Nigeria’s Elections: A Word From Babatunde Jose

 By Banji Ojewale

Ismail Babatunde Jose, described as the “legendary doyen of Nigerian journalism’’ (The Guardian of UK) and “the grandfather of Nigerian journalism’’ (British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC), was responsible for the emergence of a galaxy of talent in the industry in his generation.

*Babatunde Jose

He toiled on the raw aptitude of these young persons coming under his care and, with strategic precision, dropped himself into them, as it were, seeking those who would collect the baton and perpetuate his tradition of unyielding enterprise. They would continue the race resolutely and relentlessly, and refuse to let down cheering crowds and a mentor given to nothing but to see you turn in your best for the community of news consumers.

Jose reached to the belly of the sky to pluck the stars he bred at the Daily Times of Nigeria Group, DTN, where he sat atop an empire, dispensing power like the potentates in Greek mythology did on Mount Olympus. Many have framed him in their narratives as an imperial operator in his roles as editor, editor-in-chief and managing director and chairman at DTN.

This perspective can be questioned and impeached, along with other dark rulings on Jose’s era, if we juxtapose them with what DTN harvested under him. His reign marked the golden age of that media leviathan, boasting such greats as Peter Enahoro (Peter Pan), Sam Amuka-Pemu (Sad Sam), Alade Odunewu (Allah-de), Abiodun Aloba (Ebenezer Williams), Henry Odukomaiya, Tony Momoh, Segun Osoba, Gbolabo Ogunsanwo, Doyin Abiola, Stanley Macebuh, Dele Giwa etc. all of whom, following the Midas touch picked from Jose’s DTN, excelled right there at Daily Times or moved on to replicate the success story nationwide and beyond Africa…The Punch, The Guardian, Vanguard, National Concord, The Herald, The Sketch, Newswatch, New African, Africa Now etc. One of them, Osoba, has been a two-time elected state governor, where, again, the verdict of history is that he hit several feats of firsts.

How did Jose get it so tight right? So neatly knit? So coldly calculating he envisaged a future without him, but yet what he taught would exert a commanding presence in his absence. What was the trick?

The answer is in the process of recruiting your potential workforce. If you’re ruthlessly fastidious at that initial stage of (s)electing men and women of character, you can’t have an outcome of flotsam and jetsam. And Ismail Babatunde Jose was merciless at interview sessions for those he wanted at DTN!

Let’s recall a classic case of how, for instance, he discovered Osoba, considered Nigeria’s reportorial paragon. I turn to the book, Segun Osoba: The Newspaper Years, by Mike Awoyinfa and Dimgba Igwe.

The duo quotes Jose: “We invited these young men for an interview…I intervened…to ask my own set of questions aimed at testing their love for journalism…I asked…’’ If you are making love with your wife and you hear a loud bang outside followed by a scream, what would you do? Another answer I got was:’’ Óh, I would disengage. Then I would take a shower.’’ But Osoba said: ‘’I won’t shower. I would just put on my pants and trousers and go.’’

Another question was what the reporter about to go for an urgent news assignment would do if suddenly his pregnant wife showed signs she was at brink of delivering. One young man said he’d get a cab and take her to the hospital, and after child birth, head for the reportorial work. Jose told the aspiring newsman that since he wasn’t a nurse, he didn’t need to wait at the hospital.

Jose concludes: ‘’I was that harsh in my assessment of people’s attitude to work…the love for work transcends personal conveniences…’’

Well, the man’s inflexible stance in getting principled and selfless personnel to run DTN with him engendered the idyllic tale of Jose and his administration.

What he teaches the Nigerian electorate this dancing and singing season of elections and campaigns is that we shall not get the right persons in power and authority if we continue to hum the hurting ‘take-a-bow’ music the legislators have been dishing the nation.

Every vote-chasing citizen and public office seeker must satisfy Jose’s ‘harsh’ litmus posers, in a manner of speaking, before accessing our mandate to rule.

Will they love their country more than their micro-dot family constituency? Will their love for the work we vote for them to undertake ‘’transcend personal conveniences?’’ Will they be ready to ‘disengage’, dismount, discontinue, and decouple in the ardor of personal pleasure to make room for what gives the people pleasure? Will they oblige the desire of the masses to have their children share the same classrooms with those of the leaders? Will the president, governor, lawmaker, minister, commissioner etc. create the time to forsake the luxury of state-provided accommodation for a weekend at the home of Citizen XYZ and his family over there in the hinterland, where life is playing back the history of the Dark Ages? What will be the response to the people’s plea that no public officer, elected or appointed, should spend their vacation outside Nigeria?

How about healthcare? Will those intending to rule us settle for indigenous medicare? Will they seek the solutions to our challenges from here and not abroad? Will they, empathically, come to the level of those under them? When they go commiserating with grieving communities after bloody kidnap and mass slaughter, will they reflect bereavement and genuine condolences in their apparel? Or it will be the immodest agbada suggesting a cavalier and fleeting trip with no emotional depth?

One disciplined and visionary man looking for men and women of integrity to join him found an unseen future from the seen present, one man who understood that “the love for work transcends personal conveniences,’’ one man who was “harsh in my assessment of people’s attitude to work,’’ has the annals inking him as a titan in his quest and career.

If we want Nigeria’s elections to produce performing personalities, we must hurl them hard questions along those proposed here, before voting them into power. But we can’t do that dining and dancing and wining with them!

*Ojewale is an author at Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria.