Inside the writing world of columnists

Many Nigerian columnists write on a weekly basis and it’s easy to simply lap-up their writings. But what goes on behind the scenes? Bookshelf takes a look. A columnist writes a series of articles, opinions sometimes related, either for a newspaper or a magazine. This class are usually seasoned writers or journalists with a large […]

Many Nigerian columnists write on a weekly basis and it’s easy to simply lap-up their writings. But what goes on behind the scenes? Bookshelf takes a look.

A columnist writes a series of articles, opinions sometimes related, either for a newspaper or a magazine. This class are usually seasoned writers or journalists with a large following. What they write most times has the power to influence a lot of people, depending on their fan base.
Eugenia Abu runs a column for the Sunday edition of Daily Trust newspapers, titled ‘Five Favourite Books’ and is Executive Director, Programmes of the Nigerian Television Autority (NTA).She revealed in one of her recent writings, “My writings have benefitted immensely from my readings.” Apparently, she has been writing since she was very young and been reading at a much younger age. “I find that if you are an avid reader with the adventures and the vocabulary garnered, you would write better and be more creative.” She adds that some of her passions include travelling, reading, writing, and children. And from these experiences, she seems to say, I’m able to offer insight into the most interesting and diverse world of books ever. 
So writing columns is a journey that begins long before the column platform becomes available. And this is certainly the case with Ozolua Uhakheme who writes for The Nation newspaper on a weekly platform ‘Books and literature’. Sometimes he reviews works of literature and at other times informs on a recent literary activity. Not every journalist is skilled in reviews (particularly of works of literature) and certainly not everyone who can write. Every columnist appears to maximise his or her area of strength, because running a column is no joke.
Typical examples are columnists Gimba Kakanda, Ibrahim Dooba, and Eugene Enahoro. Although Kakanda is inclined to literature, his writings in Blueprint wewspaper reveal he is more of a social and political commentator. But again, what does it take to run a successful column every week, whatever the theme may be?
“I don’t have a formula, but I do have certain habits that may be peculiar to me. One tip I have come to embrace is a column has to be appealing and written in a way that requires less stress to digest. This is so because the subject is topical and the message urgent,” Kakanda explained, adding that it shouldn’t be written as one does an academic paper. The latter is intended for the intellectual community, whereas the audiences for a column comprise people of various social and public interests.
It’s definitely different strokes for different folks because Kakanda writes his columns on his iPhone, while hanging out with friends, on board a plane, “at loud restaurants and even chaotic festivals.” When he’s writing, he imagines as his readers, both the university don that identifies as his regular reader and his teenage cousin who keeps track of his writing. In this way, he doesn’t write in a way that may disappoint the former’s intellectual standard and also elevate his style and diction to a complexity that gets his teenage relative lost. In other words, a column has to be a convenient compromise, not an avenue for obfuscating rambling. He maintains this balance because his commentaries are meant for every literate person, not just a specific community.
But again “it’s really not easy to sustain this compromise,” Kakanda confessed, adding that sourcing for things to write about isn’t laborious in this age of expanding social media. His ideas come from interactions with friends online and offline. Sometimes when he’s too lazy to sit down for an extended research to study a topical issue, he shares a perspective on his social media platforms and the reactions tend to show him other perspectives, both amusing and offensive. “So, it’s evidently impossible to lack ideas for my column when billions of people are on Facebook exhibiting their activism, bigotry, affluence, poverty, racism, politics, civics and whatnots. The internet is a market of cheap and raw ideas,” he said, so what’s expected of a columnist is harmonising these contrary viewpoints to derive a logical position on a topic of his interest. The Internet is also a platform for research. A click or two leads one to pages of astonishing findings. And since columns don’t have to be as precise as a scientific paper, the research conducted before writing a column isn’t stressful.
Just like a novelist may experience writers block, columnists have days when they lack ideas on what to feature on their columns. When this happens, Ibrahim Dooba who writes as ‘Prof. Brainy’, in Daily Trust’s Saturday edition, explained that that’s when he writes down ideas and makes use of templates. “I pick an idea and populate the template,” he said. “As I write I plant commentaries and a nay sayer, where I give those who disagree a voice.” He recently developed another means of getting ideas and  writes a paragraph on a topic and lets people react. “So when I come to write, I quote them, sometimes I get ideas from them or share their ideas verbatim.”
Because there are always ideas in the society, Dooba has realised that to write is to join the conversation. “Even if you don’t know much about it, if you ask questions about that topic, you will be able to generate ideas, instead of just writing an opinion. When you pre-empt and answer questions you think readers may ask, you find your piece more engaging and the reader will enjoy it,” he added.
Another columnist with Daily Trust, Eugene Enahoro waded into this conversation on their craft as columnists. He pointed out that columnists don’t try to preach to people, so they don’t source for ideas. “Columns always have a peg. There’s always something topical to write about. You can write a column and it will stand the test of time, such as about corruption and how government is bad and so on,” he said, adding that a column can’t be too wide, so one can take a current topic and focus on it. The difference between now and many years before is that columnists used to read a lot of books. “Now, because of the internet you can source information very quickly. For example, if you ask me to write something on North Korea, which I know nothing about, I will first go to Wikipedia.” So he will not go and get multiple books about that country. Then he can find out what other people have written about it. This is why a columnist can write about something he or she is not an expert on.
Writing has definitely evolved, and so has writing for platforms such as newspapers or magazines.