journalists. That was how Areoye Oyebola, Gbolabo Ogunsanwo, my boss, Tola Adeniyi; Felix Adenaike and so on came into journalism. They were the young graduates then that were brought in. Osoba was not a graduate then but he was one of the best journalists you could find. He later got trainings in Nigeria, Britain, America and so on. He was a news man per excellence. He was one of the best journalists ever in this country I must say and he was a delight to work with.
Who were your role models?
Yes, especially that Alhaji Babatunde Jose. He was my role model. Jose was a man who left his business in Ebute Meta to become a major part of the Daily Times. He rose to become the Chairman/Managing Director by sheer dint of hard work. Then, I also see Alhaji Lateef Jakande as my role model. I think Jakande had only Class Three in Ilesha Grammar School but he was one of the best editorial writers in Nigeria at that time. He was not a graduate but he was fantastic. These were the people I looked up to. There was also Peter Enahoro, who was known as Peter Pan. He was a fantastic writer. He was just so good. Every Sunday, you wanted to wake up to read that man. Although Tola Adeniyi and I were contemporaries, he was my senior by one year, so he wouldn’t be like a role model. There was Sad Sam (Sam Amuka Pemu); Alade Odunewu (Allah Dey), and one of my colleagues we knew as Okoye. They were my fine reporters who were my contemporaries in Daily Times in those days.
In those days, you were given what could be called incentives to work hard. You were given your claims if you were going anywhere for a news story and you retired that claim when you came back. If you brought a claim to Osoba, I remember that he would ask you to bend down and he would sign your claim on your back right there so that you could go and take your money. So, there was joy in doing your assignment and there was joy in reporting.
When I was at the Daily Times and I became the editor of Spear Magazine, we paid on the first day of the month. You are paid before you started working. Can you see the encouragement? That is what is lacking now, we don’t have that today. People work without salary or salaries are not paid; people are not promoted and there is nothing to look up to. These were not there in those days. There were 23 titles in the Daily Times alone when I was the Editor of Spear Magazine and each of us had a car, our office and so on. It was the golden age of Daily Times.
How does it make you feel when you look back and compare your times with what we have now?
I pity my colleagues who are now there. They are working under very harsh conditions. I remember I went to cover a story when I was in the Daily Times in those days. I was an assistant news editor at Apapa. They offered me a ‘brown envelope’, I rejected it because I already had my claims in my pocket. I wrote the story and fortunately for me, it became the headline for the day. When the man who owned the story saw it, he phoned Babatunde Jose and said he thought I was going to kill the story because they offered me money and I rejected it. He said he was surprised that the story made the headlines the following day. He was very happy and commended me and the Daily Times. Alhaji Jose said that was what they wanted by bringing graduates to the newsroom. He said they wanted to change the culture of ‘brown envelope’ and he promoted me right there on the spot. So, why would you not be excited? Why would you not work and die there?
If you are to advice sir, what would you say?
To the proprietors first, there is no sense declaring profits year in year out and you neglect those people who make the profit. When we made the profit in 1979, Chief Awolowo came and said the money we made should be ploughed back on the salaries of journalists; they were the people who made the profit, not the managers. So, the money was distributed on our salaries. This is what they should be doing. How would they be declaring profit and not take care of the people that are working for them? If they have money, they will go and build houses in their village rather than take care of the journalists who make these profits for them. So to the publishers, I want them to have a change of heart. They should look after the journalists, they are not looking after them now. They complain that some journalists are corrupt, why won’t they be corrupt when they are not sure of when their next salary would come and they have their families to feed?
To the young ones, I want them to keep working hard. Hard work and honesty paid a lot and it still pays. They should work hard because people are lazy these days, you can hardly see them write good sentences yet, they call themselves journalists. This shouldn’t happen. They should go back to the training schools and work hard. Once they can impress their employers, something will change. I’m not happy with what I see on the streets.
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