By Banji Ojewale
I have in front of me the 396-page book, SEGUN OSOBA: The Newspaper Years. It is the 2011 work by the pair of Mike Awoyinfa and Dimgba Igwe on former newspaperman Osoba who went on to become the elected governor of Ogun State in Nigeria’s southwest. Osoba himself is silent in the biography.
But he is present everywhere, garlanded chapter after chapter
by those who knew him as a friend, professional colleague, community figure,
politician etc. Both those who mentored him and the young ones he trained are
allowed to straddle the pages to say a word. That the eponymous personality of
the work isn’t brought in to say something about himself doesn’t enfeeble the
book. The writers’ approach, somehow, glamorizes their delivery.
We can also count on the relative objectivity of the witnesses summoned by the duo of Igwe and Awoyinfa to tell Osoba’s story on account of their proven candour.
