By femi adeoti AND yinka oludayisi fabowale
IN this concluding part of the Saturday Sun’s interview with him begun last week, former Ogun State governor and All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain, Chief Segun Osoba, offers a peep into his career as a journalist, pro democracy activism following the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election and how he survived persecution and assassination bids under General Sanni Abacha’s dictatorship for campaigning for restoration of civil rule.
He also spoke on restructuring, escalating hatred and intolerance among Nigerian ethnic nationalities, government’s handling of the recent pro and anti Buhari’s protests among other issues.
Please share with us sir, your exciting moments as a journalist?
The moments I cherish most are those periods that I practised as a reporter. In my own days as a reporter, you are given the whole day to traverse your entire world. I was a roving reporter, even though I had the opportunity of serving as crime reporter, collecting police reports every morning; at that time, Nigeria was highly organized and overnight report was a source of news. I graduated from there to covering magistrate’s courts and from there, to covering high courts and Supreme Court, before I was made a roving reporter, with no particular assignment. It was very challenging. I did that for eight years, left by myself, and that gave me the opportunity to be very enterprising. So, those were the good days of journalism.
What year did you actually start out in the profession?
I joined in 1964. When I’m talking about was between 1965 and 1967, before I became the editor of Lagos Weekend.
What distinguishes the reporters of your time and now?
Reporters of today are better educated, most are mass communication graduates, most have master’s degrees. There’s none in the profession that has less than a diploma in journalism. In terms of education, you’re better educated than we were, in terms of opportunities, you have better opportunities, if you need something it’s very easy for you in the age of digital world, all you need is google whatever information you need. You don’t have to go to the library. You can operate from anywhere via smart phone, take picture, email the picture, whatsapp the picture, use Twitter, Facebook; office and location -wise you’re far more developed than we were.
Unfortunately, you lack the dedication that we had, the commitment that we had, you don’t have it, the passion.
(cuts-in) you don’t see those qualities in today’s journalists?
Not as strong as in my days. For example, when there’s an incident, different newspapers would give you different number of casualty. See the reporting of Ozubulu; I was reading different figures. It doesn’t show passion and dedication. If only 10 people died, it should be 10, not 12 or 13. Some would say nine, some 13, others 15. I get confused. There’re sometimes many misquotations. People are misquoted, which should not be in an age when you have all kinds of gadgets that we didn’t have.
Even in retirement, you are still, so to speak, active in journalism. Reporters speak of how as a public figure, you relate with journalists and help them do their job at public events. When will you outgrow the newsroom pull?
Even at 78, I’ve not left the newsroom. I get information and a lot of news editors who are close to me, I call them up and ask them questions ‘have you heard this? ‘What is the situation on this matter that I have heard?’ I’m still a reporter, and I would die a reporter. As I used to tell you, when I’m in heaven, I’ll still be reporting, because information must go round, after all, you will disseminate information.
You have made exceptional mark in the profession and public office, Of these two callings, which gave you more fulfillment in serving humanity?
The choice is very clear. The bulk of my life was spent as a journalist. I feel more fulfilled as a reporter than anything else. Today I still live on my reputation as a journalist. The respect I earn in the society is not because I was a governor. I still have the respect today, because of my professionalism and contribution as a journalist and the contacts I made over the years. I feel more fulfilled as a journalist and as a reporter.
Follow up to that sir, you entered politics and immediately became prominent, becoming governor of Ogun State. But it wasn’t long after that, that you found yourself in political activism necessitated by the annulment of June 12, 1993 election. How did you fit so easily into the role? Also, during the NADECO days, many of your colleagues ran into exile, you stayed put in Nigeria. What gave you the courage, despite the security threat by Abacha goons?
Journalism is a powerful training ground, it gives you powerful exposure to face any travails of life. As a young reporter, I had exposure to the founding fathers of this country- Tafawa Balewa, Papa Obafemi Awolowo, Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello and Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe. Many top ministers of the First Republic like Maitama Sule, we were very close as young men. I still have the picture he and I took as young boys roaming nightclubs in Lagos. Having interacted as a young man with the founding fathers, there is nobody that could intimidate me, or any president that I would feel second rate to. And I had the fortune of interacting with virtually the who-is -who that has ever been president of this country before I went into politics. All the military presidents and governors, from Gowon till today, we are still very, very close.
So, journalism gives you the opportunity of developing yourself, but the condition is that, be yourself; you must be honest and stick to the tenets of the profession, to earn the respect of these people, which is still long lasting for me till tomorrow. So, to answer your question, these exposure prepared me for anything in life. I’ve seen it all, so it is easy for me to integrate into whatever system I find myself in.
Yes, but when Abacha came, there were a lot of assassinations arrests, detentions and general state of insecurity. How did you manage to stay safe even though you were in the country?
Certainly, President Babangida and I were very close from his days as a young officer; the social terrain of Lagos was our field. Abacha had become close to me when he was GOC in Ibadan and I was MD of Sketch. Along the line during the civil war too, I met General T.Y Danjuma as a colonel. He was then under Gen. Shuwa in the First Division. Covering the civil war, living under military government gave me the opportunity of knowing virtually who was who in the army. So, when the June 12 annulment came, I had the choice between friendship and being on the side of what I believe to be the feeling of the people. How did I survive? I would say it is because of the grace of God, because if you read a report when the current Acting President was prosecuting Sergeant Rogers as the then Attorney General of Lagos State, Sergeant Rogers gave graphic witness account of the two times they made attempt to kill me. It’s on judicial record. They spent a whole day waiting for me to come out of my house in Dolphin, unfortunately, I didn’t come out that day.
Second time, they followed me to and were waiting to do their job at the Sagamu interchange, they didn’t want to do it on the express road. Unfortunately, the military checkpoint at the interchange recognised my car, flagged me off, few seconds that they stopped Sergeant Rogers’s following behind, he couldn’t catch up with me till I got to Abeokuta. He gave this graphic report and named those of us who were marked down to be assassinated- myself, Uncle Bola Ige, Pa Abraham Adesanya, he named us. I wouldn’t say it was my doing. For one year, I was in hiding. I didn’t go out, because there were too many issues, fallouts of the campaign that I had to oversee. It was one of the factors, but when I look back, I still can’t explain how I managed to survive two attempts on my life.
Could your security intelligence network have been responsible…?
(cuts in) No, no, no. At that time, security people all over the world, if you get too close to them you’re endangered. Once you get too close, it’s like a cult, you cannot deviate. My relationship with security personnel was purely professional. You know the example of our friend (veteran journalist/publisher) in Ibadan whose son was killed…he had stroke, and died. He was into the security. I draw a line in my relationship with them, I know all of them, but the relationship with them is purely professional. Two, I was never in anyway obliged to them in any form materially and financially. So, I maintain my independence. But, it is actually not all my doing, my wife was very important in the whole thing. She is a teacher, but has become a more professional journalist than myself. The second time they were to pick me up, she was the one who alerted me and told me not to come home. I was coming from a meeting from a place on the eve of Abiola’s declaration and affirmation of June 12 at Epetedo. I decided to go to her father’s house. When she learnt that I went to her father’s house in Yaba to hide, she raised the alarm that it was a stupid thing to do and suggested that I go to my aunty’s place in Abule Oja, she’s a senior sister to Oba Adeyinka Oyekan. She (wife) was usually a guardian, proactive in terms of perception and thinking ahead of me. For example, while I was in hiding one New Year’s Eve, I phoned her that I was around the neighbourhood and that I wanted to see the children. She told me she had gone to lock the door and under no circumstance should I make the silly mistake of feeling sentimental of wanting to see the children and exposing myself to get caught, or killed.
So, you really missed the family and felt like reconnecting?
Yes I wanted to, but she refused. She’s a strong lady.
Is it fair for APC to renege on its campaign promises, especially regarding the issue of restructuring the polity, of which there has been widespread and strident clamour? The government also went on to set up a committee to look into the issue, with Kaduna State governor, Nasir el- Rufai, who had openly declared his disdain for the idea, as chairman. Does this not underscore APC’s insincerity and contempt for the people?
el-Rufai is a young man, who, at one time, was an advocate of restructuring. I think we are getting it mixed up. A lot of people do not know that restructuring is to the benefit of the entire country, and to every ethnic group. When you talk of devolution, I’m shocked that many of my colleagues who were past governors in those legislative chambers sat down there and killed it. We cannot shy away from it. Devolution includes such thing as primary education. For example, in every section of the country, primary education is oral. Just as in Yoruba, we start with ‘Alo’. Alo. What is ‘Alo’ in English? It’s a form of education of the children by the elders, who would sit us down and tell us moral stories. So, in the entire country, primary education is cultural, language-based, ethnic- based, and you say, you don’t want devolution? How can somebody sit in Abuja and determine primary education in Ijaw, in Yorubaland, in Kanuri? They (elders) give you the graphics and the ABC. The Hausa have it, the Fulani have it , the Kanuri have it, the Ijaw have it, the Igbo have it, the Urhobo have it. I have said it again, you cannot be different from the rest of the world in terms of true federalism. Those countries that have been forced together over centuries are at one time or another either disintegrated by force, or negotiated separation. The UK that gave us Nigeria by force is still struggling with devolution. The Westminster is devolving power to Scotland everyday. Scotland is agitating for a breakaway since after British exit from the European Union. Scotland just had a referendum last year on whether to break away from UK, and they lost it by just few votes. So, centuries of so- called United Kingdom show that they are not united in any form. The British and the English, would always block the Welsh from becoming prime minister. They do it over and over against Scottish people. Northern Ireland is still fighting; so, they themselves have not been able to settle their own front. The so- called United Kingdom is only united by name. And when they go to the World Cup, you have slots allotted to the English, to the Scots, those who tell you they are not the same thing.
And then, communism kept USSR together for years. At the appropriate time, Ukraine went their way and are fighting Russia till tomorrow. Yugoslavia, when I was young, Marshal Tito was powerful and held Yugoslavia together. When the whole thing was going to break, Croatia and the rest of them went out and were killing each other. Then, the one of peaceful separation is that of Czech’s separation in Czechoslovakia, after years of togetherness, they decided to break into two- the Czech and the Slovaks. What makes us think that we are different? What makes us think that we are going to be different? So, it is better we set the process in motion rather than wait, the kind of understanding and patience I have, the kind of interaction that I have with ethnic groups right from my school days, (in my class, we had Nigerians of all shades at Methodist Boys High School), it is not so anymore now. And the tolerance I have of other tribes, generations coming after me do not have such tolerance. We must entrench true federalism and to crown it all, the Senate now said INEC should conduct local government election! It is heresy. We had local government police in the past. And that was why there was effective security, with the one that we have now, the so-called national police, Evans could rent a house in a neighbourhood in Magodo, kidnap and keep people and the neighbours don’t know! If we had neighbourhood police, the police would know who is who.
An argument against that, is that local police would lead to abuse of powers by governors who would use them against opposition, among other things.
Do we not have local police indirectly? Is LASTMA not a kind of police? On Lagos roads, LASTMA is most effective. Is that not policing? The Lagos people have started the Neighbourhood Watch. Is that not policing? What you need to do is to legislate the powers, the limits of those local police, to the point they would not be used as political weapon. But you cannot escape this necessity. Nigeria is too big. You send a man from Sokoto to be a policeman in Bayelsa. Can the man in Sokoto swim in the creeks? When he’s pursuing a criminal and the thief jumps into the canal, can the police jump into the water and swim faster to catch the Bayelsa man? Language is also important. You send a Bayelsa police to Abeokuta and he doesn’t speak Yoruba well. How does he communicate? He will be sitting down there and they would sell and kill him.
It appears that the various agitations for restructuring/separation have opened the eyes of different ethnic groups to the need to develop their areas and potential. The Igbo, for instance, have realized the need to now heavily invest and develop the South East, whether Biafra is achieved or not. That’s a plus to them, considering their huge investments in other regions. Yoruba hardly have such quantum of investments in other regions. Although South West governors had been talking about need for regional integration, we’re yet to see serious action, despite the recent meeting they had, to affirm positive action. Isn’t this coming rather late?
Culture and our development are locally based, we are not nomadic, neither are we roving ambassadors of Yoruba. I’ll accept that we don’t go out to invest in other areas, because when I became governor in 1992, the community development council was very strong and they are still very strong. Most communities built their schools, most communities contributed to start electrification of their areas, that is the Yoruba culture. You can’t change it. And when some people threatened to break away and all kinds of threats, South West is, perhaps, the only region that would most successfully stand, in that, we depend more on our sweat. South West is where we pay the bulk of the tax; the Value Added Tax that is distributed 40 per cent to all the states in Nigeria is heavily generated in Lagos. South West up to the old Mid-West, contributes not less than 80 per cent of the VAT. If tomorrow you talk of ability to survive, we have the ports through Lagos State and Ogun State, Ondo State; we have different weather, climatic weather from the swamps of Lagos, to the savannah of Kishi, Saki, Oyo north. Ability to pay tax is stronger in South West among the Yoruba. Payment of tax is what is used to sustain government. In United Kingdom, government survives on the tax paid by the people.
I am not bothered by we not expanding to other states, we must praise our governors, and I’m happy that Lagos State governor has joined the Oodua group. They are doing well in terms of finding a common ground and integrating into a single economy within the South West.
Government’s recent handling of the pro and anti Buhari protests puts a dent on the APC administration’s democratic credentials. We had a case where the security people led the Buhari supporters to the Aso Villa where they were addressed, while those protesting his long absence were tear-gassed, brutalised and had their demonstration disrupted. What do you make of this obvious double standard?
That is why I keep telling you that Nigeria is in the pit of corruption. What is new under the sun? Where were you when we were rigged out in 2003? When the presidential election recorded million votes for the president and mere hundreds of thousands for all the governors in the South West and everybody was clapping and saying that the president must have second term at all costs, no matter how, even if it is rigged? We created the situation. Successive government have been abusing the security forces and using it against each other… I’m not happy with it, but is it new? Have we not been using the police? In Odi and Zaki Biam? So many examples of brutalization of our people. I’m not saying its right, but let us start the reformation of ourselves from our level and at every level.
What do you make of the escalation of hate speeches and anti-Igbo songs seemingly tipping the nation towards the brink of anarchy?
It is failure of leadership. You see, when I was governor, there was an incident where the Oro people killed one Hausa lady and the whole of Sagamu went on fire. I told the Commissioner of Police then to go in there and contain the situation. The man was so scared. So, I drove myself straight into Sabo and immediately went through cross-fire to appeal to people. If we didn’t nip it in the bud, it could spark off major ethnic conflicts across the country; Boko Haram started with these politicians who were organising militia to protect their political interests. And then they developed into something else that the politician could not handle and Boko Haram spread to the point it became a national and international problem in our hands. So, the hate speeches needed to be contained right from the state level, community level. The things are that, we leaders don’t come out, for a long time, nobody of any importance was ready to condemn Boko Haram in certain sections of the country, until Boko Haram was now consuming everybody, both Christian and Muslim.
I respect Ambassador Emeka Anyaoku. He is one of the most consistent Nigerians I’ve ever known who speak about restructuring, about true federalism. He’s been warning and warning over the years, of the danger facing this country if we don’t confront the major issues, that we are now almost going to break Nigeria into pieces. I have seen it all. I saw the civil war. I covered the killings in the north. I saw how the Igbo were massacred, we had done it before Yugoslavia came on board. I don’t pray we get to that again. Our culture is so strong. We would continue to warn that we’re going to get to the stage where we would kill each other; some lives would be lost, before we settle again. That is why it is better to sit down in an atmosphere of peace than to get into war.