I wore no shoes until I became a teacher–Felix Adenaike, former Tribune Editor-in-Chief

Felix Adenaike retired as the Editor-in-Chief of the Nigerian Tribune after several arrests and a glorious career in journalism that spanned over four decades. He shares some of his life experiences with GBENRO ADEOYE in this interview

We’ve been told that you like to keep to time and indeed, you kept strictly to the time we agreed for this appointment. This seems to be un-African as some people like to say. How come you’re like that?

It is irresponsibility not keeping to time. I started as a teacher and trained as a teacher before journalism, so you must set a good example. I became Head Teacher in Western Region when Chief Obafemi Awolowo was the Premier. That discipline of teaching, that is, the life of a teacher, I’ve carried it on to my private life, the family, social circle and the professional life.

You’re 74 years old and agile for your age. What is the secret?

Yes, I was 74 years in April; I’m going to 75 years now. My wife and I exercise every day. In fact, I walk four kilometres every day. I also diet. So the key things are dieting, exercising and medications. I take medications not to keep fit but if there are any complaints, I talk to my doctor and he will look after me.

So since you retired in 1991 from Tribune Newspapers, how have you been spending your time?

Well, I retired as Editor-in-Chief and Executive Director in 1991 and I went into publishing. I publish books. Though, I’m retired now, I still publish, maybe not as heavy as 20, 23 years ago.

Did you always want to be a journalist?

Yes. As a teacher, I used to read the Daily Times in those days, then the Weekly World, Sunday to Saturday, so I was buying and reading it. I wrote a letter to the editor and it was published so I was excited. When I was in the University of Lagos, reading Mass Communication, I was also contributing articles. It’s very exciting to see your name in prints. So I decided to train as a journalist.

Any regrets taking that decision?

No regrets. To be in a position to influence public opinion, public policy, government policy at all levels is a great privilege. Not everybody has such a privilege.

If you had not been a journalist, what else would you have loved to become?

I would have stuck to teaching. The two professions have a great attraction for me. I also taught in the modern school. It’s a great privilege to be in a position to mould the younger ones. The home is the first agency of education, the school is next, and then the church or mosque is next after that.

But would you have been contented to wait for your reward in heaven, you know as they say, ‘teachers’ reward is in heaven’?

No! No! Teachers are well paid now. In our days, we were relatively well paid. I was a trained teacher and I became a Head Teacher at the age of 20 in the Western Region because I attended a teachers’ training college. As a teacher, all you need to do is to improve yourself on the job. So I would have gone ahead, maybe I would be teaching in a university. So you don’t stay on the lower rung of the ladder and expect your reward in heaven, you improve your position by acquiring more education. That’s the way to go about it.

Did any of your children go into journalism?

No, they say they don’t like being arrested. That is the reason, so it doesn’t hold attraction for them. Any of them could have been successful as a journalist because they are all ‘rounders’ (knowledgeable). The six of them; three boys, three girls are all ‘rounders’. They could read a lot so they could study any discipline and be alright.

Were you arrested as a journalist?

Oh yes, several times. I was arrested about four times particularly when I headed the Tribune. On several occasions, I was harassed. Soldiers stayed in my office from morning till evening. They just stayed there, just to intimidate. They couldn’t fault what we published, they just didn’t like it and there was nothing I could do.

Can you remember some of the things you published then that led to such harassments?

I don’t remember because we published so many things. The one of 1982 which I remember very well, police surrounded my house at 3am. They surrounded Tribune at about that time too. They didn’t let the people who printed the paper leave for their homes in the morning and they didn’t allow people who were resuming for work in the morning to go in. But to their sorrow, Sketch was around. So the Sketch sent its photographers; they were in the storey buildings around our office, taking pictures of the policemen. I ended up in Alagbon (Ikoyi Prisons, Alagbon). The greatest thing that made me happy was that Tribune was on the newsstands the following morning. Sketch printed it on their press with the pictures of the policemen that embarrassed workers.

What was it like being a journalist during the military regimes?

I tell you, because you expected that the military could be rough with you, you related to them as such. But let me tell you, a lot of the officers are fine, reasonable people. I was once invited by the National Security Organisation then which changed to SSS. I was invited by the NSO DG then. He was a lawyer and a gentleman. We had an interaction and he said, ‘so people like you are in the newspaper?’ I said, ‘Yes, what do you think we are?’ I can’t publish my paper in chaos. If there is anarchy, the drivers won’t take their parcels to their destinations and we won’t sell, so I’m a stakeholder in peace. He was shocked. We became friends thereafter. This was during the military regime, so he must have held back his superiors who said they should arrest me. With the military, you knew who you were dealing with. The politicians will hide behind several structures to torment you. They are more dangerous than the military, that’s my thesis.

Do you have any particular experience with politicians that led you to that conclusion?

Yes. In 1982, it was Shehu Shagari. Adewusi, who was the IG ordered our arrest. We had differences over announcing the results of the election in 1983. The elections took place in September. Shagari was sworn in on October 1, 1983 for a second term but the elections were massively rigged. There is a place near Tribune in Ibadan, Oyo State around Ansarudeen mosque and school in Oke-Ado, by Ososami Road. No voting took place there but they returned 500 figures. We stationed somebody there. The electoral law says you announce the result at the polling booth and issue the forms to the agents, the security agencies and the electoral commission. But there was nobody there to conduct the election, yet they had the result. So we were publishing results as we collected them. The IG said, ‘no, nobody should publish results; only results announced by the National Electoral Commission then should be published.’ I said this man must be joking. The police do not make laws, they enforce laws. They are a law enforcement agency. So we answered them in an editorial which I wrote myself to say that the police don’t make laws, they enforce laws. We ran it from the front page to the inside. So he didn’t like that. This was after the 1982 episode to the effect that some assembly men in Lagos were taking money to pass a bill and NPN then didn’t have an overall majority in the National Assembly. So UPN, UNPP, PRP and NPP formed the majority so NPN needed the collaboration of two of these other parties to get anything through. So we ran the story and there was no law that empowers the police to shut down a newspaper. If we fall foul of the law, you should take the editors to court. So this was an extra-legal measure. They prevented the people who worked overnight from going home and the people resuming from going in. That’s not our law. Democracy means rule of law. The polity is governed by law, not rule of man, not rule of the IG or the commissioner of police. We’re still there and we’ve not got out of there.

Are you saying that the situation has not changed even though we have a democratic government?

Yes. Recently while I was in England on a medical trip, the police and soldiers waylaid distribution vans of newspapers and seized copies. Which law guarantees that? There is no such law. So we can’t build a democracy if we are not ready to subject ourselves to the rule of law.

Let’s talk about your childhood. What fond memories do you have of those days?

Oh! Poverty! I tell you, we were raised by our mother and I didn’t live with my parents, I lived with my grandparents. I was the only grandchild that lived with them. My fondest memory of my childhood is about my grandparents. My mother was a trader; she went to the north to trade, got things here to her agents who would buy. Then they would remit the money to her. During Christmas time, she would be here. She went with my two sisters. So they went to school in the north and they speak excellent Hausa and Igbo because they lived with Igbo people in the North. But those of us who didn’t go there, the boys, we couldn’t speak Hausa or Igbo. My mother would come down at Christmas with gifts, clothes and so on. As kids, we liked that but from January to December, we would miss her. So I wasn’t close to her. I was close to my dad who was around in the village. Like any other kid of my age, we were village boys enjoying ourselves, playing rascality that kids of our age played.

You mentioned poverty, but you still had gifts for Christmas.

Well, I’m much older than Goodluck Jonathan, our president, who said he didn’t wear shoes. I didn’t wear shoes, either. No shoes in the elementary school. When I finished elementary school, I was a pupil teacher before going to college. So I worked as a pupil teacher and saved money to go to college. It was as a pupil teacher that I bought my first sandals. We used to call the sandals ‘Estandby’, that was the name given to it. When I was going to college, I bought Clarks sandals. So ever since, I’ve been wearing shoes. My children wore shoes to school.

How old were you when you bought your first sandals?

It was before my 16th birthday. I felt very big then.

Some of your friends used to call you Felico, how did that start?

You know they give you nicknames. To the best of my recollection, I think Felico was a name created by Ebenezer Babatope. He used to call me Felico. He still calls me Felico, then there are one or two other friends that still call me that. It wasn’t popular but that’s how it started. It starts and it goes round.

Was it at that time that you met your wife?

Patrick Sanwo of blessed memory was my cousin. He was a Commissioner in Lagos State and he was getting married. His wife then was my would-be wife’s classmate. So I attended the wedding and I was doing the running around, moving people from one place to another. So I sat opposite this lady at the party. We spoke and she gave me all the information. Apparently, she was also interested in this young man and that was on a Saturday. On Sunday, I was in Daily Times, the daily newspaper people work on Sunday to prepare the Monday edition. She was working with the Federal Ministry of Labour in Lagos. I asked if she would ride with me in the morning and she said she would come with the dad. So we exchanged telephone numbers. As the man who did the wooing, I went to see her at her ministry. So that was how we started our friendship and it ended up in marriage.

Male journalists have a way with women, how were you able to cope with temptations in your days and manage to stick to your wife of youth till now?

I’m a Catholic and a Christian. A Christian marriage is monogamous. Catholic marriage is also monogamous. That’s it. My wife comes from a Catholic background. I didn’t have any problem to convert her and the children are also Catholics. So I’m lucky.

The three of you- yourself, the late Peter Ajayi and Chief Segun Osoba were famously called the three musketeers, how did that really start?

We were friends and we were professional colleagues. A deep and very strong friendship developed after that because the three of us were always seen together. I’m not sure whether it was Chief Awolowo or Chief Bola Ige who gave us the name- three musketeers and then, it spread round. Osoba and I worked with Daily Times. Ajayi worked with Tribune long before my time then he worked with Sketch. I worked for Tribune and also worked for Sketch.

Daily times used to be big then. What fond memories do you still have of your time there?

Yes, it was the newspaper and then all the others. For instance, I can tell you the newsprint that Daily Times consumed was more than what all the other so-called newspapers consumed. So Daily Times had big circulation while these other papers were struggling newspapers, essentially government-owned newspapers, like The Post, then New Nigeria, then the Observer came, Herald, Tide, Chronicle, then Standard. At the time, state or regional governments founded newspapers and they didn’t have good circulation because they were a propaganda arm of the government so they didn’t print what the people wanted. A paper like Tribune was in demand but didn’t have modern equipment to print as many copies as people wanted so people bought copies and photocopied to read. So Daily Times was the training ground. It made us proud and we walked tall. And I’m a product of the graduate programme which the late Alhaji Babatunde Jose started. He was the Chairman of Daily Times. He wanted graduates to work for Daily Times so that the Daily Times of the future would be edited by educated people. That was his philosophy and he carried it out. I’m a product of that policy. People like Tony Momoh, Dipo Ajayi, Gbolabo Ogunsanwo, they were reporters in Daily Times; Daily Times sent them to the university to acquire university education. So those of us who finished university were hired by Daily Times to join the team.

I read that the management and staff of Daily Times, which includes you, wanted to buy the company during former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s privatisation programme, but that they were denied that opportunity. Why wasn’t it sold to you?

When Obasanjo came with privatisation, the Bureau of Public Enterprises was chaired by Abubakar Atiku, who was vice president. Then, the last MD of Daily Times, Edwin Baiye, wanted a management buyout of Daily Times. Then, nobody ever heard about Folio Communications, nobody. So the BPE had a reserved price for Daily Times below which they wouldn’t sell it. We knew that. So Baiye as the head of the team, who was an insider, made an offer on behalf of ex-staff who are also shareholders in the company above the reserved price. But they didn’t sell to us. They sold below that price to Folio Communications. Obasanjo didn’t just want it sold to us. I think somebody contacted Gen. Theophilus Danjuma (Retd) and I think he wanted to invest in it. I was told when Obasanjo heard that, he decided he would do no such thing by selling to the staff so he sold to Folio Communications. They have been taken to court because they are not newspaper people or print people so they didn’t know them as commercial printing press. That’s why Daily Times collapsed. Jose took over the Daily Times group with three titles and upgraded it to 13 titles, not to talk of real estate, property investment, printing press, packaging, and so on. Well the rest is history. Muhammed’s government forcibly took over 60 per cent of Daily Times. They took my shares and didn’t pay me any dime and other shareholders so we thought the BPE decision to privatise meant selling government’s 60 per cent to the poor Nigerian public and that we would be happy and Daily Times would be revived. It’s a pity.

Who owns the remaining 40 per cent till now?

Staff and ordinary Nigerians. But Daily Times does not exist now.

I know you’re passionate about the state of the country and how it can be moved forward. What is your view of Nigeria?

I’m an incurable optimist but from what we have seen since 1960 to date, we have so-called leaders of Nigeria who are privileged to govern this country that is immensely endowed with human beings, good brains and natural mineral and all the resources you can think of and they can’t manage them. The oil came, what have we done with the oil money? We keep stealing money. I must say before the military came, the first post independence government was formed by saints. The central government formed by Tafawa Balewa, he didn’t acquire property all over the place. The military came, except for Buhari, who was Head of State and before, the Minister of Petroleum Resources under Obasanjo government and chairman of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, who didn’t have an oil bloc. As I’m talking to you, he doesn’t have a house in Lagos or in Abuja. He told me himself. He has in Daura (Katsina State) and Kaduna which he built before he became Head of State. So we have missed the opportunity to build a model country of which blacks all over the world, and in the Diaspora, would be proud of. I’m not proud to be a Nigerian because we could do much-much better, including the present government.

So why can’t we get it right?

Because we don’t have a clue. The people who can do it well won’t get there. Why should I give my money to voters to vote me in to serve Nigeria? That is fundamentally wrong. I cannot spend money to contest election. My people in 2003 approached me and said they wanted me to go to the senate. And I went home which is Ogun East Senatorial District. Of the 20 local governments, Ogun East senatorial district has nine local governments. The central and western district share 11 local governments. I went home to canvass for people to register for a referendum because we wanted a local government. We didn’t want to belong to Ijebu Ode Local Government because we were big enough to form a local government. So I went home to mobilise people for the referendum. I saw some young men dancing around me calling ‘senator- senator, give us a N100,000 to start working.’ That’s my village which formed part of a ward, not a senatorial district. My village is called Odu Arawa. I didn’t even discuss with my children who were adults that I was going into politics. I was excited when the delegation came from my village and said that I had been serving the community free of charge, that they knew I would not marry new wives and that I was not greedy. ‘We know you as a gentleman, forthright and plain’, they said all sorts of things. Ab initio my wife threw the suggestion out of the window. I said well, I would table it before the children. I was privileged to go abroad and my first three children were in England. They said ‘Daddy, it’s bad enough you were being harassed, arrested and detained as a journalist, if you go into politics and the military comes again, they will lock you up. You’re not getting younger, you’re getting older. You might die in the process, we don’t want you in politics.’ So I was horrified and scandalised that in my own village where I was born and raised, these children asked me to bring N100, 000. What would the people in the nine local governments ask of me? If you’re going to ask for money from me to serve you, you must choose another person. That’s the end of that story. Politics as service has an attraction for me but you cannot survive in a system that is corrupt, crude and violent. You can’t make much difference alone, they will eliminate you. I’m not frightened of being eliminated but I won’t make a difference.