HE had lived in the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia, a wandering spirit of some sorts, as an extraordinary salesman, before he arrived in Nigeria. It was his salesmanship that got him to Nigeria as pioneer head of Evans Publishers in 1966
He got into the book industry from having worked as a clerk with a shipping line in Bahrain. He had ventured to marry a Saudi until the father of the lady found out and ensured he was kicked out of the Gulf. He landed in Tanganyika, now Tanzania, and got a job in a bookshop.
From the bookshop, he moved into sales with Oxford University Press in Zambia. He had not settled into the job long enough when he made an outlandish proposal to his boss who was stationed in Kenya. He wanted a particular house bought for his use when he couldn’t easily find a preferred house to rent. His alarmed boss denied him. Joop was unrelenting. He offered in bargain to double his sales target. If that be it, a deal was struck; he had the house, and at the end of the year, Joop had tripled his sales target. Payment on the house was cleared in two years. For this feat and his sales record, his star spread to Europe.
When Oxford University Press recalled him to Europe to be a part of a global marketing force, he didn’t want the cold or the drudgery of Oxford life, Joop demurred. Evans Publishers, reading the situation, seized on the chance and he was headhunted by Mr C.T. Quin Young, Overseas Director of Evans Publisher and a former Director of Education in Eastern Nigeria. He made him an offer to start their Nigerian office. Joop jumped at it. He arrived in Nigeria on October 31, 1966, and never looked back.
Joop arrived in Nigeria with his family, a brief and a letter. He and his family were initially housed at Premier Hotel, which was the topmost hotel in Ibadan at that time, and a waterhole in the evening for the expatriates in town. From that waterhole, Joop soon raked all the stories in town and in years to follow, he had all the stories that mattered in the country. Joop’s network in the country was massive.
The letter that he carried was addressed to a tall, dark and lanky Nigerian. A complete gentleman. Joop’s boss had met this man in Edinburgh and he had left an imperishable impression on him. ‘Stick to him and you will hardly go wrong’, his boss advised. The man in reference was Mr Ayo Banjo, who became Prof Ayo Banjo, the former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Emeritus Professor of English. The associational recommendation could not have been better or more fortuitous for Joop for an incursion into the intelligentsia of Nigeria. There was plenty of occupation ahead for Joop and his association with Banjo favored him. Banjo remained a director of all the publishing businesses that Joop built to his very end.
The brief that he carried was to gain some respectable market share in Nigeria. With Evans Publishers, Joop struck gold. One of its authors, Herbert James Larcombe, wrote a masterly series in Arithmetic which was used in every nook and cranny of Nigeria as Larcombe Arithmetic series. In his flush of triumph, Joop canvassed the country selling books, seeking out new authors and making fame for himself and making friendship along the way. Very soon, Evans Publishers, a relatively small publishing company in the UK, was in the league of the big publishing guns: Oxford University Press, Longman Publishers, Macmillan and Heinemann Publishers in Nigeria. Joop had excelled beyond his brief.
Evans Publishers was doing well and they made the same mistake Oxford University Press made in inviting Joop to take up a senior appointment in the UK. Joop turned in his resignation. Nigerian soil, water, sun, hospitality and opportunities were too alluring. Joop knew Nigeria to know where the opportunities were and where the money resided. Under Chief Olu Akinkugbe’s sponsorship, Spectrum Books was born with Joop as Managing Director and Olu Akinkugbe as Chairman.
With Spectrum, Joop was now doing something refreshing. He could scent books not as dictated by the UK, but purely as relevant to Nigeria. He published beyond school books. He felt there were so many voices unheard, a book in everyone, and he soon found fodder in the politicians and soldiers. It was a good chemistry. Joop introduced razzmatazz into book presentations or launching. It was an avenue for the politicians or the powers that be to gather to backslap, flaunt money and power. Money was gathered, a few books were sold, much less were read.
Suddenly under Joop, Spectrum had rapidly climbed the ladder and was spewing out bestsellers. It was also a crucible for growing creative and versatile young publishers. And in a short time, Spectrum fell in the league of major publishers in Nigeria. Today, some of the dominant indigenous publishers in Nigeria grew under the tutelage of Joop.
- Dr Kolade Mosuro is a Publisher and Bookseller.
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While Spectrum flourished, a parallel publishing outfit was allegedly floated when enticing World Bank Book Project came knocking. Head high, Chief Olu Akinkugbe exited and Joop’s Safari Books Ltd was born into the open.
In 2014, the Nigerian Book Industry received a shocking directive from the Nigerian Customs that a 35%-50% tariff was going to be slapped on imported books. What! We were having enough challenges selling books and a tariff of that magnitude was going to kill education. Books are sacrosanct in the transmission of ideas, memories, narratives and civilization. It is for that reason that UNESCO accords it a global zero duty tariff to facilitate universal human development. This Customs tariff of 35% was awfully wrong and retrogressive. We were going to fight it. Joop and I picked up the gauntlet going to see Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Minister of Finance under whose Ministry the Nigerian Customs was, going round the country with a few others canvassing against the tariff. We missed seeing the Minister of Education and former Governor of Kano State, Alhaji Ibrahim Shekarau, while we were in Abuja. Luckily, we got wind that he would be in Abeokuta as guest of honour at the annual conference of the Nigerian Library Association.
We made for Abeokuta at dawn on the day of the event, uninvited. When the ushers accosted us, we simply said that we were guests of the Minister and we were led straight to the VIP seats on the front row. No one would have noticed that we were gate-crashers but Joop was restless, always craving for attention and continually waving the programme booklet in his hand to get the attention of the Minister, who was on the high table. Joop was a nuisance. At that point, we were noticed and we were both kicked out of the hall. We were no librarians neither were we guests of anybody. I fumed at a lost opportunity because we would just have waited and seen the Minister at the end of the event.
The trouble is that Joop had a knack for making himself conspicuous. If you left an empty seat on the high table at a public function, Joop had no qualms about walking straight to the stage and taking the offer. If he did this, he wore a visage wondering why others thought what he did was against decorum. I was pained by the miss of that golden chance to see the Minister. A wasted trip.
Then Joop said he had an idea. He suggested that we should go and wait for the Minister in the Presidential lodge in the Governor’s residential compound where he would likely be staying. When we got to the Ogun State Presidential Lodge, there was a heavy police presence at the gate. It didn’t matter. We invented some stories and they let us through. They even graciously pointed us to the specific lodge where the Minister was staying. We got there to find people waiting outside the house for the Minister. Joop unhesitantly walked to the living room with me behind him. We took our seats before we were accosted. Again, we gave them a good storyline that the Minister had asked us to wait for him in his living room. Satisfied, they soon returned with drinks and snacks for us. Two out-laws were feted and I almost choked.
Finally, the Minister returned from the conference. As he alighted from his car, we could hear him say loud that he didn’t want to see anyone until he had performed his prayers. As he walked into his living room, he walked straight into our ambush. We had a ten minutes meeting with him with me making the pitch. He was in agreement that the 35% tariff was wrong. He would join us in fighting it.
Stepping out of the living room, I could breathe a sigh of relief and joy of accomplishment. Now famished, I asked Joop if he knew of any restaurant in Abeokuta that we could go to for lunch. He rolled his head and could not come up with one. Suddenly, he said, ‘Kolade, let’s go to Obasanjo’s house. He will have food!’. Just like that, to go to Obasanjo’s house in Abeokuta without invitation or an appointment! ‘Come on, let’s go.’ I followed Joop.
When we got to President Obasanjo’s residence, a polite gentleman carrying a very mean gun asked who we were. ‘Joop, Chief Joop’, Joop said. I gave my name as Kolade. The man went to the sentry to pass on the intercom to the residence that, ‘Joop, Chief Joop Joop and Dr Christopher Kolade would like to see Baba’. “Oh, my God, Kolade”, I said to myself and not Dr. Christopher Kolade. For all the troubles of the day, impersonation had been added to it.
Soon, the gates of President Obasanjo’s residence were flung open and we made our way in. We were tucked into a small ante-room because there was a crowd in a big living room waiting to see him. I prepared myself for a long wait until five minutes later when the door knob turned and President Obasanjo emerged. As we greeted the President, Joop did not mince words or hide our feelings; he said, we were hungry. Obasanjo led us to table and I used the opportunity to solicit his support on our mission to rescind the Custom tariff on books. He too saw some sense in our mission and promised to help.
A few weeks later, we pleasantly received the letter and directive from the Minister of Finance rescinding the 35% tariff on books. It was a victory for books, helped by Joop’s gargantuan reach across the nation.
One of Joop’s greatest pride was carrying a Nigerian passport. The country in turn rewarded him with an OON, Order of the Niger, a national merit award, for his services to the publishing industry. I will never forget the joyful smile, pure childlike, he carried all day when the Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade, conferred a Chieftaincy title on him. At 94, he would have been wise and realistic enough to know that death could come calling. He chose to die in Nigeria because this was home. He loved Nigeria and Nigeria was good to him. He found Nigeria ever so sweet and warm.
I had called him twice the weekend before he passed, unanswered. On Monday, 10 February, 2025, his assistant and caregiver returned my call to let me know he was very poorly. A few hours later, Joop breathed his last.
Joop Berkhout is gone, one of the closing leaves of the great and colourful publishers that transversed our nation. Joop may not have been lettered, but he was a literary luminary. He placed in our hands the voices of Nigeria, particularly the movers and shakers. He will be sorely missed.
- Dr Kolade Mosuro is a Publisher and Bookseller.
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