I Had the Privilege of Learning Journalism Under the Best of Minds

Austine Okhiria Agbonsuremi has kept pt many wondering why he had to quit his early morning programme on Ray Power -political Platform. Some thought he had pitched his tentt with another organisation only to emerge with a new venture. The he ace broadcast

You recently quit broadcasting after several years. Why?

It gets to a point in your life where you have to assess what you have done for a long time and you ask yourself, really, where you take a look at what you have done over the years and you ask yourself whether you should not take a curve. I started journalism in 1986, when I joined The Guardian newspapers, where I had the very rare privilege of being groomed under the best professional hands you can possibly get in Nigeria at that time. The Guardian was the flagship. It was a place where journalists were recruited from convocation centres in order for the Guardian to get First Class materials. I can name so many people who were groomed and they became the best hands you can ever find across all the divide- theatre Arts, Mass communication, Languages, Business. The Guardian made deliberate effort to get them. But I was not in that category of possibly the best of people recruited from convocation grounds. I went into the Guardian as an Industrial Attaché from Auchi Polytechnic. So I was not one of those that were headhunted to be groomed. But I had the privilege of learning under the best of minds, most intelligent of people and an atmosphere where journalism was pure and provided me with an advantage to learn fast and I never went back for my HND full time. I took my HND while in practice and my Master’s Degree. I never went back to the classroom full time to complete my studies as it were as most people graduate and go for NYSC. I did not have that kind of advantage. I had the privilege of starting in a good place and I capitalised on it, learned fast, groomed under the best hands.

What was the experience like when The Guardian was shut by the military? How did you forge ahead?

Something happened along the line in 1994 when The Guardian was shut down abruptly along with other media organisations in Nigeria. I was on the beat at the High Court in Lagos when we got the information that the Military had taken over The Guardian overnight. We rushed back to Rutam House in Isolo and discovered that the place was actually barricaded and we did not have access to our tables. That was the turning points; a very ugly incident. We were pained, we protested and the