This isn’t goodbye

LAST Tuesday, it was goodbye to a part of me in Tribune; the editorial part of the last 25 years thereabouts, as the Lagos Office where I was the Bureau Chief for close to 13 years threw me a surprise retirement soirée.

I squinted as my successor, Mr. Akin Adewakun who I nicknamed Prof., led his team including head(s) of other units within the Bureau, to paint a picture of a near-perfect leader and man that I know I wasn’t and still not, though I keep trusting the Holy Spirit to continually work on the works of flesh still hibernating my being.

From childhood, I never liked goodbyes. Though a bit withdrawn now and not particularly as sociable as before (which is partly due to some personal reasons), I can be very attaching and Tribune’s Lagos Bureau has an umbilical connection to several emotions in me.

The “testimony time” also featured camaraderic revelations of what some colleagues (editorial and other departments) used to say behind my back during my headship of the office, which drew ringing laughter from attendees. One of such “gists”, arose from my tenacity that all angles must be pulled and polled into stories, especially the popular Saturday Tribune pullout; Weekend Lagos, which I edited from inception at the direction of the Saturday Tribune editor, Dr. Lasisi Olagunju.

Since I was always wont to say, after reading the filed stories, “o kuesekan, e je kawasi” (there is still a leg missing in the report, let’s get it), my editing style was nicknamed “o kuesekan” (a leg is still missing). I couldn’t contain my mirth.

The weirdest, was told by my beloved sister-in-Christ, Mrs Kehinde Akinsehinde-Jayeoba. When she was newly posted to the Bureau from the head office in Ibadan years back, she didn’t want to walk into the new workspace metaphorically blindfolded not to be blindsided. So, she sought counsel from another colleague who had worked with me in the Bureau before exiting for a media appointment in a political space. Since they were and still sister, the person being consulted decided to get candid with her and “spilled” that with the way I “easily” and accurately solved capers by funny colleagues, the conclusion was that I had a GPS (Global Positioning System) device ringed into my phone, used in monitoring the engagements of colleagues on the field!

Phew!

The older journalist subsequently advised the incoming to always come clean with me anytime I give assignments because I would always know whether she was attending to them or not.

What! Like an omniscient ability?

Until that day, I never heard or had the faintest idea of the assumption. Truth is, I didn’t even come to the headship of the Bureau from the Abuja Office, that technologically-savvy, though I would count among reporters that could handle newsroom computers as early as 2000.

For the limited but very useful computer understanding I brought to Nigerian Tribune, I had to thank Mr. Niran Malaolu of my Anchor newspaper (now defunct) days, from where I joined Tribune. The now-late publisher, Mr. Wale Adeeyo came in big with technology, but his dream didn’t survive the industry. Malaolu didn’t do us, then-reporters, good by being nice. But you dared not sit idly away in the very transparent glassy newsroom on the second floor of Davido father’s Oregun building, because Malaolu with his un-nuanced

Bespectacled visage, would shrill at you. When there weren’t stories from assignments to key in, you had to go generic or stay with some nebulous ideas, just to pound the computer keyboard away, considering that the paper shot off the raft, doing weekly publication every Monday.

That was how I mastered typing, to almost a pro level today. And woe betide you if there was power outage and the computer you were using wasn’t shut down before the third beep of the UPS. You hear something like “c’mon stop it and shut down my system”. Reporters used to mock the last line of the directive; Malaolu was just the editor, he didn’t own the computers, though some of us tried to interpret it as his way of demonstrating loyalty to the then-fledging newspaper.

Anchor newspaper was a bold vision and so captivated my journalism dream, that I would not resume months after Tribune issued me an appointment letter. The full stories of my formal and informal (the latter came first) entries into Tribune would be told in a flash-memoir I plan on my Tribune years.

I return to Mrs Jaye and her fantastically extraordinary story. According to her, she took the big sister advice and began playing straight from the very first day she turned up for duty. Totally unaware of the “GPS” tip she had received, I just noticed she came a bit different. She was always very plain, though not that others weren’t, about movements and field engagements. But she was always detailed about what she was doing per time whether the conversation was physical or technological. Being very impressed with her transparent ways, I just put the commendable act down to her relationship with Christ and in the course of time, she became one of the most reliable in the Bureau especially when we had to be by the side of colleagues, regardless of seasons and times.

Though the gathering laughed the epic “gist” away, it was still gratifying that such a fable helped to firm her conviction to be straightforward at all times. I believe the surreal story also helped others who believed it. God can use anything to speak to His creatures. Of course, I would have slapped down and stamped out the assumption (all that would require was releasing my phone which wasn’t even smart), if it had come to my knowledge in the course of my service as the Bureau Chief, but it didn’t, for 13 years. Yoruba will say oloro abeti didi (the concerned being the last to know). In Isaiah 55:8, God says His ways are not ours. How He used the myth to everybody’s advantage, leading to superb cooperation that delivered greatly to the system, with several Bureau-wide commendation letters and monetary awards to boot (will print them in the flash-memoir), is a testament to His mysterious ways.

Expectedly Mrs Jaye was at the head of entertainment at the event, providing same support she had extended to me, to my successor. For the gifts, merriment and the item 7 provided, my sincere appreciation to Prof and his team.

When the three Alhajis (title editors) in Ibadan “conspired” to tap me for the Lagos vacancy in 2012 as a form of promotion, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. After Anchor, and with Tribune moving me to Abuja, I had lost the passion to dwell In Lagos again. In fact, I used to throw it around friends that I would resign any job that would take me back to Lagos. But just like I thought at the entry point that my Tribune journey would last two years maximum and now the “first phase” ending almost a quarter of a century, my return to Lagos as a journalist and Tribune staff, didn’t partially come to a close until 13 years after that evening I touched down at Ikeja Airport hotel in October 2012, driven from Ibadan by Mr. Taiwo Adisa, current general editor, who was also going in then as the Abuja Bureau Chief. I remember Mr. Femi Babafemi, a friend of about 33 years, chauffeured me from hotel to office in Ikeja on my first day.

To the glory of God, Lagos is home today and Tribune is still home, regardless of whether I stop writing Gibbers in the Sunday paper this minute or in the next quarter of a century.

I have made a lifetime family at Tribune and by God’s designs I believe, I had the privilege of working at its two largest outstations, Abuja and Lagos as well as the head office. That should settle my resume as bona fide Tribune alum.

Incidentally, of the four individuals central to my coming to Tribune, three are still “in”, one way or the other, while Uncle Folu Olamiti, a grand master of the Nigerian media, who authorized my appointment, is today the brain behind Newspot, a first-generation reputable online news platform. His platform has also become one of the visibility pillars for Gibbers, a column first authorized for me in Sunday Tribune in 2012 (before transfer to Lagos from Abuja) by then-Sunday Tribune Editor and current Editor, Nigerian Tribune, Alhaji Debo Abdulai. With almost 16 unbroken years in the kitty as title editor, the Epe-born stylish senior journalist, is arguably the longest-serving editor in Nigeria’s legacy media space today. I stand to be challenged.

My main recruiter was Pastor Segun Olatunji, then-Editor, Nigerian Tribune, now the in-house Consultant to the brand. He cajoled and baited. He just “heard” me discussing politics of the time with then-Group Political Editor and now MD/EiC, Mr. Edward Dickson, during a brief stopover at Imalefalafia from Lagos en route Ilesa to see my mum, and sent for me in his office. He praised my grammar ability which looking back now, must have been average when paired with the demonstrable distinction of the heavyweights already in the system. He invited me to join the paper, I said lailai (never), not knowing that I was laying a baby who is likely to pee, where I would wind up having a sound sleep, as Yoruba will capture yanga. He “canvassed” me, telling me that life expectancy was higher in Ibadan than Lagos, due to the wide gulf in stress level. When I would not budge, he threw in a bait, when he had likely diagnosed my perception that journalism practice in Ibadan was inferior to Lagos. The man of God said I was afraid I would flunk their in-house test. That was it for me and there and then, was ready to prove him wrong. Guess who he got to test me; Wordsmith and renowned columnist, Dr. Festus Adedayo, then-Features Editor, deputized by Alhaji Abdulai.

Without prior notice, I set pen to paper and left. With limited communication options then, it took then-politics reporter and now-media aide to the senate president, Mr. Jackson Udom, fishing me out through Anchor’s landline, for me to know appointment letter had been waiting for months. Even then I wasn’t thrilled; stalling and walling, but because I had a portion of destiny to fulfil in Tribune, somehow, I took up the appointment even with much lower pay compared to Anchor’s package. Somehow, I showed up in Ibadan. Somehow, Pastor Olatunji took a liking to me, even compelling my accommodation in Tribune’s NUJ guest house. Weeks after resuming in Ibadan feeling like a fish out of water having blended a bit with a Lagos that never sleeps, Pastor Olatunji fulfilled the promise he made to me; he transferred me to Abuja.

The rest of my Tribune odyssey will be in my book but one man is central to it all, Mr. Edward Dickson. He was my friend and brother before Tribune. He was my friend and brother for the 25 years the “first phase” lasted. He will be a brother and friend for life. I owe him friendship. He has an uncommon grace; I’m yet to meet a more agreeable person. This is not an exaugural delivery. It is not yet goodbye.