Kenneth Ezra
The newsroom is the factory for the production of news stories. But within the newsroom itself, many news stories have not been written and may never be written. That is why I take the liberty to define the Press as a group of people who write about everything under the sun but very little about themselves.
One of those unwritten stories is perhaps this one you are reading about me and one of my former bosses while I worked as a Staff Reporter on The Guardian On Sunday. He is a man I regard as one of my mentors, and his name is Alhaji Raheem Adedoyin.
It is said that every person is a product of his past and, all things considered, I cannot easily forget The Guardian On Sunday where I cut my reportorial teeth and honed the skills that carried me over the years. I think I was lucky to have been recruited by The Guardian Newspapers and even luckier to serve on The Guardian on Sunday widely acclaimed then and perhaps even now as the crown jewel of the flagship of the Nigerian press. And that is judging from the exclusivity, variety and flair of our weekly menus. Our title was a revolving, weekly intellectual workshop. Once you were on The Guardian On Sunday, you appear to have limitless access to the inner sanctum of news reporting.
At that time in the early 1990s, The Guardian On Sunday was led by the inimitable Kingsley Osadolor as Editor and Alhaji Raheem Adedoyin as Assistant Editor. Although I had a wonderful relationship with Osadolor being a revered Jacksonite and a Lion of the UNN breed like me, you must pass through Alhaji Raheem to reach the Editor on professional and official matters. It is in this sense that I see Alhaji Raheem as a mentor for the many important lessons I learned working with him, especially the subject title of this tribute to him on this occasion of his birthday anniversary.
I must confess that things weren’t as sweet and as easy as I am leading you my reader to believe. In fact, I had a very rough time working with the duo of Kingsley and Raheem due to the unending tasks and deadline enforcements we endured. It was so demanding that one hardly had a life outside reporting the news.
What was worse for me particularly was that over time I slowly developed a loathing or dislike for Raheem for the constant assignments he seemed to reserve only for me while many other colleagues of mine enjoyed relative freedom. He seemed to always focus on me and would send me to the library to re-check or rewrite one story or the other. Any time I happened to escape after submitting my own work, a query would surely be waiting for me. I think I used to get up to two or three queries a month.
In retrospect, I told myself that the thing people talk about, Yoruba people hating Igbos is true. I viewed him from that angle but continued to persevere nonetheless.
However, time later proved that fate has a unique way of mending wrong misgivings. And the chance presented itself during the forceful proscription and closure of The Guardian newspaper’s titles and premises by the Military Government of General Sani Abacha in August 1994.
As a result, all of us employees were forced into unemployment without even access to our bank accounts and savings except those who had accounts other than their salary accounts.
Fortunately for Alhaji Raheem, he was invited to found and edit the Third Eye newspaper in Ibadan, Oyo state. To my very surprise, I came back to my house one day and saw a letter hung on my door by my friend Kayode Ogunbunmi Muftau informing me that Alhaji Raheem was inviting me to come over and work with him in Ibadan.
After reading the note, I simply laughed with incredulity asking how somebody that hated me would want me to work with him. After a second message I decided to go to Ibadan just to honour him but with no intention to work with him.
A week after, I eventually teamed up with other journalists to start THISDAY newspaper. At THISDAY, I quickly rose from Foreign Affairs Correspondent to Acting Head of Foreign News. As General Abacha tightened the noose on the Press with little room for coverage of important domestic issues, we at THISDAY changed tactics and focused on foreign news – mobilising the diplomatic community to impose sanctions on the dictatorship. I think the tactics offered me enormous media visibility as Foreign News Lead.
And now to the crux of my story. It so happened that one day Alhaji Raheem drove to our office in Ikeja to visit me. What he told me that day melted my heart as would the sun a piece of ice block. He said, ”Kenneth, I don’t know what they are paying here but whatever they are paying you cannot be enough for what you are doing. I have been reading you and you are doing a fantastic job.”
He then asked me a question that completely disarmed me: “Can you now see the reason why I was always on you?”
I was just looking at him more like a ‘lookman’ as the slang goes. He said the reason was because each assignment he gave me, I always delivered, and he counted on me to be around him whenever he determined to deliver results. Concluding, he told me that what I was doing at ThisDay was the result of those assignments that I was being given and which I managed to deliver.
This happened in 1996, but throughout my career, till this day, those kind words of his have never left my memory 29 years later.
If this is not mentorship and grooming at its best, I would need help to know what else to call it. All the things I erroneously saw as ethnic bias against me turned out to be in my favour. In all the places I have worked in the Media and the Federal Public Service, I equally endeavoured to instil equal measure of grooming to my subordinates especially making sure I resisted Management interference and the flippant excuses of tribal bias which always come up regularly in the Service.
One of those I groomed as a greenhorn Reporter later served as Press Secretary to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and another as Spokesman to a former President. I can also report that before retiring last year as a Director of the Federal Republic, I had the opportunity of addressing a new set of government employees at their orientation and induction, where I retold this story to encourage them to accept grooming and discontenance ethnic and tribal biases in their interests.
Finally, may I salute Alhaji Raheem Adedoyin, a man for all seasons – Journalist, Editor, Managing Director, Commissioner, Politician and above all, the worthy Mentor who changed my view on tribalism. Sir, have a wonderful birthday celebration today. May goodness and mercy follow you wherever you go.
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