•Akintunde Photo: Sun News Publishing

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Muyiwa Akintunde, the Chief Operating Officer, Marketing Mix, is an ‘old fox’ who has paid his dues in journalism profession.

Now a public relations consultant, Akintunde explained that he diverted to public relations for no other reason than the poor welfare package of journalists.

Said he: “It’s high time publishers got interested in their staff welfare. Once their staff are well remunerated, loyalty comes in, the issue of brown envelopes would also be minimal. I get pissed off because during our days, we worked with our hearts but at the end of the day, there is nothing to show for it.

For instance, children of members of the fourth estate of the realm attend third class schools and school fees becomes a Herculean task.
“The belief that if journalists are comfortable, they won’t get ‘exclusive’ stories is laughable. Believe me, ‘brown envelopes’ would continue to thrive among journalists because they need it for survival.”

Foray
In spite of all these, I will remain a journalist for life because it is something I am passionate about. Though I am not into full time journalism now, I still relate with the media. I didn’t get into journalism by accident, it was deliberate. Right from elementary school, I had interest in writing and there were journalists at that time who inspired me. Chief Lateef Jakande, the column of Alade Odunewu and Peter Enahoro (Peter Pan) of Sunday Times inspired me. These people encouraged me and also sensitized the public.

I remember that while in secondary school, I would trek daily from Mushin to Yaba not because I wasn’t given transportation money but because I had used it to buy Daily Times. Sometimes, I played some pranks. I would get into the bus and not pay the bus fare so that I will buy newspapers.
When I left secondary school, I worked in an insurance company as a clerk and I used to buy four newspapers at that time. Even my managers would come to my office to read and know what was happening. I was more or less the ‘vendor’ for the office.

After working for four years, I went to the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ) for a two-year course. Thereafter, I joined The Guardian. Prior to my joining The Guardian, I had a brief stint with it during my IT. Then, The Guardian had a standard, and it still does. I was luckier than my set, because right from the first day, I was assigned to a senior reporter to cover the Justice Uwaifo and Bello Panel at the National Assembly, Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos. I was assigned to Folake Dorothy, a judicial correspondent, who later got married to Prof. Wole Soyinka. I did some reports and was found okay, but I was told that I wouldn’t be given a job unless I freelanced, even with the fact that I did exceptionally well during my IT. I accepted and I was posted to Port Harcourt. I was doing not just news report but all kinds of stories. I didn’t restrict myself to a particular beat, I was doing all sorts of stories that were interesting to The Guardian. At the end of the day, I was employed in 1987.

I returned to Lagos and worked with The Guardian on Sunday. I was working in the magazine section called Sunday Supplement which was headed by Ndaeyo Uko. I would say that he inspired me. At that time, I thought he hated me because there was nothing I did that was good enough. Eventually, he told me that, he was just pushing me so that I won’t be complacent. Today, we are the best of friends.

The only promotion I got was also through him. I was surprised when I got the letter to be a senior reporter, I discovered that he was the one who recommended me in spite of his naggings. He is based in Australia now.

From Sunday Supplement, I was posted to Kwara State in 1989 as the state correspondent. I was also the vice chairman of the NUJ, Kwara State and later became the chairman in 1991 before leaving for Times Week magazine. I was one of the senior writers, and I headed a desk called ‘Back of the Book’. We did all kinds of stories on tourism, sports, people, life, and styles. I was always writing cover stories, all along. I didn’t know that my stories were being recognized. Ray Ekpu, one of the founding editors of Newswatch, had a younger brother working with us. His brother told me one day that Mr. Ekpu loved my style of writing. He asked me to apply for a job in Newswatch. It was an honour for me. They advertised and I applied. They found me fit and I left Times Week for Newswatch in May 1992. I worked there as an Assistant Editor but by 1994, I left.

Before then, the late Agbroko got interested in what I was doing. He got an offer to establish The Week magazine. He invited me in 1994. We started in April 1994. I worked as Agbroko’s deputy and in 1996, I left. At that time, I was quite restless. Ndaeyo Uko had called for me. He was in The Post Express. The newspaper was just coming out and he was asked to become the editor. He asked me to assist him. I went there as the deputy editor and later Sunday editor.
Thereafter, I moved in 1998 to Africa Today magazine, which was a pan-African magazine, published in UK and circulated across Africa and Europe. I went there as regional editor, later became the managing editor for West Africa.
That was where I was until 2004, when I left journalism for PR.

Reason for leaving
I would say that there are many things that were not right in journalism. I wasn’t willing to compromise myself. If you do a self appraisal, after working in a place for so long, journalism wasn’t providing much succour for me in terms of financial satisfaction.
Generally, the pay in journalism is low. At one point, salaries became irregular, which I know is worse now. At a point in Newswatch, when I had left, salaries were being owed sometimes up to 10 months, but by the time I was leaving, we were owed two months salaries which I couldn’t bear.
Life is made easier for an editor, if he has good reporters, who can come up with an idea and write stories. The editor would have little task of dotting I’s and crossing T’s but I realized that in The Week magazine there were few good writers. It was a little better in Africa Today, because there were tested and trusted writers, whose quality you could attest to. But the motivation was not encouraging.

Training journalists
It was during the course of my movement that I felt that I owe the society and that is why I am involved in training and re-training of journalists. For instance, a good journalist must have nose for news, look for anything unusual. A journalist should be a person who is concerned about the society, but if such journalist is not concerned about the society, he begins to look for benefit or cheap blackmail before he publishes a story.
Journalists all over the world are not the best paid people. In fact, there is the belief that if you give a journalist much comfort, he will desist from being good. It is believed that in his discomfort, he gets inspired and becomes aggressive at the ills in the society.

Embarrassing moments
I was in Newswatch then and we had the tradition of selecting ‘Man of the Year’. In 1992, in the first edition we chose Attahiru Jeja, ASUU president then who waged a serious battle against Babangida government at that time. I was assigned with a colleague and friend, Tony Iyare to interview him. We took along a young reporter. On getting there, he bluntly refused to grant us any interview. We cajoled, pleaded until he eventually agreed. He spoke at length for about two hours. It was an exciting interview and we went back to the office, only to discover that the tape did not work. It was terrible and we had to go back and begged him. We went through some other influential people. He agreed. Second interview was not as rich as the first one, but we managed to publish it.

Another one was when I had to take shots of a lion that went wild and ate its attendant. There is also another story of Ikogosi warm spring water. I got back to the office, so excited that I got good shots but after sending the pictures to the laboratories, I was told that I had exposed the film. I was almost crying because I took excellent shots of the lion and that of Ikogosi.
My editor then, Ndaeyo Uko gave a creative headline that I would never forget. I did not have pictures to complement my stories, but he carved a headline for my reporter’s diary as “The lion was willing but the flash was weak.”