•Says ‘It took me six years to find Ambrose Campbell who composed Eni ri nkan he reproduced by Ebenezer Obey’
Mr. Osaze Iyamu retired as the Zonal Director South-South at the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria FRCN. He made his mark as a broadcaster and music connoisseur. In this interview by SAM NWAOKO, he tells of his voyage in the media space.
Tell us a bit of your background… who is Samuel OsazeIyamu?
My background is all about the Radio. I came in as a Trainee Announcer in 1979 but my foray started in 1978. I did the audition and got that certificate which enables you to start doing programmes, which meant that you could now voice programmes and earn some money in the process. I started that way and gradually I got into the mainstream. I was expected to have started from the Home Service, the Radio One. My audition was conducted by a man called Christian Awuzie of blessed memory. He was one of the finest news readers Nigeria ever created. We were many that were auditioned on that day and I never thought I could pass because I was jittery, but I passed along with a friend, Dennis Clayton. Then the wait to be listed in the staff nominal roll began and when it was taking too long, somebody asked me to go to Voice of Nigeria (VON), that they were looking for people. Then, Martins Okoh was the Controller. Martins Okoh too was one of the finest news readers. He auditioned me there and handed me over to Marius Ugada who was his subordinate. Before long, I joined the staff of VON, the external service of the FRCN. They were more engaged in broadcasting outside Nigeria. FRCN was doing the internal. That is where I started. Sometimes they could roster us to work on the home service but most of the time we were in VON. I cut my teeth there.
It was the time of the apartheid struggle and Nigeria was in the forefront of the anti-apartheid struggle. We had the East Central and Zonal Africa Service which was targeted at South Africa and to support all their resistance against apartheid. We had a lot of special propaganda-like programmes targeted at the apartheid regime in South Africa. They were designed to support what they were doing and it was so powerful at that time that the South African government had to start jamming our signal. We were coming from various angles – music, literature, art and so on. It was organised, structured and well-propagated broadcast materials – news, entertainment and other great programmes.
The preponderance of the listeners who know your name did so at Radio Nigeria. At what point did the full transition to Radio Nigeria take place, up to the hugely popular Radio Express?
Like I said, we worked on both sides and do presentation duties at the National and as one grew in the business we also started reading the news. They would roster us to go and read the network news and then gradually, one began to do a little bit more than those activities. I was a restless spirit. Meanwhile, I was a second-generation broadcaster, my father was in this business before me. He was a drama producer. He was the one who popularised Ralph Okpara’s ‘Safe Journey’. My father produced it for about 10 years and made it very popular. They used to rehearse in our backyard. I knew many of those names. Even the Director-General, Mr. Christopher Kolade, was part of the people who used to rehearse in our backyard. I grew up with that, so flowing into broadcasting was quite easy for me. I did a bit of music, I did a bit of presentation, I did a bit of news. I did a bit of everything.
The period you are talking about was when I had actually gotten even far more entrenched and I came up with a concept that sold. It was called Radio Express. Radio Express was a private effort. Radio Nigeria was suffering at that time from aging transmitters. The equipment was quite old and it was difficult to sustain themselves on air. At that time, the broadcast environment had been liberalised and people like Ray Power had been licensed to come and operate. They came in to disrupt what had been the exclusive preserve of Radio Nigeria at that time. They took away a lot of our listenership. We couldn’t really compete because they came with strong FM transmitters, very light programming, and they focused on music. Music in the real sense of it is the lowest form of programming, it is very easy and it doesn’t take much. They came in on the FM Band and they came with high fidelity sound and the audience went their way. When you have to do things like features, documentaries, drama and all those composites, you find that that takes a lot more of the intellect and they were not doing that. They just went for the soft part which was just music and light entertainment. We were unable to match up with them and we lost a lot of listeners. Then, I got together with some of our people some of whom were engaged in what they called “the Simulcast” with Sonny Adun’s DBN. They used to go over to DBN in the mornings and they would present the programmes from there. It would be broadcast on the station and also broadcast on our own station. I didn’t see what the value was for FRCN. Adun was getting first class presentation by our presenters on his station at no cost at all, but our people were very happy to go there because they were seeing themselves on TV. I told our guys that I had a different idea. They didn’t quite buy it because they were enjoying what they were doing. I said why don’t we consolidate so that people can access all our programmes on AM ans SW bands, albeit with poor transmission but that we will drive it with compelling content. That was how Radio Express came in.
They were having difficulty paying salaries. So, for Radio Express, I was able to negotiate with them and Radio Express came in as an independent production and they gave me two and a half hours in the morning. I used the time to compete with all those very clear transmissions of all those private stations. With a very compelling breakfast kind of menu. It was a day starter with news, sports and everything inside. Although the signal was not very good, we were able to draw a lot of people to us and it ran for about five years. At a point, Radio Nigeria needed the N300,000 I was paying every month to be able to pay salaries. Patrick Oke at certain point presented for me. The earliest presenter was Willie Egbe, who was in charge of presentation in Radio Nigeria at that time; and the late Femi Segun. A lot of people passed through Radio Express. It made a big mark. Cordelia Okpe started her sojourn in broadcasting in Lagos through Radio Express. I stumbled on her trying to audition for a private radio station. She made her mark, she was accepted very quickly and Atilade Atoyebi, the FRCN boss at that time, ended up giving her a job. There was also Funke Treasure. I heard her and I thought she sounded very nice; her diction and everything was just perfect and I was able to persuade her to join the team.
Obasanjo’s administration started FM stations across the states. Considering the aging and weak equipment of that era, did Obasanjo’s intervention help?
It helped because we were operating almost in a vacuum; there was no competition before all of that. Before Ray Power was given a license as the first private radio, it was only federal and state governments that were running radio in Nigeria. So, the move opened new vistas and Radio Nigeria that had been reticent, had to do a rethink about what they were doing. Don’t forget that Radio Nigeria actually premiered FM broadcasting before any other one. It was Radio Nigeria before Radio Rivers 2 and Radio O-Y-O 2 in Ibadan. However, NBC started FM broadcasting with NBC 2, even before I joined Radio Nigeria. Then you had people like Kevin Amaechi, Tony Ibegbuna and Benson Idonije. They were the core people who started FM transmission at that time and they operated from a studio in Voice of Nigeria and they migrated to Martins Street where they established themselves properly. It was NBC 2, then it became FRCN 2. They went through quite some cycles. So in a way, liberalising the environment was a good thing. Initially, it took away our listenership but it also forced us to begin to think again about our own processes and what we were doing. We needed to also compete because there were no free lunches and stuff like that. So, it was a good thing, a lot of people also came in. Some of it was diluted too because the standard fell. Sometimes when you over-proliferate, you begin to have a dilution of standards.
Till today you cannot detract from what Raymond Dokpesi achieved as the first independent or private radio station in Nigeria before he now also transited to AIT – the TV. That was very good. It was an important thing because it gave FRCN and NTA a run for their money, but they didn’t have the kind of spread that FRCN had. That advantage the FRCN still held on to.
The regulatory body – NBC – seems overwhelmed. Isn’t there a way to establish a mentorship system through experienced people like you for those who may be willing to accept mentorship?
It is difficult because even the tertiary institutions that provide tutelage or courses in Mass Communication, with special focus on Broadcasting, are not able to measure up. There are a whole lot of problems associated with that. For instance, you have people who go through university and come out with Mass Communication degrees, enter the work environment – say a broadcaster in a TV house and they are really neophytes who haven’t really got what it takes. In terms of practicals they don’t fit in. I think it has dawned on these tertiary institutions too that that aspect of their curriculum is actually very weak. So I think they are desperate in trying to look for a way to infuse practical training or exposure in their curriculum. I think that is where a lot of veterans would come in.
Incidentally, I have been involved with a group called the Broadcasters Guild of Nigeria (BGN). BGN is registered with the CAC and the whole idea came up from one of our big bosses, Kevin Ejiofor. He mooted the idea and brought me into it. He had always wanted me to do things for him at various times, including when he was the acting DG of FRCN but I couldn’t help. Kevin Ejiofor approached me and said we could put something together that would be devoted towards building capacity and promoting excellence and performance within the industry. I told him I didn’t want to get straddle down by it because I saw that it was a lofty idea which would take too much of my time if I wanted to do it. Somehow, I got sucked into it and that is how it started to grow. BGN started from a small WhatsApp group and we got registered by the CAC. BGN even went into what we call ‘Bubbles’ because at a time we brought in languages. Mr. Ejiofor was very worried about the indigenous languages. We started BGN Yoruba, BGN Igbo, BGN Hausa. We also had BGN IT&Technical, BGN Admin and so on. There were a lot of Bubbles that we created to address several aspects of the industry. BGN also went into things like Hall of Fame. We started giving awards to recognise people who had come before us. We had one annual dinner which was sponsored by John Momoh of Channels TV. It was very successful but there was no follow-up because the funding was not there, and the commitment too was not there. We thought that it would have offered us a veritable platform to introduce the annual awards. I think it is still possible, but I know that a lot of people are tied up now trying to figure out how to fit into ‘T-Pain’ by which I mean the difficulties of the current economic environment that we have found ourselves post-removal of subsidy.
However, our biggest problem in this industry is the NBC, the regulator. They are overwhelmed and I think they need to be redefined because it is not just a question of you issuing licenses. They are good at just that and even in that too they have not met our expectations in terms of digital switchover. But in terms of regulating content, I give them zero. They are just not there. We found them at various times being used to emasculate people. They would issue some ridiculous fines for some opaque infractions. A lot of things are very wrong with the system. Recently, the Kano State government tried to usurp NBC’s mandate. Till today, have you heard anything from NBC about it? The silence of NBC is culpable, it is very concerning. People came out to say this or that must not happen on radio, they don’t have such powers and the people who have the power are silent! So, something is wrong somewhere.
We tried to lobby the National Assembly to be able to split up NBC at a time – not this current one. We tried to see if we could get them to look at the NBC Act again and then see if we could get them to empower another body that could help to regulate content. There are too many services that are related to broadcasting. We have accountants in there, we have engineers, we have marketers and we have admin people. They all have affiliations with other bodies, like the accountant has ICAN while engineers have NSE etc. So we need to have some kind of delineation to have content creators and the producers. Those are the core people, the studio people, the producers and so on. A whole lot of things are being done on radio and TV today which are an anathema. A whole lot of challenges are there – if you regulate the terrestrial can you also regulate the social media, then you talk of AI. I think we need to have a conversation and we need to also come up with legislation that would also target this area. NBC needs to do a lot more, but NBC cannot do a lot more because they don’t have the capacity and that is why we need to look for some other ways of assisting NBC to be able to carry out some of these functions. That is my thinking. Even Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON) too is hamstrung because I don’t see what they are doing or what impact they are making to this issue of regulation or regulatory aspect of broadcasting.
Your foray into broadcasting has been a total package – music, sports and entertainment. What are you doing now?
I’m currently working on a documentary on Ambrose Campbell, one of the progenitors of highlife music and he had been playing highlife music in pre-World War II England. All that time, many of the big hands like Adam Fiberesima played in his band; Fela played with him. Most of the big names passed through him, he influenced them – any of the big names you can mention played with him. Ebenezer Obey even reproduced some of his music without credit. Eni riNkanHe and Omolaso are some of Ambrose Campbell productions. While I was waiting to be employed, I used to compile highlife music for a programme called Highlife Time on Radio Nigeria, so I used to spend time in the library there and somehow I got interested in this kind of music. That was where I found out about Ambrose Campbell, his music was different. It was highlife music but I found that everything about him was different – the symphocation, his instrument and all of that sounded foreign, and the man’s name was Ambrose Campbell. So, I couldn’t figure it out. I got interested in him and much later when I started one of the major productions I did called “Highlife my Life” I spent time looking for Ambrose Campbell. “Highlife my Life” was a serialised music documentary which ran in 18 FM stations nationwide, twice a week and we ran it for about three and a half years.
Did you eventually find him?
It took me six years… I went to America twice and four times to the UK to look for him. Everybody kept on telling he was dead but I said no, this man was too big to just die unsung. On a trip to Ghana with Benson Idonije (as interviewers) and Patrick Doyle as cameraman, we ran into an interesting situation. There was a concert at the eve of our departure that featured Femi Kuti and Orlando Julius and other bands. Femi and Orlando Julius were the highlight of that concert and they made us proud as Nigerians. However, it turned out that LaToya, Orlando Julius’s wife, was like an adopted daughter of Ambrose Campbell. She had known Ambrose Campbell from the US and the number I had been looking for, somebody told me I could get it from her.
But, you see, Orlando Julius and Benson Idonijie didn’t see eye to eye. Orlando Julius could not stand Benson, he felt that it was Benson Idonije who helped to establish Fela as the creator of Afrobeat, which he disputed very strongly. Benson Idonije at that time was Fela’s first manager who helped to form the original Koola Lobitoes. So, he had this bad blood, he was very anti-Benson. So, we couldn’t go and ask him because we felt we could hit a brick wall. Then, the great Mama Africa, MiattaFahnbulleh said ‘you know what, let me use the woman-to-woman thing, you guys can go back tomorrow. I will talk to LaToya and get you that number.’ By the time I got to Nigeria, Miatta called and said: ‘This is the number’.
I called the number. When he picked, I said: “Is that the great Ambrose Campbell?” He kept quiet. I asked the question three times before he now said, “who is this?” I said my name is Osaze Iyamu from Radio Nigeria. I have been looking for you for six years.” I was rushing through the whole thing. He confirmed it was him. So, I said I was coming to England the next week, I will come to see you and I want to interview you. When I got to England, I called him. I got Gbenga Adelaja, a versatile musician and videographer who played with Hugh Masekela, who was resident in England at that time. I hired him to go to Plymouth with me to record the interview with Ambrose Campbell. It was a lovely interview and I promised the old man that I would tell his story.
What year was this?
That was 2004. That was when I did the interview. The man died in 2006. So, I’ve had that material in my hand for so long and I started getting worried myself… I am getting old, too. I said better tell this story before I too get too old and get wasted because I promised that old man that I would tell his story. I have gone quite far now in trying to get the documentary done.
So, when are we expecting its release?
I’ve had the material with me for about 20 years, and when you add the six years I spent looking for Ambrose Campbell, we are talking about 26/27 years. All I have done has been funded from my pocket. It has been quite tough. We have gone very far now, I have a team working in Lagos. It is looking at getting people to sponsor certain aspects because I cannot fund it alone, I don’t have all the resources. But I have interviewed everybody, even his widow. I went to interview her in the US and I had to go back to get her consent for us to use the material. I already have her consent. I have talked to so many people and we have a lot of content. The work is going on well and it is even involving some production work in India where you have an established film industry. There are some people working on reenactments because a lot of the activities we are talking about happened pre-World War II. We don’t have any footage of that. So, the teams in Nigeria, the United States, and India are working together with me in Canada within the resources that we have. Hopefully, before the end of this year, I believe we might have something to show. It is good we begin to recognise these heroes past. Ambrose Campbell was one of the best, but when you talk to people about I’m, they have no idea who he was. I am glad I am the one to tell his story and when this is done, it might signal my foray into the world of cinematography.
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