My Encounter With Obasanjo When Stella Died – Tonnie Iredia
How has life been with you since you retired as Director-General of NTA in 2009?It has been quite good, it has been fine. It gives me the opportunity to sit back and take a review of how life has been, take a review of the processes of things we had to go through. Now, I […]
How has life been with you since you retired as Director-General of NTA in 2009?
It has been quite good, it has been fine. It gives me the opportunity to sit back and take a review of how life has been, take a review of the processes of things we had to go through. Now, I am not under any obligation to wake up at a particular time to pursue a particular mandate or to anticipate a call from the powers that be and all that. To that extent, I think life in retirement is obviously easier.
When you retired what would you say were the immediate challenges that you faced and how did you tackle them?
I don’t know whether I have faced any serious challenge. At the time I left office I had an outstanding assignment, personal assignment which kept me busy for some two, three months. I was writing a PhD thesis, a second PhD thesis. While I was in office, I was unable to conclude that. When I left office, I immediately recognized that that was one thing I could conclude. So, for some two or three months after I left office that took my time.I had so much to do so I just went into my study and began to put together those pieces of data I had gathered in my field work as a student so to say.
After years of active service in public broadcasting, how did you finally adjust to life in retirement?
It was not difficult because I had always looked forward to retiring. Not necessarily because of qualifications for retiring, having worked for 35 years and having attained the age of 60. I was looking forward to retirement because I realized the politicization of the nation. I realized that even if you are 12 years old, you can’t be the DG of NTA for too long. So the reality is that you must begin to think about what you will be doing after because the politicians always believe that such positions are meant for persons that can be manipulated. Without being immodest, it wasn’t quite easy manipulating me. Therefore, I knew that very shortly at that point there would be the need for government to bring in some other persons. I had always thought of this second option, what will I be doing? I had somehow begun to define it. In actual fact, a year before I left office, I had gone to the president, then Obasanjo to say that maybe people like us should begin to think of leaving office at a juncture, not necessarily when we were due. When you finished one era the styles are usually different. During my days in office, for instance, President Obasanjo was quite accessible. I don’t know whether he was to other people, but he was to me. He could call me up as late as 2.00 am. I knew I wouldn’t have that system anymore and when you don’t have access to the president as DG of NTA it is very difficult running the system because all kinds of people in the corridors of power would begin to tell you what the president said and what he didn’t say and lot of what is not true. But those in the corridors of power during my time knew I had access, so telling me too many things about what the president said and didn’t say didn’t quite work. For example, when the president’s wife died I was told that he didn’t want coverage and that he wanted a low-keyed coverage . It didn’t make sense to me because I didn’t see how coverage will be low-keyed when the celebrations were not low-keyed. All government officials, all vehicles and people were mobilized to go and receive the body of Stella Obasanjo at the airport and here was I being told that government wanted a low-keyed coverage. It didn’t synchronized. So I used the access I had and the president was shocked tohear that that was what I had been told. He said well, he didn’t see anything wrong with that but that was not what he said because he was not the professional; I was, and that I should decide the coverage. For me,working with president Obasanjo was a different ball game and I knew it was not going to be possible to have that kind of situation after his tenure. The president who came after him,the late Yar’adua was not, by his nature somebody that was quite too accessible. As you saw, too, almost immediately he didn’t quite enjoyed good health so for me the system changed completely. I did not even know what was happening, I kept hearing different things from different sources. Before I left office I had already realized that there was a reason for me to begin to think of leaving. So leaving didn’t come to me as a surprise. I was aware so many people were anxious to come there because they thought it was easy to run it. Today, wherever they are I am sure they knew it wasn’t easy to run the place. So, adjusting to retirement life was quite simple for me. Just as I said, I looked forward to it.
Secondly, I had an immediate assignment that office had actually stopped me from doing. I have always considered myself a privilege person because in my days I would say I was one of the first generation of graduates in the television and so I had so much privileges, training here and there. There was no kind of training I didn’t go to up to the general management course in the United Kingdom. At the point of which I became the DG, the issue that first occurred to me was how do I give back to society all that I got from it? That propelled me to go into the academics for wanting to put down my views on paper for prosperity. The office kept preventing me from doing that. So when that office ended it was a very convenient junction for me to sit back and put on record my experiences in a thesis that I know will be a mixture of theories and practice on the things I had to really do. The way I had to take some decisions. The way I created the NTA Zonal Centres, the way I institutionalized live coverage. And most importantly the establishment of NTA International. These were issues you will find very difficult. One of them was enough for a tenure, but to the glory of God I put together many of these things. In addition, the upgrading of the TV College to a degree awarding institution and all of these were because of the kind of manpower development I had acquired myself. When you look at where you are coming from you couldn’t have done all these and get out without impacting on your successors. As I speak, six years or thereabout after leaving NTA, I still work quite a lot, though my personal work. As you know I am a columnist and it is not quite easy writing a column every week with new titles, new issues and canvassing different viewpoints. It is tedious, but it keeps me going. I also do quite a lot of scholarly works. I serve as visiting lecturers to a number of institutions and participating in mass communication discourses and many more. For me it is still quite fulfilling being out of office.
You said earlier on that you left office before you retired. What happened? Was it because of the politics that you talked about?
I don’t know what happened. I think government is in a better position to tell you what happened. What I know is that before I was due for retirement government had decided to appoint a new DG for NTA. Maybe some people in government had advised government that they could do so. It was after they had done it that they realized I was not a political appointee but a technocrat who had a civil service career and had to actually conclude his tenure. When I was told a new DG was appointed, I accepted it and merely asked that the remaining period of my working career be given to me as a pre-retirement leave, which government generously granted. I don’t know what influenced the granting, but I would say it was generous. For about six months or so, I was on leave before the date that I was due to go. That was why I drew the difference between the day I stopped work and the day I eventually retired. But I don’t think government knew that they could really have waited just a little bit before allowing me to go. The kitchen cabinet of government was anxious to bring in somebody. I don’t have any regret about that, I think it was alright because, sometimes, when you stay too long on a post you begin to get problems. In my kind of situation where you have literary minds that are very good at writing, framing and conjuring issues, which are meant to influence government decision on who next should come the earlier one get away from that system at that point in time the better . I think I have cause to appreciate government for not allowing me to overstay, which is quite good.
At what period in your career would you say you started preparing for retirement?
I would say I started preparing six years before I left. When government suddenly moved me from the position of Executive Director of News, I thought perhaps the end was coming because public broadcasting is so politicized in Nigeria. Two weeks after that, all of a sudden, government decided to send me to the National Orientation Agency as Director General. It then became clear to me that as DG where else would I go. I was at the verge of transferring my service from NTA to the Orientation Agency with a view to retiring when government again returned me to NTA as DG. This up and down situation was a warning sign to me or what people called early warning sign that the game was coming to an end. So if I did not physically prepare I think I mentally did. Like most people who usually have problem when they are asked to retire I didn’t have any problem.
What are you doing at present?
I would say I am doing writing. That is the major thing I should say I am doing now. Like I said earlier, I am a columnist, a weekly columnist for two newspapers. I tried my best to make my column as topical as possible and to galvanize all the views, the divergent views before putting down the view point that I want to canvass. That is quite a tedious thing to do. In addition, I lecture, I do a lot of training programmes.
While in service, did you entertain any fear whenever you reflected on retirement?
I wouldn’t call it fear. I would say maybe sometimes one has to think how will it be? For me, I really would say that I had been preparing. As DG of NTA, which was my last position, I had this attitude of asking my driver to close at about 4.00pm or 5.00pm and I would stay back and do some work. When I am done I drive myself home so I got used to driving myself. When I retired I didn’t have the problem of driving myself because I had been doing that and it helped me. Secondly, by my upbringing and general disposition I am somebody who believes in moderation. I never lived a life in service that would be difficult to maintain after service. After service, it has been quite simple for me because there was really no need for me to change the lifestyle.
How would you describe your first day in office as a young reporter?
It was very interesting. First and foremost, I was shocked when I was recruited to the television and the Head of News then, a lady, very strong lady, Mrs OmobolaOnajide at the Midwest Television, which became NTA Benin, posted me to Sports. I was wondering why Sports? I didn’t know why but it was probably the first time I realized that posting is not what you should worry about because you will be moved from one place to the other and I really moved. From Sports to News, Current Affairs and from there to other areas just like that. That first day I was a bit taken aback. When I got in there the induction and comradeship in the news department made it easy for me but what occurred to me as young worker, which I would never forget, was that persons who were in broadcasting, who had been there for long and had not acquired paper qualifications were somehow worried that the new generation of graduate reporters might overtake them. So there was some level of antagonism. I used to remember one funny editor we had. Anything you wrote for him he would edit it. No matter how right it was. If you say something happened in Lagos yesterday he would cancel ‘happened’ and write ‘took place.’ He would cancel ‘Lagos’ and write ‘federal capital.’ I think the first day was quite exciting for me.
What period of your career would you say was challenging?
I think every period has its own challenges. I wouldn’t say this was the one that was most challenging. When I was posted to the Electoral Commission I didn’t quite understand why. I was wondering, why should I be posted there? First and foremost I had never voted, I never registered and in my days elections in Nigeria were quite funny. We had this FEDECO that everybody was ridiculing and I said why did this people send me there? It was a military regime and we didn’t really have much to argue about. In due course, I found that many people in government had actually been part of the body that recommended that I should come in. Government at that point was restructuring the political system. It was the IBB days and government was anxious to put a halt to the idea of the Electoral Commission being the weeping child of everybody. Their thinking was that if the information of the Electoral Commission is well-managed the body could actually be insulated from public attacks. And so they were looking for a seasoned journalist who could be brought in there to manage its information and I was sent there. I had just concluded a sabbatical from the NTA which took me to the Nigerian Law School. I read Law and wanted to be called to the Bar. It was when I was coming back from the Law School that this posting took place. The first challenge that occurred to me was what would I be doing in this organization? Within a short period I found out that those who posted me there had their own wisdom and I adjusted to what I found on ground and I had a fulfilling tenure. At the end of my tenure in the Electoral Commission I was posted to the National Orientation Agency, a new organization set up at that point in 1993 to succeed the famous MAMSER. I was wondering why I was not returned to NTA? Because when I was sent to the Electoral Commission I had been told that when that assignment ended I would return to NTA. I went there but I was not quite happy that I was posted to NOA. But in retrospect and benefit of hindsight I think it was probably a divine design to prepare me for a bigger position in future that would require me to look at not just the technicality of media processes but also the implication of public opinion. As a DG in NOA, I immediately got the intricacies of mobilization, orientation and public enlightenment. Which meant that I was being given a second opportunity to look at how the public saw the media and how best to use the media to meet public demands. When I returned to NTA as DG it now became a good opportunity for me to look back at what I did at NOA, how it would be useful for government, media control and management. I think that if those things were challenges they worked well at the end of the day for me.
Is your pension enough to make you live a comfortable life in retirement ?
Everybody has his own idea of comfort. There are people who believe in glamour which, for me, is vanity. And when they are not able to meet that standard they say they can’t live normal life. What is normal about vanity? What people do with what they have is what matters. You can have plenty of money and waste them on frivolities. At 29, I was already a manager in the system and I knew someday I would get out of it because the pace at which I was going was very fast. I knew that between 10 years and 15 years from that time I would have reached the very top and would just be like 40-45. So I started thinking what do I do when that time comes? While I was in service I decided to read Law because I knew that if it comes to practising I would still be doing a noble job. But if you retired as a reporter you probably end up as a contractor because of our system. Some people are lucky, I think I am one of them. I am not good at hustling for anything, but I found myself getting far more things than those who hustle. To that extent, all this idea of build house, do this and that wasn’t a priority for me, but they kept coming. The first that came as a young manager was government low cost house in my state. At that level, I already had a house. I am not a good example of an average worker who is looking for how to live life after retirement. Secondly, I didn’t come from a pauper background. My parents might not have been the money bags but they had enough to make the children be sure of inheritance. So, many things really combined to put me at a privilege position and I remain grateful to God.
If you look back at the NTA years after you left as its DG, would you say your dreams are sustained?
I don’t want to believe that those who have managed the system have had the same dreams. If my dream is not fulfilled, for instance, it doesn’t mean that no dream was fulfilled. It depends on who is there. Unfortunately I don’t know what is happening now, I don’t know if it was left the way I had put it. But somebody else might have a different dream.