Eric Osagie, The Sun
I was not in Ibadan last Friday, but my heart was there. At the ancient city, described by Poet J.P Clark, as ‘running splash of rust and gold, flung and scattered on seven hills like broken china in the sun,’ over 250 editors from the electronic, print and online, gathered to elect a new executive to pilot their affairs in the next couple of years.
I had eagerly looked forward to joining our distinguished colleagues at the tension-soaked event, but unforeseen circumstances prevented me from doing so. But like I mentioned earlier, my heart was fully there, for one major reason: my colleague and friend, Femi Adesina, was in the race for the highest office in the Nigeria Guild of Editors, the presidency.
A week before the election, I had accompanied him in the campaign rounds to some newspaper houses in Abuja, where we pleaded passionately with our colleagues to jettison primordial sentiments of tribe, region, religion, zone etc, and cast their votes for integrity, humility, professionalism and the man who had the capacity to take the guild to the next level between the two candidates in the race. The response was encouraging. As he moved from one zone to the other, crisscrossing the newsrooms, I was in constant touch with him and he often told me, ‘No shaking,’ when I enquired how the campaigns were going.
On the day of election, he told me he was sure of coasting home to victory, having plotted his graph properly. His voice betrayed no anxiety or may be, he tried not to show it. He was right. He won. Not by a landslide, but FEMI-SLIDE, beating his opponent by a wide margin of 169 to 56 votes, thus becoming the new president of the Nigeria Guild of Editors.
It was a vote for integrity and professionalism. For some of us who have associated with him for over 20 years, we are still finding it difficult to believe Femi’s metamorphosis and transformation to a ‘politician.’ Quiet, reserved and largely apolitical, no one could have foreseen his latter day foray in media politics.
With God on his side, his naturally humble disposition and ability to learn and grasp fast in terrains he is unfamiliar with, his razor-sharp intellect, friendly and approachable mien, and friends cutting across the length and breath of the country, I am positive he will not disappoint his friends and admirers in his new assignment. Congrats, Olufemi Victor Adesina.