Areoye Oyebola inadequacies and inexperience led to his exit as an editor- Aremo Segun Osoba

I won’t say that I was rich but I was a comfortable reporter. In our days, if you were enterpris­ing, you would make more than your salary. Though there were brown envelopes as at then but my colleagues will tell you that I abhored brown envelope

Former Governor of Ogun State, has not always been a politician. Renowned as one of Nigeria’s best reporter, editor and media manager – in that order – Osoba tells TAYO ADELAJA about his growing-up years, his exploits in the journalism profession and ex­plains some of the controversies that have been associated with his name in the industry.
Excerpts:
When and where are you born?
I was born in Osogbo and I grew up in Osogbo. My father was one of the people that devel­oped Egbatedo (Egba’s quarters) in Osogbo. My father’s house is still there to date. Sunny Ade grew up in my mother’s hand and that is why we’re very close. He and my brother went to the same primary school. I was born on July 15, 1939. I used to read star predictions but I don’t believe in horoscopes. I love arts and I used to collect art works until people started saying that I am worshipping idols. There were rumours when I became governor that I had a place dedicated for the idols and that I worshipped the deities because of my love for artefacts. That made me dispose of all of the artefacts. I gave almost all of them out to people.

When I grew up in Osogbo, my father used to buy Akede Eko, a Yoruba newspaper that sum­marised the weekly events. It was a weekly paper and very fa­mous in the 40’s. It was then that I imbibed the culture of reading newspapers. It was there that I got my initial non-conventional training as a journalist.
The Editor was the father of Isaac Thomas, my colleague at the Daily Times. I was at the African Church School, Osogbo. I went to the Apostolic Teachers Training School, Ilesha, but I was kicked out for being too short. When the Inspector saw me, he said I was too young to be a teacher be­cause of my height. My uncle then, the famous Apostle Joseph Baba­lola of CAC took me to the Teacher Training School.
I used to spend my holidays with him at Efon-Alaye in those days. I had to move to Lagos and had to sit for entrance exami­nation into Methodist Boys High School, Lagos. After leaving school, I was on the staff of the Lagos City Council as a Building Inspector. We were trained for few weeks in Inspectorate educa­tion. At that time, there was serious evaluation of construction sites. No cases of building collapse.
How did you find the job and why did you quit it even­tually?
I ran away because the place was loaded with corruption. At that time, Lagos did not go beyond Apapa Road. All the areas of Iganmu and Western Road were swampy and bushy. Ojuelegba didn’t go beyond Yaba. Then, people used to construct buildings that we referred to as contravention once they didn’t have building approvals. The corruption then was to close your eyes for a fee and allow the people to contravene.
My first terrible experience was when my boss took me around and asked us to close our eyes when somebody was constructing a house at Iganmu. Our senior bosses also had informants who gave them information about such building. The following week, I was asked to lead a team that would demolish the building. It pricked my conscience and I told my boss that I wanted to leave the job. He didn’t agree but posted me to another unit where I was to inspect buildings at Adeniran Og­unsanya, Modupe Johnson, and those LSDPC buildings that were built to specification. I inspected the house of the late Peter Obe, the ace photographer.
As building inspector, I would just get to the site and perform my duties. Then, they would even leave some money for the Inspectors but I didn’t collect such money.
As a result of the corruption, I was not comfortable with the place anymore, I opted for my A levels. Within a year, I made my three papers. After my A levels, I was to go into university when Alhaji Jose asked me to come for holiday job in Daily Times. I was then offered employment in Daily Times on June 8, 1964 and that was the turning point in my life. I resigned from the Lagos City Council and joined Daily Times 50 years ago.

How did you meet Alhaji Jose?
My guardian that I lived with in Apongbon, Alhaji A.K. Aimakanju was his cousin. Alhaji Jose usually brought the first edition of the paper to our house. He offered me a holiday job. With the publication of my first story, I was offered employ­ment and sent to the training school under an expatriate from the UK’s Daily Mirror.
So you preferred the Daily Times job to that of the Lagos State Council?
When I was at the Methodist Boys High School, I was involved in the school’s magazine called Magnet. I imbibed the rudiment of journalism from there, as I used to write and edit. I also wrote letters to the editors on issues even before I joined Daily Times. I had interest of a kind in journalism even though my interest was to read Law. That interest was truncated by Alhaji Jose deliberately.
Within my first six months in Daily Times, he told me not to go for Law but immediately sent me to the University of Lagos to go for a session course in journalism sponsored by the International Press Institute (IPI) in collabora­tion with UNILAG. IPI had a school of journalism in Kenya, two expatriates were sent down to UNILAG to train journalists.
I was picked by Alhaji Jose as a cub reporter with experienced journalists for the programme. When I came back, within a year and half, I was sent to UK for a session at the Commonwealth Press Union. That changed my life and made me to devote my life to journalism.
Which beat did you cover when you started journalism?
In our days, we started with what we called Police report as we used to go to the Police station every morning. They used to have overnight report of cases, so I started with crime reporting. From crime reporting to magistrate’s court, and then to high court and within a year I was moved to the parliament. In my time, you had to gradu­ate as a reporter from a stage to another.
I covered the parliament in my first year in journalism at the Tafawa Balewa where I had close interaction with the likes of Maitama Sule, one of the young­est ministers then; Chief Okotie Eboh, Matthew Mbu, Tafawa Balewa, Adeniran Ogunsanya and so many parliamentarians and ministers. From the parlia­ment, I was posted to the politi­cal desk.
I was fortunate to cover the likes of President Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sardauna of Sokoto and Obafemi Awolowo before the coup of 1966.


What about the emergency years? What was your level of participation as a journalist? Full participation!
As a young reporter, during the 1964 federal election I was posted to Ogbo­moso to cover S.L. Akintola, the then Premier and Dr Christo­pher Adeoye who was also from Ogbomoso and contesting under the banner of the Action Group.
Interestingly, I went to stay with Dr Adeoye because I had my leaning towards Action Group. Then, they had UPGA (United Progressives Grand Alliance), an alliance between NCNC and AG. Suddenly, they decided to boycott the 1964 election. I argued with him not to boycott it, but he had to obey the party’s instruction.
In the West, there was total boycott. Opara and co in the East went ahead with the election. That was the beginning of the first crisis in Nigeria because the minority that did not have the support of the people became parliamentarians in the West. Awolowo was then in prison. When Awolowo came out from prison, he told me how he kept sending messages to them not to boycott that election.
Who then gave them the au­thority to boycott the election since Awolowo as the leader was not in support of it?
Adegbenro was the party leader at that time. Awolowo was in jail. It was an agreement between Adegbenro and Opara.
As a reporter then, were you involved in any life-threatening situation or dangerous assignment during the crisis?
The real crisis started after the Western region election in 1965 when the NNDP called Demo massively rigged the election. I was posted to Abeokuta. I stayed with Soji Odunjo the son of late J. F. Odunjo the man who wrote Alawiye. I stayed with him in Ibara, Abeokuta.
It was my first experience of deep investigative journalism. We linked up with the Po­lice. Then, we had the Post and Telegraph department (P & T), it was the period of analog telephone system. There was one district officer in Abeokuta called Justin.
The Premier, the late Akintola, used to call him Justin. Akintola gave Justin instruction on what to do and how to rig the election. Any­time Akintola called Justin, the people at the exchange would linked me up with the telephone at Soji Odunjo’s house and I would listen to all their conver­sations as if it were a conference call.
Then, I eavesdropped on the Premier’s conversation and I knew all their game plans. I was involved in that election in which the NNDP rigged against the wishes of the masses and that led to the major crisis in the Western region then, which led to the popular Operation We ti e.
How did you secure the con­fidence of staff at the P & T?
Chief Kehinde is still alive, though an old man now. He can bear witness to some of these facts.
Daily Times at that time was a very deep paper that ensured that its reports were concise and first class. For me, I didn’t drink and I didn’t smoke but I socialised a lot. That helped me a lot during my days as a reporter. It made me to become close to a lot of people who would see me and say, Daily Times reporter!’ I gave them my telephone number and they easily linked up with me.
More so, they approached Action Group because they were not happy with what was happening in the society as at then.
There was massive support for Action Group from the public servants against the DEMO people.

How did you come by a personal telephone as at that time?
I’m a communication man. Ask any of my friends, if you phone me even as a governor, I will return your calls. Even now, if you call and I miss your call, I will call you back.
The aware­ness has been with me for a long time. I have deep interest in Communication a long time ago. Moreso, as a media man, I saw it as a tool to enhance my job then. It was a novelty then but I applied and got a phone because I saw it as a young reporter that I needed it. I got my telephone in my first year as a reporter.
At a point in time, Alhaji Jose made me a reporter at large, no specific beat because he discovered that I was a mobile person. Then, I bought a Vespa which was like a car.
Then, I developed my contacts and nurtured them. There were stories that you were possibly the only reporter with a telephone in the whole country. Yes, I was living in a room with a telephone. The number is 3003. I was fortunate.

Does it not show that you were a rich reporter as at that time? Does that mean that the brown envelope syndrome assisted you in being a rich reporter?

I won’t say that I was rich but I was a comfortable reporter. In our days, if you were enterpris­ing, you would make more than your salary. Though there were brown envelopes as at then but my colleagues will tell you that I abhored brown envelope.
There was an election into NUJ Presidency, I led the campaign against the man who was the master collector of brown envelope and we brought up a dark horse in the person of late Mike Pearse who just came from Kaduna to Lagos. He defeated the man who had been in Lagos because we supported him, we strongly campaigned against the idea of brown envelope. We used that to campaign against him as the man was called, “Baba brown envelope”. Mike Pearse, an underdog who came from New Nigeria, Kaduna, won that election and became the National President.
I can speak confidently that despite the fact that there were brown envelopes then, from Sardauna to Okotie Eboh, Awolowo, Azikiwe, Balewa and so many others, as close as I was to them, I never asked them for any favour or help because we were trained by Alhaji Jose to be confident and professional about our job. If you are good on a job, you will be comfortable. He had a system of giving you bonus if you had good stories. I was getting a lot of scoops and exclusive stories, so I was getting a lot of bonuses. Every week, we had a pink sheet, it was our claims sheet. Every Friday, based on our performance, the editor would approve it. So, we had extra money in our pockets for the weekend.
As time went on, apart from my job at Daily Times, I was correspondent for the BBC, American Associated Press and Newsweek, and I was making foreign exchange from these areas. I wrote to Daily Times to take permission before embarking on it.
What I was giving to those organisations was not in conflict with my work in DAILY TIMES. Alhaji Jose encouraged me and others to grow unfettered using our abilities and talents.
How did you become the editor of Daily Times?
It was on the day of a coup. I got a call from my military friends that I should put on my radio. As I turned it on, I heard General Joe Garba announcing the overthrow of Gen. Gowon. I quickly dressed up and went straight to the office. I was the first to get to the office around 6.30am. Alhaji Jose came in shortly after from Ikoyi.
Then, I was Deputy Editor to Areoye Oyebola. Alhaji Jose and I started working on the produc­tion of the paper for the day. We had Evening Times at that time. I was monitoring the radio while Alhaji Jose was editing and cast­ing the headlines. By the time we were about finishing produc­tion, Oyebola came in and Alhaji Jose was already furious and bitter. When Oyebola greeted him, Jose didn’t answer, and by 12.30pm to 1.00pm we were through with the production. I went back home after the pro­duction to eat and take my bath.
All telephone exchanges on the island were cut off, while tele­phones exchanges in other part of the country were working. Then I contacted General Abi­soye who was my source, I now had his permission to reveal my source of information at that time. He was at Army Barracks, Yaba and he told me that he had just returned from a meeting of top Army officers in Dodan Bar­racks. He asked me to meet him. I drove immediately to his house in Army Barracks Yaba. He told me the story of what had happened, that all the Service Chiefs and the head of Police, the Chief of Staff and his deputy had been dismissed.
He then joked that you people in Daily Times have been harassing Gen Murtala. He has now been appointed as the new ‘Ah,Head of State, go and face him now. Before the appointment, Murtala was the Minister of Communication. He had just awarded a contract of ITT to Chief Abiola. The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, one Chief Akindele had written in opposition to the contract; that the Minister exceeded his power. Those were the days of courageous civil servants.
He stated that the Minister awarded the contract without going through the normal channel. He awarded the contract not because he was corrupt but because he wanted things to move fast.
General Abisoye was Minister of Health, General Obasanjo was Minister of Works, while Papa Edwin Clark was in charge of Information.
I was worried and I asked him how much of the information he gave me I could use. He told me that I should use my discretion. He however promised that if I ran into trouble, he would stand by me. I left his house around 5.30pm. I drove back to the office but met an empty office as the editor had dismissed everybody on the excuse that there was curfew and that everybody should go home before the curfew started. By the time I got to the office, the cur­few had started and there was no way I could contact anybody.
All around Kakawa were heavily armed and fierce-looking military men. On the island, the telephone had been cut-off. I was in a dilemma. In Lagos, night clubs were still running but once you were inside a club house, you couldn’t go out again.
Then, I remember during the civil war how as a young reporter despite the permanent curfew we were able to move around. What we did then was to go along with copies of our papers. Whenever we got to a check point, we would give copies to the soldiers, they would hail us and allow us passage. We were given exemption.
I went to the production room and collected about 50 copies of the paper and started giving it to the soldiers. At that time, Alhaji Jose as the Managing Director was also the Editorial Director; that is, the Editor In Chief. He used to meet with all of us every Monday so we had direct access to him. I decided that the best option was to drive from Kakawa to Ikoyi to take his permission to change the front page of the paper.
When I got there, I told him that this is the story I have from a reliable source. Then, I couldn’t tell him my source. Later before he died, I did tell him my source because General Abisoye had given me permission to do so.

When he heard the news, Alhaji Jose followed me back to the office, and we both worked on the story. As the lead story, my story was full. The following day, because there was tension in the country, around 9am or so when Murtala came on air as the new Head of State.
What we had be­fore then was just the Joe Garba statement. It would have been terrible if we did not publish the story because the curfew was only in Lagos.
At Ibadan, there was Sketch, Observer in Benin, Chronicle in Calabar, Tide in Port Harcourt, Star in Enugu, Herald in Ilorin, New Nigeria in Kaduna. All the other papers published the broadcast of Murtala, what that means is that if I hadn’t gone back to the office, Daily Times would not have published the Murtala story.
The extract I got from General Abisoye made our story juicier and bigger than the other media houses. We didn’t finish production until 4am. We slept in the office because it was too late for us to go home. We had to wait until after the curfew before I could go home the following day.
That led to Alhaji Jose calling the Board of Directors which led to the change.

But your predecessor has always accused you of stab­bing him in the back
It is a good excuse for him. The problem with him is that he did not have the practical knowledge of newspapering. If he did, he would not have ordered that the paper should be closed during that period. I will give you an ex­ample. The first day I discovered Tafawa Balewa’s body, I went to Peter Enahoro’s house but he had gone out. I kept the story till the following day, Saturday morning, to give to Peter Ochuko who was the Acting Sunday Editor.
Alhaji Jose told me then as a young reporter in 1966 that when I didn’t see my editor, why didn’t I come to him as the Editorial Director who would have decided what to do with the story. He ordered me to go back to the site where I saw the corpse with Peter Obe but on getting there, the corpse had been evacuated.
Secondly, the practice in Daily Times was that there was always a Night Editor with a reporter. I used to sleep in the office with someone from the sub desk dur­ing the war to cover events that might happen at night. I and Idowu Sobowale were used to staying back to cover events which was the way we were able to get exclusives those days. An example was the Dick Tiger fight that we volunteered to stay back and it fell around 4am Nigerian time, our paper was the only paper that carried the story.
I was surprised that people who were experienced in newspapering, like Mike Alabi, Aofolaju, Chief Ola and others agreed with the editor to close the paper when the normal prac­tice was that some people should stay behind to monitor events.
Lade Bonuola is still alive, he went to the Human Resources Director to make fund available so that they could buy snacks and some people could stay be­hind. The man said he couldn’t overrule the editor’s decision.
Bonuola as a season journalist at the sub desk was wondering how an editor could order the newspaper shut. It shows that he lacked experience.
If he said be­trayal, he should have attributed it to his inadequacies and inexperience. He was advised but he refused to heed advice. I became editor after that incident.
How did you become the Managing Editor of Herald?
As a result of my appoint­ment, there was crisis in Daily Times. I had a friend then, S. B. Awoniyi who called me and said if there is crisis over your ap­pointment why not leave the pa­per and help us to revive Herald? I told him that I could not leave Daily Times in crisis; it would be as if I was abandoning the ship. More so, I was reluctant because I could not imagine a sociable person like me going to live in Ilorin, a semi-rural capital.
I was at an editorial conference pre­paring for the day’s work when it was announced on the radio that I had been appointed as the General Manager of Herald. I went with my wife the following day. I was not happy but I had to go.
It was my first major experience in newspaper management. As God would have it, Peter Ajayi and I were able to turn it around. It became a serious challenge for other newspapers. We made a success of Herald.
How did you leave Herald?
Col. Taiwo gave us free hand but when Major Inih came in, he wanted to be editing the paper. He was meddling in the edito­rial affairs. One day, he sacked the editor, Peter Ajayi because he said that we were not from Kwara. He had forgotten that my mother was from Kwara.
Since I was on secondment, I called La­gos that I was returning to Daily Times. Obasanjo got wind of the story, and he ordered him to return the editor. That was how an editor sacked in the morning was returned to his post before nightfall.
Eventually, he was sacked and Peter took them to court. I, as the GM, gave evi­dence against my company that he did nothing to deserve the sack. The late Justice Kawu gave judgement in favour of Peter.
I decided after the case to leave Herald and return to Daily Times. Dele Cole was in charge then, they could not find a suitable place to fix me, Alex Ibru and I decided to start work on The Guardian. Before The Guardian came out, there was vacancy in Sketch, I applied and got the job.
Before getting to Sketch, there was crisis as I was touted as Awolowo’s boy. Obasanjo stopped the job, but un­fortunately for him, Awolowo’s party won the three states that controlled Sketch and as they were sworn in, I was asked to re­sume based on my earlier letter of appointment.
The saying in some quar­ters is that you thrive in crisis and that people are not surprised about the crisis in APC in Ogun?
A successful life is full of ups and down. The top of the moun­tain and the valley. Ebenezer Obey summarises it that it can’t be sunny all the time, there will be cloud. No matter how beauti­ful your life is, there will be time for sorrow. Life is dynamic. A successful man must go through fire, must go through crisis.