By Chris Paul Otaigbe
Few weeks ago,Chief Duro Onabule joined the octogenarian club as he turned 80 years.
So much was said and many more have been said of a man who had devoted most of his life to the ethics, principles and practice of journalism, except for a brief period he spent on the other side of the divide whose management of the affairs of the country, he had dedicated his professionalism to dissect, diagnose and declaim, before and after his brief stint in Aso Rock under Ibrahim Babangida as Chief Press Secretary.
Before then, his popularity as a journalist was at best, among his contemporaries in the profession and journalists who are aware of the high standards set in his era of journalism.
It is no surprise and fitting therefore, that his views and integrity of his perspectives on national issues are placed on the burner that is flamed from the morality, or otherwise, the IBB administration established and asserted in the life of that infamous military regime on the soul and spirit of the Nigerian nation.
Suffice to state, however, that his footprint on the sand of the practice of journalism in Nigeria can never be wished away. So, the many accolades he received on and in commemoration of his birthday are well deserved.
When President Muhammadu Buhari joined family and friends in celebrating him, it became obvious that the Ijebu- Ode born Chief, who is now the chairman of the board of the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, continues to remain relevant even at the highest level of power in Nigeria.
Buhari congratulated him for courage and steadfastness in serving the country.
The President affirmed that Chief Onabule’s consistency in his chosen career had benefitted the country a lot.
President Buhari commended the veteran journalist for upholding the highest standard of professionalism in journalism by investigating and projecting the truth, ensuring balance and accuracy, and confidently pushing for inclusive and responsive government that caters for ordinary Nigerians.
Buhari also congratulated Onabule for serving the country with his talent, treasures and time, especially in crucial times when personal sacrifices were demanded.
A decade earlier, in commemoration of his birthday, Reuben Abati had eloquently celebrated him in a tribute he wrote, in his article titled, Duro Onabule And Tunji Oyelana At 70. He glowingly presented the veteran octogenarian journalist as a professional, mentor and a model.
Double Chief, former editor of the National Concord and former Chief Press Secretary to General Ibrahim Babangida turned 70 last Sunday, September 27, a few months younger than Prince Tony Momoh who turned 70 earlier, (all the icons who formed the landscape of this profession while we were young appear to all be growing old at the same time). Deservedly, Chief Onabule was celebrated by both family and friends as he attained “the status of an elder statesman.” He is one of those figures in Nigerian journalism that younger journalists look up to, for the values that they embody: hard work, professionalism, ethical devotion to the practice and the cause of truth, a long staying power, humanism and a kindness of spirit.
Apart from the stint with IBB, 1985-93, Chief Onabule’s life has been entirely devoted to journalism. After graduating from Nigeria’s oldest secondary school, the CMS Grammar School, he joined journalism very early in 1961 as a reporter with the Daily Express. He would later work with the Daily Sketch as a pioneer staff Reporter in 1964, London Correspondent, Daily Express, 1969 -74; and from 1975 – 1980, he held various positions at the Daily Times group including serving as deputy editor and acting editor of Headlines. By the time he joined the pioneer team that set up the National Concord in 1980, Chief Onabule had already earned a reputation as a diligent and reputable newspaper man and he was instrumental to building up the feature’s pages of the then National Concord into a reader’s delight.
He subsequently served as member, Editorial Board, Deputy Editor, and Editor, National Concord (1984 -85). It was at the National Concord that Chief became a shining star: he was the rallying point for many of the young men at the National Concord then who worked under him and who loved his free spirit.
In terms of his politics, Chief Onabule is entirely devoted to Nigeria. In his columns in The National Concord, he was very critical of poor leadership and he has remained even more so on the pages of The Sun. One remarkable thing about him is the forthrightness with which he expresses his views; often he sounds like a man with his own sure, un-tossable view of the coin. Take his devotion to the late Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe. Chief Onabule is an unrepentant Zikist. His party of choice is Zik’s NCNC. He insists that only the late Zik articulated the best ideology for Nigeria and that he had the best qualities to provide the leadership that Nigeria needed. If you want an argument, challenge Chief Onabule on this and you will have a full day of historical analysis.
Coming from the Western part of Nigeria where supporting anyone other than Awo could be interpreted as ethnic treason, at least at a time when that was fashionable, Onabule was one of those who followed their minds. But this did not affect his relationship with the Awoists. He is not one of those persons who spew bile like poisonous snakes if you disagree with them. He is also not a man that can be used. As Chief Press Secretary to General Ibrahim Babangida, Chief Onabule was a master at the art of walking the tightrope. He remained in that government till the end in December 1993. But there is no record anywhere that in trying to serve IBB, he became disloyal to MKO Abiola from whose newspaper he had taken up the appointment. In the heat of the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election, Onabule could not be quoted abusing MKO Abiola. And instructively, although he was CPS to the Head of State (President as IBB chose to call himself), he was not the man who authored the statement annulling June 12 even if the statement came from the Presidency. When he celebrated his 70th last weekend, the Abiolas were there.
But it is his mentoring role in the profession that is even more remarkable…
I was once invited by Chief Onabule to his home in Dolphin Estate, Ikoyi a few years ago. He had just returned from a vacation abroad. He gave me a book gift. And then he took me through the challenges of being a journalist in a country such as ours and what pitfalls I should watch out for. I was moved by his kindness.
Indeed, the best way to validate what President Buhari and Abati said about one of Nigeria’s great men of the pen, is to go into his mind and his views about issues concerning national and foreign affairs. A good way to do that is to check his perspective in opinions he espouses in his weekly column in the Sun Newspaper.
In Taboos of state institutions published on 17th May 2019, he was relieved that the practice of discussing and offering opinions on cases that are still in court, which has become rampant especially in the media, had finally been called out by a Judge.
It is quite a relief and irony that, at last, some form of restraint was clamped on years-long reckless confrontation (through the media) against court proceedings in Nigeria. That dangerous development could be traced to two sources, either an acquiescent or helpless judiciary while the (print) media were complicit in the apparent contempt of court. It is beyond any reason or understanding why the bench should have withered into helplessness.
Right from colonial days, the law was that once a matter was before law courts, all critical or favorable comments become barred. For decades, this somewhat legal restraint seemed to have lapsed or been disregarded for many reasons. The main one was that, rather inadvertently, it was taken to be normal to comment on cases pending in court, and indeed to audaciously pass judgment on criminal and sensitive trials well in advance of the completion of such cases in courts. That development encouraged total breakdown of the existing legal restraint on comments pending in courts. In essence, the direction judgment should or should not take were loosely and, in some cases, prejudicially predicted in the media. And once that hope was not met, one way or the other, petulance usually erupted.
In the article, he stated that the highest share of the blame belong to the Bar. In other words, Lawyers are the more guilty ones.
According to him, it does not matter the level of brilliance or otherwise, be they brilliant or indolent in making submissions during trials, they would be out later before television cameras, grandstanding on the course of the trial moments earlier. The grandstanding, he posited, is aimed at prejudicing the mind of the public one way or the other.
This is against the fact that advocates of democracy, from the beginning, clearly defined that disputes between the citizenry and the state would be determined by the judiciary and any dissatisfaction therefrom, could be argued to higher and eventually highest courts in the land. Consciously or unconsciously in Nigeria, we eroded that differentiation of judicial authority. The longer that disturbing situation continued, the more the potential damage to the polity.
As violators of that code of judicial operation, for whatever reasons, indulged in their recklessness, it was to be expected that the media, with their specialized training on this specific risk of contempt of court on on-going trials, would be least complicit in violation of that golden rule. That self-restraint by the media is all the more demanding in complicated and very sensitive political trials, such as the current presidential election petition in which potentially landmark constitutional/legal issues are raised. There had been nothing like it before. It was, therefore, better left to the tribunal, and the tribunal alone, to determine. Instead, prejudiced and politically vested interests’ rulings were all over the place, including markets and danfo buses. Among the lot, lawyers with strong views should have known the correct approach.
He was not so impressed with the intervention of the president of the presidential election petition panel, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa, whose restraining admonition of habitual offenders of that part of the rule of court, he maintained was very mild in merely warning against uttering and publication of views capable of prejudicing the prosecution of the presidential election petition.
He believed she should have made her point by being tougher on erring lawyers and journalists.
Justice Bulkachuwa’s warning against contempt of court, he stated should not be limited to the election petition tribunal. It is essential to reinforce the law on contempt in the interests of ignorant or/and deliberate violators. After all, in law, ignorance is no excuse.
In Aso Rock, past and present, published on 10th May 2019, he was as firm as he was revealing in his views about the handling of the insecurity issues and the management of the stakeholders and identified group of people challenging the peace of the nation. He was quite clear in the fact that all sides to the issue are guilty of what they accuse the Buhari administration about.
Aso Rock, on one hand, as well as Afenifere and Ohanaeze cultural groups, have been wrong-footing themselves in the all-important matter of national security. Miyetti Allah, easily, one of the most ardent sympathizers of President Muhammadu Buhari. Equally, even if mischievously, the same group is the most unhelpful to Buhari in matters of security such that the man (Buhari) had to pay heavy price in the 2019 presidential election.
For the octogenarian columnist, the consequences of the President’s poor treatment of the Herdsmen matter, resulted in the Buhari’s loss of some of APC States or strongholds in the 2015 elections.
Some of the States included Benue, Adamawa, Plateau and Taraba states. Despite that expensive electoral price, he stated, Miyetti Allah is still not helping matters with continued killings of fellow Nigerians in parts of the North. And for such unprovoked violence, Buhari is blamed by critics. There was, therefore, no surprise that discussions took place between representatives of Federal Government and Miyetti Allah leaders. But the hope of peace emanating from the talks was dented by the allegation that Nigerian government paid a whopping sum of N100 billion to Miyetti Allah to purchase peace.
Of course, the Miyetti matter allegation was grave enough to cause commotion in Aso Rock and influence a denial. However, in attempts to dismiss the allegation of paying N100 billion to Miyetti Allah, the Presidency, he stated, likened the talks with the group (Miyetti Allah) to occasional discussions with Afenifere and Ohanaeze leaders.
That comparison would infuriate any Nigerian political/cultural group like Afenifere, Ohanaeze, Northern Elders Forum or Arewa Consultative Forum. All of which have never been associated with violence or even support for violent elements in society. Hence, whenever the need arises, Aso Rock engages them each as a body or all of them as a group.
There is also no record of any of these four groups being negotiated with to assist in ending any violence from their group or in their part of the country. It was also significant that, in justifying the talks with Miyetti Allah, the Presidency compared the group to only Afenifere and Ohanaeze. If, however, no money was paid to Miyetti Allah to purchase peace, the more reason the Presidency should not have been rattled in denying the allegation.
If, on the other hand, Miyetti Allah collected any amount, especially scores of billions of naira as the price for peace to end the murderous activities of Miyetti Allah, Aso Rock should still not have been rattled. Nigerians cannot forget that Miyetti Allah openly and continuously bragged that the group would render all anti-grazing laws of Benue, Adamawa, Plateau and Taraba states unworkable. It turned out that it was not an empty boast, as their killings continued in various parts of the North. In moments of desperation, Nigerians were told that killings in the northern parts of the country were being carried out by foreigners from neighboring African countries.
Despite all these, including the alleged purchase of peace from Miyetti Allah, the fact of Nigerian history is that before Buhari became a tenant of Aso Rock in 2015, his predecessor, former President Goodluck Jonathan set the precedent in paying for peace from daring violent groups. Those spear-heading bursting of oil pipelines in Niger Delta were awarded contracts by ex-President Jonathan to protect the same pipelines and to supply patrol boats for security in the creeks and the Atlantic Ocean. Contracts for militants to protect Nigerian oil? That was the state of Nigeria’s helplessness.
The cost of the contract for security of pipelines and the high seas awarded to Niger Delta militants of various groups was tens of millions of dollars (yes, dollars) every month. When Buhari assumed office and there were fears the multimillion-dollar contracts might be cancelled, violence resumed again in Niger Delta and it fell the lot of Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo to visit the place and obviously (to) guarantee sustenance of the contract.
However, there were times, his association with and work as Chief Press Secretary to the Ibrahim Babangida administration do get in the way his perspectives are judged. One of such instances was when he took on former Finance and Coordinating Minister in Goodluck Jonathan’s government Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
In a rejoinder to his column on The Sun of November 21, 2014, Adelani Omoniyi in his piece titled, When Chief Duro Onabule Had A Memory Lapse, published December 3, 2014, in the Nigerian Voice, took him on and called him out on the management of similar issues by the government he served in.
Scientists have told us that people of all ages experience inconvenient and, sometime, embarrassing memory lapses. That is the reason I may have to cut Chief Duro Onabule some slack in this rejoinder… Instead, I would do posterity well by detailing the facts that our chief has decided to upend the truth either in order to gratify some personal craving for contemporary relevance or in a flagrant attempt to score a cheap political point by misinforming the reading public.
Obviously, a sympathizer to Okonjo-Iweala’s cause, Adelani who positioned his point of view as that from an outsider, believed there was a grand conspiracy by some politicians he alleged as masquerading as analysts, to make Okonjo-Iweala the scapegoat as price of oil continues on a freefall in the international market.
It seems no one remembers how NOI shouted herself hoarse on the need for Nigerians not to eat with two hands and forget about the future.
It is an open secret that madam minister has been sounding warning notes to Nigerians, especially members of the House of Reps and State governors, that a day is coming when the oil boom would cease and the rain of free dollars(ends). Instead of yielding to this warning, we daily wake up to the news of how the state governors have succeeded in coercing the president into allowing fragrant withdrawals from the Excess Crude Account.
While dwelling on the issue of falling oil price in his article, Chief Duro Onabule advised the minister to probe those who misused the oil windfall Nigeria had had in time past. This advocacy was what put the Chief in the line of easy fire by the younger analyst because, he served under an Administration that was infamous for mismanaging the $12 billion oil wind fall during the Iraq war during the Babangida military government.
So, Adelani took full advantage of the vulnerability of the Onabule’s perspective and leveraged on it to remind him of the mishandling of a similar opportunity by his principal when they were in power.
However, it beats my imagination that he failed to call on the minister to also turn the searchlight on his boss at the hilltop in Minna. Or did Chief Onabule forget that there was something called Okigbo Panel Report which indicted his boss? The Okigbo Report tells us that IBB frittered away $12bn of the country’s revenue through special accounts, which he ran as the sole approving authority. Does Chief Onabule know about that or he hasn’t been told?
The Okigbo report, which was submitted to the administration of the late Gen. Sani Abacha on August 29, 1994, shows that Onabule’s principal, General Babangida, operated dedicated accounts outside of the budgetary provisions, which he ran without accounting to anybody. “The proceeds of the sale of the crude were not shown in the revenue side nor were the expenditures reflected in the expenditure side of the budget,” the report says.
Born on September 27, 1939 in Ijebu-Ode, Onabule graduated from Nigeria’s oldest school, CMS Grammar School in Lagos in 1960. His first job as a journalist was as a reporter for the Daily Express in 1961.
Three years later he joined the staff of Daily Sketch. He spent some time with Daily Sketch before going back to his previous employer, Daily Express.
It was while working for the Express that he went to the UK to study journalism at London School of Journalism. In 1969, he served as the London correspondent of the Express.
In the mid-970s, he worked for the Daily Times, rising to become a deputy editor of Headlines magazine.
When MKO Abiola started Concord Press, Onabule was appointed features editor.
In 1984, he became the editor of Concord newspaper, a position he occupied before he was appointed CPS to Babangida.
One cannot conclude this tribute to this octogenarian media colossus, without reverting to Abati’s piece on him ten years ago.
Even at 70 (over 80 now), the man remains young at heart. He takes very naturally to young people, he is very progressive in his outlook, he is one old man with whom you can have an argument and not have to re-arrange your mind constantly in order not to offend him. These days, he still attends media events and younger journalists do not feel that he is out of place. The respect that he enjoys from the younger generation is derived from the reputation that he has built over the years as a sound professional. His passion for journalism is unmistakable; he is forever ready with facts and figures about the past, and he insists on accuracy. It shows in the column that he currently writes for The Sun. He is also a stickler for details, perhaps that is one reason why his columns are usually long.
Onabule’s engagements in the private and public spheres have brought him a lot of recognition: he is the Jagunmolu of Ijebu Ode, Officer of the Order of Mono, Republic of Togo, Officer Cross of the Order of Merit, Federal Republic of Germany, and Member of the Victorian Order, United Kingdom.
Onabule is always confronted with enquiries from friends and well-wishers on the secret of what keeps him going the way he does at his age and he tells them there is nothing secret about ensuring good health, through moderation in every aspect of human desire.
He would always tell them in his own words “I mean moderation in every aspect of human desire, spiced with contentment in your lot.”
