80 cheers to Alhaji Animashaun

I was an editor with Drum Publications when I first came in contact with the man we all called Mr Idris. All our magazines were printed by Academy Press and Mr Idris was the chairman. When Drum’s fortunes started heading south, it was the generosity of Mr Idris that kept our titles on the streets […]

I was an editor with Drum Publications when I first came in contact with the man we all called Mr Idris. All our magazines were printed by Academy Press and Mr Idris was the chairman. When Drum’s fortunes started heading south, it was the generosity of Mr Idris that kept our titles on the streets (that is, Drum, Trust, Sadness and Joy and Truck and Car; the company had discontinued African Film and Boom). I admired him from afar and was providentially to come to know him from close range when I opted out of Drum for Monthly Life, the new magazine being started by Academy’s sister company, West African Book Publishers Limited.
Alhaji Bashir Alade Idris Animashaun was an uncommon mentor. Looking back now, I wasn’t the most conventional of employees, coming from a background of the grind called journalism where deliverables and deadlines were the mantra rather than grovelling sycophancy. Luckily, Alhaji Animashaun had his sights on performance and commitment to the larger goals of the entire group of companies; I was in a milieu where content mattered rather than form, where one didn’t have to prostrate one’s way through life. It wasn’t always black-and-white, though; sometimes there were many shades of grey!
Whether it was a strategy session in his office or at a meeting in the boardroom or indeed an informal discussion in a relaxing atmosphere, the chairman always had his eyes on the ball. I often wondered how one man could carry the stress of running Academy Press, West African Book Publishers, Richware Cera-mic Industries and Lithotec at the time.
Now I know: the job was his life. Inkling to that fact was given to me by the first chairman of the group, Mr Dick Gamble, who once told me of how, in the early days, Alhaji Animashaun would stake out church premises on Sundays to supervise the distribution and sale of Atoka, the Yoruba photo-play magazine published by WABP. That was typical of the man I had come to know: a graduate of Manchester University who had left the secure and pensionable world of the civil service – where he had the ultimate prospect of becoming a federal permanent secretary within a few years – for the unknown world of the fledgling private sector in Nigeria of the sixties.
I also look back with fondness at my rela-tionship with the chairman’s business partners who eventually became his brothers – the American Dick Gamble and David Yellop, the Briton. A typical serious board meeting would feature the forensically-minded Gamble adding a point or two to Yellop’s creative suggestions and the whole point would be rammed in by Chairman Animashaun’s incredible managerial acu-men of connecting the dots.
I was impressed by how an American, a Nigerian and a Briton could nurture a shared vision so seamlessly to fruition. I did not have the privilege of working with Ian Pritchard who had also teamed up with the founding fathers at the beginning for the simple reason that he had left Drum for Academy Press before I dreamt of journalism and had died before I followed his trail to the EDCON Group. But I saw his footprints in Drum and later in Academy Press.
Animashaun is 80? A confession is in order here: several decades ago, because of the dignified way he carried himself, many of us considered Chairman Animashaun as an elderly – if not an old – man. To think that this humble, visionary, pious-but-not-hypocritical Citizen of the World has nurtured several companies for five decades and is only in his eightieth year is astoundingly humbling. A tough act to follow.
My birthday gift? Grati-tude for all those bitter-sweet years and a prayerful wish for good health of mind and body plus happiness in the years ahead.

The unbundling of PDP
When the implosion in the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) finally happened last Satur-day, it did not surprise anyone who had been following the strange events within the party, especially in the last two years. If there was any surprise at all, it was that the split took so long to happen. In the midst of President Jonathan’s self-congratulation at the party’s special convention, the volcano that had been purring for quite a while finally erupted in the form of the public walkout of prominent political actors within the party who promptly announced the formation of what they termed the “New PDP”. As birthday presents go, this was the most bizarre the ruling party could have received.
Even though PDP Chair-man Bamanga Tukur has waived the threat posed by the rebels aside, it is clear that PDP will never be the same again. No party in Nigeria can shed that kind of weight and pretend that everything is still normal. Check out the list: Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, seven incumbent governors, three former governors, many federal and state legislators etc.
As the presence of each of the political heavy-weights was announced at the news conference addressed by the “New PDP”, shouts of “Chanji dole 2015!” (Change is a Must in 2015!) filled the Yar’Adua Centre venue. Dr Abubakar Kawu Baraje, a former National Secretary of PDP, spoke of “increasing repression, restrictions of freedom of association, arbit-rary suspension of members and other such violations of democratic principles by a faction of our party led by Alhaji Bamanga Tukur.”
The “New PDP” has sacked Tukur. It is not prophetic to say that Tukur will also sack them in the days ahead.
These are interesting times to be alive in Nigeria. With the unbundling of PDP, regime change in Nigeria is now looking more imminent. Nigerians are staying tuned to the wonders from the PDP channel.