ELEGY TO OUR HEROES

By Femi Ogunleye

Lest we forget and we concern them to the oblivion in the character of our society, I hasten to put on records, the remarkable labour of our heroes who have just passed on.

Ebenezer Balogun was a veteran Newspaper and Magazine Sales Manager with the defunct Daily Times in Jos and Kaduna in the sixties through decades before he retired.  While he was in control of Daily Times sales offices in Jos and Kaduna, he was ‘father’ of all reporters of the then most influential and powerful print media in Nigeria. My strength in being ubiquitous at every reportorial  beat -  from our “Oremson Building” on Ahmadu Bello Road, Kaduna to the Kaduna Airport, Police Headquarters, the Courts, Government Secretariat, Ahmadu Bello Stadium, and other sundry news sources in Kaduna and Zaria between 1970 and 1973, was courtesy of this guru sales manager who would grant me IOU (recoverable through approved editorial expenses or emolument at a later date) to enhance my mobility through my Suzuky Motor-cycle.

At that time, after Lagos, Kaduna was the second source of “Hot News” either on Government policies, crimes or social events. The crème de la crème of reporters in the newspaper world were in Kaduna, the headquarters of the New Nigerian Newspapers and the outstanding success of the Daily Times crew, comprising yours truly, Victor Izekor, diminutive but uniquely brilliant Duro Iroja and Sam Akanmode, the last two of blessed memory, led at different times by Bayo Joseph and David Attah, was a manifestation of the cooperation between the editorial and circulation management, of which Mr. Balogun was the arrow head. His managerial skill to keep reporters moving and his dexterity to meander effectively through the labyrinth of newspapers vendors contributed to the growth of circulation for the Times publications in the Northern states and in Nigeria as a whole.

When he retired from the Daily Times, Mr. Balogun became an executive vendor by taking the agency for newspapers and magazines circulation, the job he did until he was installed the first traditional ruler of Ajura in Owode Egba local government of Ogun State in 2011.
Ajura is an historic Egba boundary town with Iperu in Remo land and it was where the British colonialists exhibited their power drunkenness by letting inhuman treatment on a community leader in Ajura which led to the Ijemo Massacre of 1914. The consequence of the war was the loss of Egba independence administered by the Egba United Government since 1893, to the British colony in 1914.  Oba Ebenezer Balogun has joined his ancestors.

Stephen O. Bamigbele, veteran journalist of New Nigerian Newspaper fame has recently passed on. The Ogori man from Kogi State, lived in Lokoja, where he was relocated to following his displacement from Kaduna during a civil disorder.  Stephen under whose tutelage I passed through as a newspaper reporter in Jos in mid sixty, was a nucleus staff of the New Nigerian Newspapers since 1966.
He and I synergized to produce landmark stories in Jos including the celebrated Bala Abashe versus Andrew Obeya sex scandal stories which rocked the Benue Plateau State government and the social life in Jos in 1968. 45 Rwang Pam street in Jos was our local Fleet Street where all dramas and comedies of news reporting were exhibited in our times. The likes of late Pa M.B.J. Ferreira (a close friend and contemporary of newspaper magnate, Alhaji Babatunde Jose) as Morning Post correspondent, Femi Onayemi (Daily Times), Diran Latona (Daily Sketch), Yahuza Makongiji and a host of other stringers, made every day worth witnessing.  

Stephen was also a war reporter during the Nigeria/Biafra confrontation from where he was later transferred to the Broad Street, Lagos’ office of the New Nigerian Newspaper where another doyen of journalism at that time, late Mike Pearse, was the Lagos Editor. Stephen was the anchor man receiving wired stories from a Nigerian itinerant journalist based in Sweden, late Bisi Magregor (later Oluwo Ilawo, Abeokuta and Lisa Egba) about the famous Scanian Bus scandal in Lagos.  While in Lagos, Stephen was a socialite in the midst of heavyweight members of the Moderates at their rendezvous named “10 Downing” on a street off Broad Street.

Between 1973 and 1974, He and I once again met in Kano as Correspondents of Daily Times and New Nigerian respectively.  
Kano is a metropolitan city full of activities that provide topical news 24 hours in a day for any enterprising reporter with nose for news. Stephen Bamigbele (New Nigerian Newspaper), Biodun Famojuro (Daily Sketch), Bayo Adesina (Nigerian Observer) and myself from the Daily Times, were regularly atop of beats for the delight of our readers but the Daily Times often incurred the unpleasantness of the authority when correct but incisive short-comings in government activities and social life were published.  
Striking and undeniable investigative stories of the Daily Times from Kano earned yours truly a ‘quit notice’ by the Audu Bako led government of Kano State which immediately caused my redeployment by the Daily Times to the Lagos Airport in 1974.

The death has also been announced of a friend and one-time boss, David Attah. David was one of the young University graduates that Alhaji Babatunde Jose, recruited into the Daily Times in early 70s as a design to invest in skill acquisition for successful management to sustain the standard of the leading tabloid in Nigeria and widen the business  environment of the Daily Times conglomerate.
David was first made the Head of the Northern Region Editorial team with office in Kaduna. Here we interacted very well and learned from his managerial capacity. He was upright and thorough.
David an ABU graduate was later made the Group Manpower Development Manager of Daily Times in Lagos. After his stint in the Daily Times, he became the Managing Director of the Benue Plateau Publishing Corporation (publishers of Nigerian Standard Newspapers) in Jos and later Commissioner for Information in Benue State.
David who was chief press secretary to the late military Head of State, Sanni Abacha, once, expressed his disgust about whatever perception held about him and his principal. He was quoted in an interview “You don’t have to like this man called Abacha but I am involved…I had come as a bird of passage….and somebody you gave an assignment and you could go to sleep”. Lovable and kind person, David was aged 72.

The fourth in the list of my heroes just passed on is the sage, detribalized frontline nationalist, Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule, Dan Masamin of Kano. Acclaimed orator, diplomat, elder-statesman and a devout politician from the first republic, (Nigeria’s Minister of Mines and Power, 1954-1966), Chief Whip of the Federal House of Representatives (1955-1956) who became the first Ombudsman – Federal Commissioner of Public Complaints in 1976.
He was Nigeria’s Representative to the United Nations in 1979 and Minister for National Guidance in 1983 among other national positions. Besides all these qualities, Alhaji Maitama Sule was a great mentor who stood by me during my ordeal of misgivings in Police Commissioner Audu Bako’s government as a  Daily Times reporter in Kano. At every orchestrated misinterpretation of my published stories about Kano and its governance, I was adopted as Alhaji Maitama Sule’s protégé as he remained my guide and defender in all accusations.

May the souls of all the departed rest in peace.