| How I was called from
editor’s seat to be media adviser to senate president
By BISI OLALEYE
Wednesday,
November 28, 2007
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Kenneth Ugbechie
Photo: SunNews Publishing
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Kenneth Ugbechie, one time media adviser to former Senate
president, Anyim Pius Anyim, is a versatile man in information
and communication technology (ICT).
Though he claimed to have fallen into journalism accidentally,
he has spent the better part of his time in the pen profession,
reporting ICT, both within and outside the country. Today,
he has become a force to reckon with, an oracle of some sorts.
A staunch advocate of deregulation in the ICT world, Ugbechie,
in an exchange with Daily Sun, said IT journalists need to
be more proactive, read more international ICT journals and
learn to be original in their reports, rather than dubbing
the internet, hook, line and sinker for IT reportage.
He also spoke on how he got the plum job of media adviser
to former Senate president, Anyim Pius Anyim, stating, “It
just fell into my lap. I did not lobby for it.”
He credited this feat as well as his meteoric rise in his
practice, which culminated in his clinching within a record
time, the editorial seat of the defunct The Post Express to
“the hand of God.” He also edited Daily Times.
He spoke on other issues. Excerpts:
Beginning
I remember that after my secondary school education, I came
to Lagos to look for job because my parents were not financially
empowered to see me through the university. Getting to Lagos
reordered my destiny and vision because I was a science student
in school, with a strong inclination to become a medical doctor.
My first job was with the Daily Times in1983 as a proof-reader.
I remember vividly that we were 40 that came for the interview.
Out of that number, only five of us were absorbed after a
marathon interview. One of my contemporaries then, Ebere Wabara,
who now works in a bank, sat for the same test and we were
both on the proof reading desk. Besides, I’d nursed
a writing flair since my secondary school days, but it never
struck me that I would end up in journalism. Journalism or
any of the social sciences was never in the picture for me
because I was strictly a science student. But when I joined
Daily Times, and I started working shift duty, I discovered
that I had enough time on my hand to further my education,
even while still at the job. So, I applied for the University
of Lagos diploma programme in 1985. At that time, the programme
was very competitive because it was free. The only thing that
one needed to qualify then was to be a practising journalist
or have a Public Relations background.
Turning Point
My first publication, just a couple of days on the job, came
in 1983 in the Evening Times publication of those days. It
was like I had just been awarded a degree from the Harvard
University and to me, that was like a testimonial to the many
possibilities that were there for me. Shortly after that,
I wrote an opinion to The Guardian, which was also used. In
those days, The Guardian was a must read for everyone and
the ability to get published in the title was a leverage to
higher things.
Rise
I was on the proof reading desk for six years, 1983 –1989,
while at the same time, I was studying for a degree in Zoology
at the University of Lagos. I switched over to a degree course
in Zoology; a science-related field, after the initial diploma
programme in 1986. I later decided to write JAMB when we were
not offered direct entry. Today, the rest is history. It was
quite a challenge for me because I had to be on permanent
night shift to achieve my goal.
After my NYSC, I returned to Daily Times in 1992 as a science
writer. From there, the opportunity came to start an IT page,
and my editor then, encouraged me to handle it. I handled
the IT page from 1993 to 1996, at a period I prefer to describe
as critical, in the sense that people didn’t know what
you were talking about. Quite unlike now that almost everyone
has a mobile phone and a computer set at home. The point is
that during that time, it was just telecommunications that
was being reported. In fact, I was the first person that went
into core IT, reporting computer. Others were reporting NIPOST,
NITEL and basic telephony. My page was clearly computer-oriented
and it was like a double dose because people did not understand,
but we were able to keep it on. And it began to burst. I was
among the first IT journalists that shaped the direction of
deregulation in Nigeria because at that time, the mantra was,
no to deregulation. NITEL was commercialised but there was
no deregulation, so we were there when deregulation came by
virtue of Decree 38 of 1992. That was when NCC was born, and
it started operation in 1993. I was among the reportorial
IT teams. We were in the vanguard reporting IT, and trying
to set agenda for the way it should be. To us, that represents
deregulation.
Three years later, The Post Express came up and I was offered
a job in 1996 to head the Science and Infotech desk. The Post
Express held out a lot of promises, because its pictures were
to be massively technology-driven. It was attractive to me
since I report IT. In 1998, I was asked to go to the news
desk as the Group News Editor. The point is that I have never
been a news reporter in the real sense. I had always been
a features writer and having come from a science background,
the conventional newsroom style of reporting, “according
to”, “he said,” I wasn’t used to.
It was strange when I was asked to be the group news editor
of The Post Express. The news editor then was going on vacation
and was to get married. I thought I would be there for just
few weeks or a month to relieve him. But I was wrong, because
at the end of the day, they asked me to stay there. What I
then did was to negotiate that I would like to continue with
IT, so I began to combine news editing with my job as head
of IT desk. Reporting IT filled a vacuum in me. It plugged
a missing link in me that I couldn’t foreclose as somebody
with acute interest in science. I was exceptionally brilliant
and intelligent as a science student.
Regret
If I look back today, I wouldn’t say that I fared badly
in journalism because I have also discovered that this thing
is about talent. Until they throw a challenge at you, you
may never know what is in you. It was the challenges that
popped up along my path that made me discover my inner strength.
One of those I discovered was the ability to convey my thought
in writing in a lucid manner. Even when I was on the proof
reading desk, my then boss, Mr. Abubakar Olanrewaju and other
colleagues, kept commending me. Olanrewaju was instrumental
to my going back to school and keeping at my writing.
In 2000, I was made the editor. I had a very phenomenal rise
in journalism. I owe everything to God. Some things are inexplicable;
you cannot fathom them. By and large, I think that there’s
a providential hand directing my way. People lobbied for that
position when there was a change of guard but I never did.
The young man, Mr. Ogbuagu Anikwe, who was the managing director
then, came to my desk the day he resumed, probably someone
told him about me, I don’t know. He tapped on my desk
and said, “When you finish this job, let’s see.
We have to do this thing together.”
That night, after I finished with news editing, I went upstairs
to see him and we talked late into the night. I left the office
past midnight and he told me that he wanted to make me the
editor of the paper, that I should go and think about it.
I was surprised but elated at the same time. Thus I became
editor, The Post Express in November 2000, and barely a year
after, the former Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim announced
me as his media adviser, that was a year and five months to
the end of his tenure.
Contact
I got a call from my very good friend, someone I admire so
much, Leo Stan Ekeh, chairman, Zinox Technologies, one of
the key players in IT today in Nigeria. He called me one day
and asked whether I would like to leave my job to do a particular
job. He told me to put it in mind that when he came from a
trip to London, he would conclude arrangement on a project
that I would manage. And that was it. I thought it was going
to happen the next week, but it didn’t happen until
three months later, and by the time it happened, they relocated
me to Abuja. In fact, the job just fell into my lap. I did
not lobby for it.
Journalism
I am glad to be back in journalism. The point is that since
1983, when it all began with Daily Times, I have never done
any job that is not media-related. I couldn’t have fitted
into any other thing. The best thing is for me to go into
Public Relations because it is difficult for me to adjust
to 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. regimented schedule now. Journalism has
given me freedom, the latitude to produce at my pace, which
has shaped me over the years. Journalism has given me the
platform to impart knowledge to the society and I think I
just love these things.
Best moment
It was when I was the editor of The Post Express for a year.
During my editorship, we had a bumper edition that was well-packaged
in spite of the fact that The Post Express was constrained
most of the time for cash. There was just anomie in the system,
which rubbed off on productivity. The paper really did not
take off with the type of bang that people expected. Of course,
best hands were hired. There was no doubt about that. Its
editorial board was intimidating. Unfortunately, the paper
did not do well in the market and so many things that one
cannot explain, went wrong.
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