A few months after the civil war, some Igbo people who fled to the East started trickling back to Lagos.

My father, who worked with the Railways before starting his own sawmill  business on Tapa Street, Ebute Meta, became the host for some of his old colleagues from his NRC days.

Due to the fact that he was putting finishing touches on to our house at Orile Oshodi, but had no intention of moving in for another couple of years, he gave it out to some of these returnees, rent free.

By the time he was ready in 1974, he informed those still living there, as others had moved on, of his intentions.

To his surprise, the man closest to him among the lot, who was acting as caretaker for the bungalow, refused to budge.

Not only was he not willing to give up the room and paulor my father planned to use for himself, he had also sublet two other rooms.

When my mother and her brothers living with us wanted to form a posse to throw him out, my father stopped them.

Curiously, a week or so later, the man just packed up all his belongings and moved out quietly.

Of course, my father was also a Mukadam, a descendant of the man that brought Islam to Amunigun.

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Make of that what you will.

Despite that incident, most of the tenants in that house are from that part of the country. My father did not use that to stop renting rooms to Igbos in all his properties. Even the two houses he lost at Ojo Street, Maroko, before the demolition were full of Igbo tenants.

While some continue to play the victim card, Yoruba Demons, that specimen of male perfection, continues to date and marry the very best of Igbo beauty.

While I did not inherit my father’s god-like patience in the face of such provocations, I inherited his ability to know there are good and bad people everywhere.

What Reuben said, just like what I just narrated, is a recollection of a single incident.

One.

But the reaction by the people from that part of the country, looks like he massacred a whole village.

Maybe what he said hit a raw nerve because it is closer to the norm than the exception.

It is what the Yoruba will call the Elefo tete syndrome.

Methinks, if people feel truly offended by what he said, all they have to do is counter it with facts.

Obviously, emotions and sentiments would not change the narrative, only comprehensive data will.

So far, all I see is a large dose of intolerance, served in a large cup of righteous indignation.

While some continue to play the victim card, Yoruba Demons, that specimen of male perfection, continues to date and marry the very best of Igbo beauty.

Oops! I did not just go there!

I did, I dey for Indy, come and beat me.

Our people should learn to relax, o jare.

None of us is leaving this life alive.

My10kobo.

The post EXTRA: Reuben Abati as a metaphor for intolerance appeared first on Frontpageng.

I remember those days when she was President Olusegun Obasanjo’s spokesperson and the former president hiked fuel price again and again. Between June 1, 2000 and May 27, 2007, Obasanjo hiked pump price fuel at least seven times, bringing it from the N20 per litre he met on ground to a whopping N75 per litre on May 27, 2007, a few days before he left office! That was his parting gift for Nigerians, a “thank you” for their generosity in making him one military Head of State and two civilian presidents. Maybe it was their punishment for truncating his controversial third term agenda!

Those also were the days when fire-spitting Adams Oshiomhole was the Nigeria Labour Congress president. Oshiomhole led the battle against Obasanjo’s incessant fuel price hike; usually, the strikes were short-lived – like those of the current NLC president, Joe Ajaero. The government’s usual bait was to throw some bones at NLC’s dog in the form of a handful of so-called mass transit buses and other “tiny, tiny concessions”, to quote Britain’s “Iron Lady” Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The last authentic leader of the NLC was Ali Chiroma.

On one of such occasions, Remi came to the plaza and our paths crossed. She said, “Bola, all the things our people (the media) are writing about these strikes are not the truth”. “Iro ni Adams n pa”, she would add. Adams telling lies and merely deceiving the people? That was difficult to believe in those days. But she then revealed a lot about the shenanigans of Labour – how they led strike actions in the day but hob-nobbed with Obasanjo at night. After such meetings, Obasanjo would gloat: “Adams, omo mi ni!”, meaning, “Adams is my son!” But how mistaken! According to Remi, it took many back-stabbing before Obasanjo learnt a lesson!

Space constraints will not let me print all that Reuben said about Remi. Most times that our paths crossed, I usually saluted Reuben with the title of Mongo Beti’s novel “Remember Ruben”! Enjoy this delectable writer! When we return, we shall, as usual, make some closing remarks:

“Ten years ago, Mrs. Oyo left this earthly prison house and transited to the great beyond, to tranquil Heaven at the relatively young age of 61. Thomas Camspbell says, and he is right, that ‘to live in the heart of those we love is not to die’. Mrs. Oyo lives on, her memory endures, and her example stands out in terms of her great accomplishments. She was a journalist of the first rank. She did not want to be identified as a female journalist but as a pressman, and, indeed, a pressman she was, out there in the forefront of action, inspiring younger journalists both male and female in the process. In one of those ironies of life that no one can explain, she was born in the month of October. She died also in the same month, less than two weeks to her 62nd birthday… But hers was a life of impact, love and influence.

“She studied Mass Communication at the University of Lagos and obtained a Master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Kent. Journalism was her career and in this she excelled. She started as a reporter with the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) in 1973. The story out there is that she met her husband, Mr. Vincent Oyo, while working in radio and the two Oyos would in later life carve a niche for themselves in both journalism and marketing communications. Mrs. Oyo left the NBC to join the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in 1981 and rose to become the Principal Editor of NAN. She later joined the Inter Press Service (IPS) and again rose to become the Nigerian Bureau Chief and, later, the West African Bureau Chief. It was around this time that our paths crossed.

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“Auntie, as we fondly called her, had become very active in the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE). Under Mr. Biodun Oduwole, NGE president, 1992 – 1994, Mrs. Oyo was a member of the standing committee but she was very influential, known by younger journalists as “Mama awon Boys” because of her generosity. The Oduwole team presided over one of the golden moments of the Guild…Even before his emergence as president, Mr. Oduwole had been friends with some of us who were members of the OSU Collective… In those days, in the early 90s, members of the OSU Collective were prolific on the pages of newspapers, generating debates and contributing to public affairs issues of the day. Three of us: Wale Olaitan, Sina Kawonise and I were close to Mr. Oduwole who took it upon himself to encourage these brilliant young lecturers from Ogun State University, as it then was… Like all young men, we thought we could change the world with our pens and lyrical prose. It was through Egbon, as we called Mr. Oduwole, that we got to know Mrs. Oyo, and she just took to us as her aburos.

Light perpetual, continually grant Oluremi Oyo, O Lord!

“By 1994, I had left Ogun State University to join the Guardian Newspapers as a member of the Editorial Board. I recall that in September that year, I had to travel to Egypt to attend the International Conference on Population and Development (5 -13 September 1994) under the auspices of the National Council on Population and Environmental Activities, an NGO led by Prince Julius Adelusi-Adeluyi… When we arrived in Egypt and I went to the press centre, there was Mrs. Remi Oyo manning the IPS desk. I saw her at work writing stories, casting headlines, conducting interviews. She enjoyed what she did… I casually mentioned to Auntie that I was planning to get married. She promptly asked me what I would need. I told her I brought some money to buy wedding rings. One late afternoon, she left her desk and took me somewhere inside Cairo where she said we would get original gold. When we finished buying the gold rings, she asked me to follow her again to another store. She then asked me to look for any shoe that I felt comfortable with. She paid for the pair of shoes and said ‘that is the shoe I want you to wear on your wedding day; from me to you!’

“I would later visit Auntie at her office at the National Theatre where she had become the head of IPS. In those days, the National Theatre (now Wole Soyinka Centre for Culture and the Arts) was the rendezvous for artists. We went there to watch films, stage plays or simply congregate at a place called Abe Igi to socialize and enjoy an assortment of delicacies. Auntie’s office was just down the road from Abe Igi… It was not difficult to see that although she was head of IPS, she had a great rapport with the people in NAN who shared the same premises. She moved from NAN to IPS, but she had friends on both sides. She was a doyenne of wire service journalism.

“In 1998, Mrs. Oyo showed interest in the Presidency of the Nigerian Guild of Editors… We the boys were, like, “Auntie Must Win!”. In short, all the boys championed her campaign. She eventually emerged as the president and ended up serving for five years (1998 – 2003). She lifted the profile of the office and was very good at getting support for the media from authority figures. She was, for record purposes, the first woman to serve as president of the Nigerian Guild of Editors since 1961 when Alhaji Lateef Jakande was its pioneer president. Mrs. Oyo performed so excellently it can be said of her legacy that she inspired other women within the profession to take a keen interest in the affairs of both the NGE and the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ). In the West, East and the North, women began to occupy key positions in the media unions…

“Mrs. Oyo’s distinction did not go unnoticed. In 2003, she was appointed Senior Special Assistant (Media and Publicity) by President Olusegun Obasanjo. Again, she served meritoriously in that position, earning her the national honours of Officer of the Order of Niger (OON) in 2006. When President Yar’Adua assumed office in 2007, Mrs. Oyo was shortly after named the Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria. It was a kind of homecoming for her, returning to her former base and reuniting with old colleagues…

“I recall vividly her advice to me when President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan appointed me as his Special Adviser – Media and Publicity in 2011. She said: “Reuben, my advice to you will be basically three things. Number one, the person you need most on this job is the President, the man who gave you the job. If you have him on your side, you are good. You will survive. This is a very tough job. The politics is heavy. She then went on to tell me about how many people would be interested in the office because of the glamour of being the spokesperson for the president. She mentioned names of persons who would go behind her to President Obasanjo just to malign her…

“No. 2, she said, ‘be very careful with our colleagues; they are the biggest threat to anyone in this office. They will bad-mouth you. They will try to pull you down. They will claim that they know how to do the job better than you. They will envy you and try to undermine you… Just hold on to your principal. Once the president believes you are doing a good job, there is nothing anybody can do to you…

“She was right on every score! One of the first things I experienced was what became known in the Villa at the time as “The Gap Theory”. It was explained to me by a gentleman called Akachukwu Sullivan Nwakpo as follows: the Villa is a dog-eat-dog space. You have to man your space and guard it jealously. If you are off guard for a minute, someone would see that as an opportunity and try to do your job for you. He advised me to be vigilant and keep out interlopers.

“Media work was actually something everyone thought they could do, including those who could not write a successful paragraph in the English language… Our colleagues in the media, as Mrs. Oyo predicted, were not very kind either. They used to go behind to seek (an) audience with President Jonathan…”

I think we should end it there! Reuben’s sweeping generalisation is not only unkind and uncharitable, it is also not the truth and it irks me. He should simply have said “some” and not tar everyone with the same brush of unprofessional conduct, treachery and back-stabbing. He would also have done well to mention names like he said Remi did in her own characteristic candour! I, for one, never took notice Reuben was in the Villa until he left! Finding his way back into the profession, he called on me for help which, after teasing him, I rendered free of charge, as they say! I, therefore, couldn’t have been one of his “colleagues in the media… who used to go behind to seek (an) audience with President Jonathan…” In this I am also certain that I speak for many of our colleagues who are in the silent majority.

Light perpetual, continually grant Oluremi Oyo, O Lord!

*Bolawole (turnpot@gmail.com 0807 552 5533), former Editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-chief, was also the Managing Director/ Editor-in-chief of the Westerner newsmagazine. He writes the “ON THE LORD’S DAY” column in the Sunday Tribune and “TREASURES” column in the New Telegraph newspapers. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.

The post Reuben Abati’s remembering Oluremi Oyo, By Bola Bolawole appeared first on Frontpageng.

Abati had, in his October 14, 2016 piece, The Spiritual Side of Aso Villa Abati, published in The Guardian painted the picture of an Aso Rock filled with occupants with weird experiences.

But in his piece, The good in goodbye, in his weekly column, From the Inside …Fridays with Femi Adesina, the spokesman of President Muhammadu Buhari said as an occupant of Aso Rock in the past eight years, he never experienced or witnessed any of those “wild” claims by Abati.

Describing them as false, he said none of them happened.

“Not in eight years”, he said.

Adesina’s piece reads in part:

My predecessor in office (read, ancestor) Dr Reuben Abati, had alleged that Aso Villa is haunted, and should be turned to a museum. Abandoned. True? I didn’t see any of his rather wild claims, not in eight years.

In a piece he titled The Spiritual Side of Aso Villa, Abati had postulated:

“I am ordinarily not a superstitious person, but working in the Villa, I eventually became convinced that there must be something supernatural about power and closeness to it. I’ll start with a personal testimony. I was given an apartment to live in inside the Villa. It was furnished and equipped. But when my son, Michael arrived, one of my brothers came with a pastor who was supposed to stay in the apartment. But the man refused claiming that the Villa was full of evil spirits and that there would soon be a fire accident in the apartment. He complained about too much human sacrifice around the Villa and advised that my family must never sleep overnight inside the Villa.

“I thought the man was talking nonsense and he wanted the luxury of a hotel accommodation. But he turned out to be right. The day I hosted family friends in that apartment and they slept overnight, there was indeed a fire accident. The guests escaped and they were so thankful.”

Fire accidents in the Villa? I lived there for eight years. And not even a knockout exploded. Reason to be thankful to God. A good in goodbye.

Hear Abati again: “Around the Villa while I was there, someone always died or their relations died. I can confirm that every principal officer suffered one tragedy or the other; it was as if you needed to sacrifice something to remain on duty inside that environment. Even some of the women became merchants of dildo because they had suffered a special kind of death in their homes (I am sorry to reveal this) and many of the men complained about something that had died below their waists too. The ones who did not have such misfortune had one ailment or the other that they had to nurse. From cancer to brain and prostate surgery and whatever, the Villa was a hospital full of agonizing patients.”

True? False. To the glory of God, I never experienced anything like this. Human beings normally face one vicissitude or the other, it is part of life. But God equally spares His own. No ailment to nurse, other than things typical of aspiring senior citizens like me. And nothing died under the waist. Lol

Let’s hear Abati again, before we finally weigh anchor: “I really don’t envy the people who work in Aso Villa, the seat of Nigeria’s Presidency. For about six months, I couldn’t even breathe properly. For another two months, I was on crutches. But I considered myself far luckier than the others who were either nursing a terminal disease or who could not get it up.

“When Presidents make mistakes, they are probably victims of a force higher than what we can imagine. Every student of Aso Villa politics would readily admit that when people get in there, they actually become something else. They act like they are under a spell. When you issue a well-crafted statement, the public accepts it wrongly. When the President makes a speech and he truly means well, the speech is interpreted wrongly by the public. When a policy is introduced, somehow, something just goes wrong…I am therefore convinced that there is an evil spell enveloping this country. We need to rescue Nigeria from the forces of darkness. Aso Villa should be converted into a museum and abandoned.

“I never slept in the apartment they gave me in that Villa for an hour.”

Well, I slept in my house in the Villa for eight years. And I snored, even so loudly to wake myself up. So, it’s really different strokes for different folks. And it really has nothing to do with Aso Villa. Yes, sound sleep is another good in goodbye.

The final hurray, the au revoir next week, by the grace of God.

The post The lies Reuben Abati told about Aso Rock –Femi Adesina appeared first on Frontpageng.