My journey in Jakande’s ‘ School of Journalism’
ALOT has been said and written about the late elder statesman Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande, popularly known as LKJ, who passed on to the world beyond and was laid to rest recently. He was a man of many parts that no single individual comment or testimony can exhaustively cover.
Though it is said that no man is perfect, LKJ excelled in virtually every area of life he impacted. From journalism ( as a practitioner and administrator) to politics and governance, ( first, as Executive Governor of Lagos State and later, as Minister of Works), he was first class. He left indelible footprints on the sand of time. Indeed, so huge are his footprints that many generations to come will struggle to match.
In all these areas he distinguished himself as a man of great ideas and seriousness of purpose but not effusive. He was a man of many parts: a devout Muslim who respected the religion of others, a mass social mobilizer, and an amiable, considerate, kind and compassionate leader to his followers, associates and millions of admirers around the world.
That is generally speaking. Now, to the chore of this article; which is, my personal experience under the shadows of the great journalist and the diverse ways he positively impacted my life. There is no way I would narrate this experience without telling a part of my life’s story.
It all began 49 years ago, after my two- year Higher School Certificate programme at the famous Ilesa Grammar School, Ilesa, now in Osun State. I had worked briefly as a sorter at the Ibadan Post office and followed it up with a one- year stint as a teacher at Molusi College, Ijebu Igbo, now in Ogun State. I returned to Ibadan to live in the house of Chief Gabriel Akin- Deko, my uncle; still thinking of what to do with my life.
Then fortuitously, in January 1972, my bosom friend, Eric Teniola, then a cub reporter with the Nigerian Tribune, talked me into applying to the newspaper as a cub reporter. I did and two days later, I got an appointment letter to start work on February 2, 1972. I resumed as early as 8 a. m. dressed smartly in one of the few shirts I owned. At 10: 00 a. m., a black Peugeot 404 saloon car drove into the one- storey building housing the Nigerian Tribune offices situated at Adeoyo Road, a few meters from the famous Adeoyo Hospital, Ibadan. The stairs and the upper floor of the storey building were made of wood. Solid wood.
I did not see the occupants of the black car but heard footsteps moving into one of the rooms. Some minutes later, the editor of the newspaper, late Ikhan Yakubu, walked in and met me in the newsroom. He walked into his office beckoning me to follow. He had an intimidating huge frame. He sat down and asked, “You are the new cub reporter?”
“Yes sir”, I replied.
He nodded, and told me a few things. Then, he rose up suddenly and asked me to follow him. I did. He walked me into an office where I met someone in simple Buba and Sokoto native attire. I would later discover that simple style of dressing to be part of the man’s signature.
My editor introduced me, saying: “Young man, this is our boss, the Managing Director of this company.”
I prostrated to greet him.
“What’s your name?” he asked me, his face expressionless. I did not hear what he said. So, he repeated the line: “What is your name?”
“Lawrence Mofoluwaso Olamiti,” I stammered.
“I will call you by your first name, Lawrence,” he said, his face still dead pan.
The man talking to me was none other than the great Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande, Managing Director of the Nigerian Tribune; my Managing Director.
Though a little rattled and intimidated standing in front of this man with expressionless face, still meeting the man for the first time gave me an inner joy, an unquantifiable peace. Then the man peered from behind his thick- rimmed glasses and asked my editor, Ikhan Yakubu, to excuse us.
Now, face to face with Alhaji Jakande, I noticed a wry smile playing on his lips. I couldn’t decipher whether he was smiling or sending me a message. Suddenly, he flipped out a ten kobo coin and said, “Go and buy booli ( roasted plantain with groundnut).”
“But I am not hungry sir,” I said most respectfully without looking at him.
He did not answer me. Rather, he started writing. Suddenly, he intoned: “They are for me.”
As I prepared to storm out of his office to go and buy the local snacks across the road, he said in a soft voice: “We are eating together.” Eating together with my MD? Eating together with the great Jakande? I wasn’t sure I heard him right. I was momentarily paralyzed with fear. But the fear evaporated as soon as I saw him devouring what he described as his breakfast at 3.20 p. m.
After doing justice to the booli and groundnuts, he cleared his throat and told me to sit down. And he began to lecture me on how to become a crack reporter.
“For you to showcase yourself as a successful journalist, you must dream it, think it and romance it. A serious- minded journalist does not go hungry, neither does he have appetite for food. What we have just taken with a bottle of coke is to energize us,” he lectured me. From that day on, Papa Jakande developed deep interest in me and a deep symbiotic relationship began between father and son, with my journalistic father calling me Lawrence, my baptismal name, from that day.
The next day was eventful. Pa Jakande arrived from Lagos around 1: 00 p. m. He got a call from somewhere that the University College Hospital ( UCH), Ibadan, was ‘ boiling’ as workers went on strike and had trooped out in large numbers to demonstrate with placards clamouring for the removal of the Chief Medical Director ( CMD), Mr. Cole.
Immediately, the MD called the Editor and asked him to assign me to cover the event. I went in company of my dear late friend, photojournalist, Dada Osasona, on his scooter. I kept wondering why my MD would assign a green- horn reporter like me to cover a demonstration of that sort.
All the same, we went to UCH, and came back to write what I observed. I did my best, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. I took my story to the Editor; he did not even look at it.