Among the students who were admitted to study mass communication at the University of Lagos in 1985, that’s more 38 years ago is an elderly Colman Obasi.
Everything about him indicated he was indeed, above the rest of us, as he was elderly: in carriage and mature with depth class contributions.
He exuded maturity, experience and confidence to the extent that many of our lecturers then recognised him as not just ordinary student.
For a class that the average student was mid 20s, he was far above many of us like me who was barely 19 even as a direct entry student, having done two years of GCE A Level before qualifying for admission.
It was a class that paraded the Channels News boss, then a big name on NTA Network News. We babies in class were proud to have the likes of Elder Colman Obasi and John Momoh as our class frontliners and, readily and easily, we deferred to them as elders of our set.
To this day, that set is still strong and cohesive as we daily engage each other frankly and robustly on our whatsapp group. We also take time to celebrate one another in our moments of joy.
The Azu Ishiekwene, the MD of the Leadership is the man we unanimously adopted to be coordinating us.
It’s always fun to contribute to our whatsapp group. Elder Obasi is most active in that whatsapp group, coming from or adopting an unconventional approach, like a Devil Advocate to interrogate public issues of the Nigerian nation state. Many of us may not like his approach, but it always afforded us the opportunity to appreciate or understand better the concern of some Nigerians on the fibre of the Nigerian polity and public management and leadership in the country. For me personally, when he reacts to my post, I’m always encouraged to dig deeper in my rejoinder to his contribution.
Recently, I dropped a piece and shared it widely. It was titled Mass Media at the Crossroads of patriotism and Professionalism: The Complexities of Telling Our Stories. The piece is the second instalment of a paper I was to present at a plenary during the Asia Media Summit in New Delhi, India few years back.
Elder Obasi was most illuminating in a lengthy rejoinder he fired: on my treatise. He wrote:
@Abdulwarees, President Olusegun Obasanjo told a lie why Muritala/Obasanjo acquired Daily Times Newspapers on the pretense that they wanted to use it to carry out a revolution in Nigeria. He lied to Nigerians.
Obasanjo said that the real reason was that Daily Times was the only “Institution.” The military was “afraid” in Nigeria.
That they were afraid of Daily Times “opposing editorials” because it could bring down any government.
Those editorials were written by journalists like you and I. Ok.
Today it is journalists like you and I lead oppositions against such Daily Times editorials. Look at what happened to Rufai Oseni for expressing his views/style using Arise TV as a medium.
He was abused and condemned among us on this platform.
Yet those Politicians that organised the opposition against his style of broadcast journalism did not show us alternative style Rufai should have adopted for public debate or agenda settings.
Today if they are changes in journalism practices, I believe the Nigerian Guild of Editors NGE, have a role to set the new standard as a profession.
The various schools of journalism also have a role to interpret those standards for journalism education.
But what do we have? We have journalism that politicians determine who becomes the president of Nigeria Union of Journalists and NGE.
We have journalism schools in which politicians determine the school curriculum. We have MCAA that have no defined role to protect the profession even in UNILAG to start with.
So no matter how lengthy your piece on the subject is, nothing will change. All the stories you told so far have never said anything on the “influence of big brown envelopes” on journalism in Nigeria.
I heard that it comes these days in the form houses, journalists Estate, etc.
Let NUJ and NGE draw up a criteria on the practice of journalism in Nigeria. AFRICA will follow if they see that Nigeria is doing well. (End)
While I appreciated and was highly impressed by his illuminating rejoinder, I replied him tersely as I also shared my past interventions on issues he raised:
You, elder, trained in the craft too. You have a stake in revolutionising the profession. I’ve written about the tragedy too. Join in the campaign
https://mediacareerng.org/2023/08/18/before-mercenaries-mess-up-our-media/
https://tribuneonlineng.com/the-ideal-journalist-as-artist-and-missionary/