By Benjamin Omoniyi

What better way to look back at a profession that has brought one fame and satisfaction other than to document one’s exploits?

It is, therefore, no surprise that Olufemi Oluwole, a journalist par excellence, has decided to publish his memoir, The Acts of Men, to, among others, share with the world how, through his pen, he was able to make positive impact for humanity sake.

Or how else can one describe the input of a journalist to the revelation that tele-evangelists were engaging in ‘miracles stories’, which forced the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) to blacklist some preachers, while the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) also banned programmes showing miracles by religious leaders on most public television stations.

Or even how his medium, New Treasure, gave inkling that the military junta of the day murdered the presumed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election in detention on July 17, 1998, after a cup of tea.

What about the cover story that was said to have angered Aso Rock (and President Olusegun Obasanjo himself), where Oluwole’s medium reported the president’s travelling spree in what was said to be an ‘economic and investment’ drive that had cost the country over N48 billion. The title of that report, ‘How President Obasanjo wasted N48bn in his first six months,’ is sure to give any leader ‘political headache’, so OBJ’s reaction was not unexpected.

While these are some of the works through which directly or indirectly the author was privileged to be a part of, he, however, didn’t find himself at that enviable height in his profession by accident.

The early chapters of the book take the reader back to how Oluwole began mastering stringing of words together, while even in secondary school to make a nice read.

He recollects that during his primary and secondary school days, his drawing books were the most important contents of his school pack. He says, “I usually filled them up with cartoon characters, and then circulate them as story books among my classmates for their delights”. And this God-given talent won him several accolades, especially on kiddies’ pages of major newspapers, including National Concord (mini-Concord column published on Fridays) and Daily Times.

In fact, during his secondary school days, Oluwole began visiting media organisations around Lagos, trying to get them to use any of his cartoons, and he was barely 15 years of age. It was during that period that Life Mirror, a weekly health magazine, offered him something like a job, but unfortunately, “it was the week that the first series of my cartoons came out that the publication went underground.”

That, however, didn’t deter him, as he kept sending his cartoons to several other media organisations, hoping to be given a chance, until he got a letter from Healthcare magazine for an interview.

In the first chapter, Oluwole details his exploits at Healthcare magazine. This is so interesting because he was just 16 years at that time and was barely out of secondary school when the publisher, Dr Bola Olaosebikan, offered him his first job, and it was there he learnt the rudiments of journalism.

At Healthcare magazine, Oluwole traversed every area of journalism – advert, circulation, marketing, production, graphics and design, and editorial. He recalls that by the time he was 19, he had covered many distances on foot looking for adverts in companies like AJ Seward (now part of Unilever) and agencies like LTC Advertising, Lintas, among others. His determination in sourcing for adverts and getting it came to the fore during an encounter he had with one Mr Safdar, an Indian at Lever Brothers (now Unilever Nigeria), Dockyard Road, Apapa, Lagos.

Oluwole recounts: “A new soap, Dove, just came to town, and the adverts adorned pages of major lifestyle magazines. Olaosebikan instructed that I must get one of those advert insertions or else… “So, after three days of loitering around his office, Mr Safdar gave me an audience. I burst into tears in his office. I was only 18 then. I explained that I needed the advert or else I would be out of job. Out of pity, he obliges and I almost had an accident in celebration of that breakthrough. A full-colour advert for Dove soap in two editions of Healthcare magazine.”

Oluwole, however, says, “I left Healthcare in 1997 after I was convinced that Olaosebikan would not see me beyond the young secondary school boy he allowed to show his writing prowess.”

From Healthlink, Oluwole reveals how he joined forces with others (mostly from Healthcare magazine) to start Healthlink magazine. But after six months, funds became a problem, until he remained the one-man battalion of the magazine after the others had pulled out.

The author says, “Somehow, the money pumped in by Dr (Isaac) Aluko did not commensurate with the entire production output and income expected. Salaries had to be paid. Grumbling became the order of the day. We decided to go our separate ways after one year.

“I stayed with Dr Aluko and by 1998, the magazine was repackaged as Global Healthlink magazine. By then, I just breezed in every month to put the magazine together and returned home, in anticipation of any other job that might come my way.”

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Oluwole’s sojourn in journalism took him to Otunba Segun Runsewe’s weekly newspaper, National Network from where he found himself at Alausa Secretariat, the seat of power as a reporter covering the activities of the newly-installed governor of Lagos, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

After National Network went under, Oluwole joined Weekend Concord, during the dying days of the newspaper. He spent four months there, until he walked away one day and never returned to the office, and it was after this that he got a job at The Source magazine, and later New Treasure before sojourning in politics, when he took an appointment as an aide to Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi.

Oluwole’s appointment as Senator Afikuyomi’s aide exposed him to the seat of power, and he documents this in chapter eight of the book. In chapter five, Oluwole records one of his major contributions in politics when he narrates how he, alongside others, particularly Matthias Okubo, helped defend Lagos from the onslaught of President Obasanjo’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to take over the state in 2003. This was a period when Obasanjo was determined to wrestle the South West region away from the grip of Alliance for Democracy (AD).

The author recounts that weeks before the April 21, 2003 election, the two candidates, incumbent governor Bola Tinubu of the Alliance for Democracy and his rival, PDP’s Engr. Funsho Williams (of blessed memory), had been slugging it out on the pages of newspapers.

“The polity had been so heated with allegations and counter allegations of clandestine moves to massively rig the elections. It was left for political gurus in the two major parties to checkmate one another. I took the job, along with Matthias Okubo, and helped to put a stop to what could have been fatal for the AD.”

Oluwole describes Okubo, a Delta State-born banker turned-political aide, as the man who laid the foundation for the emergence of the likes of Babatunde Fashola, Akinwunmi Ambode and Babatunde Sanwo-Olu as governors of Lagos State in succession, saying, “If not for him, Lagos would have been under the sledgehammer of the PDP government at the federal level.”

As one of the 20 aides to Senator Afikuyomi, Oluwole, alongside others, was assigned to all the various local government areas on Election Day.

“The Lagos State Coalition Centre for the governorship election was at the main auditorium of Queens College in Yaba, and he (Afikuyomi) assigned Matthias and me to resume there by 5am, to monitor situations and movements. Matthias, as a politician, was well known, but no one would recognise me since I was not a politician but a journalist.

“The collation of results from all over Lagos would not start until 10pm and party reps were not expected until 7pm. The resident electoral commissioner, Mrs Kemi Odebiyi and her entourage were not expected to arrive at the venue until around 8pm. I was within the premises of the school with Matthias moving from one place to the other, throwing tantrums and patting old acquaintances.

“I sat in one corner watching different politicians ‘come and go’. Then I saw PDP bigwigs arrive one after the other before the electoral officers. Chief Bode George, Demola Seriki, Modupe Sasore, the late Ademola Adeniji-Adele, and so many others arrived, which gave us an inkling that something might be in the offing. I sat there thinking that whatever they came to do that early, they might be checkmated if I quickly relay this to Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi. I called the attention of Matthias to this unusual early arrival of these stalwarts and we agreed to quickly inform Afikuyomi.

“It was this singular act with Matthias to quickly implore Afikuyomi to leave whatever he was doing to join us at the Collation Centre that stopped the PDP-sponsored machinery in Lagos from perpetrating any nefarious activity at the collation centre. I sincerely think that if we were not there and did not act quickly, Governor Bola Tinubu would have kissed his seat goodbye like all his Southwest colleagues.”

Another of Oluwole’s contributions in politics is documented in Chapter 10, The President’s Quest, when President Obasanjo tried to push the third term agenda. Oluwole, working for Afikuyomi at the National Assembly complex at that time, highlights the behind-the-scene intrigues, and how the constitution amendment agenda to allow for a third term failed. Of particular interest were Afikuyomi’s roles in the abortion of the amendment of the constitution and the series of death threats that followed.

He says: “On the day the idea of tenure elongation for Obasanjo was thrown into the dustbin, I saw some statistical figures that gave me hope that one day, this country will be great again, because even in the face of the massive underhand dealings and allegations of bribery that went on, some Senators still looked at the president straight in the face, eyeball to eyeball, and said NO to his demand.”

The book also immortalises the good deeds of some of those who have transcended to the world beyond, including human rights activists, Chief Gani Fawehinmi and Dr Beko Ransome-Kuti, MKO Abiola’s physician, Dr Ore Falomo; and the controversial National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) boss, Saka Saula, among others.

In deed, through the 20-chapter book laced with pictures and articles to serve as evidence to his claims, Oluwole has been able to tell the story of his sojourn in journalism and the political arena.

He concludes: “One thing is certain, at each stage of the journey when I realised that ‘I had lost the right path’, I reminisced with conviction that the tortuous road was not the act of God but ‘The Acts of Men.’”

The book is recommended to all lovers of autobiographies, students of communication, cub reporters, and those who find themselves in political circles, as they will definitely learn one or two things about political strategies.