Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Femi Kusa's, former Editor in Chief of The Guardian writes an unflattering exposé on Late Alex Ibru

 

 

 

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Yes, Mr Adepoju, what matters at this point is the big picture, not the petty quarrels. What matters is that when the history of the Nigerian press and newspaper development in Nigeria is written today or tomorrow, Ibru will be remembered as a visionary, innovator and indeed a revolutionary and people like Femi Kusa would share in that glory as part of his team. That is what Mr Kusa should have concentrated on right now, not fight little wars when Ibru's body is still warm.

 

 

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From: toyin adepoju <toyin.adepoju@googlemail.com>
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, 28 November 2011, 20:01
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Femi Kusa's, former Editor in Chief of The Guardian writes an unflattering exposé on Late Alex Ibru

I appreciate your point, Kennedy Emetulu. I might not be able to agree with your position, but I acknowledge that it is a vital one. Death is a delicate situation and should be handled with great sensitivity.

May one reach such a level in life that the views of others do nothing more than reinforce the many sided splendour of one's humanity, whether those views point to the more pleasant  or the less pleasant  aspects of that humanity.

On a different note, its interesting seeing that my observation about the Guardian after Macebuh might not have been purely subjective.

I salute Ibru on his vision in relation to that paper.

thanks

oluwatoyin

On 28 November 2011 17:54, Kennedy Emetulu <kemetulu@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

 

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Mr Adepoju,

 

I am one of those who miss the old Guardian and who feel that its quality as a national newspaper progressively diminished after Macebuh. But the point here is not the rights and wrongs of whoever or whatever in the politics of The Guardian or its fall in quality. The point here is that it is the wrong time for anyone to make their case against Ibru in public, especially as the person making this case had more than thirteen years to do that after leaving The Guardian before Ibru's death!

 

Farooq's position (and mine) has nothing to do with the justness of Kusa's case, but the fairness of stating it at this time. We are not saying Kusa should not have written this at all, even though he didn't do so at the time Ibru was alive. We are saying good judgment should have prevailed on him to tarry awhile and let this time pass. Okay, we were not party to the goings-on in the inner recesses of The Guardian at the time, but it does seem terribly inconsiderate and unfair that anyone would choose the occasion of Ibru's death to throw stones at him and impugn his integrity. This is what Kusa has done in his narration of The Guardian boardroom brouhahas (including Ibru's issue with Macebuh) and in his account of Ibru's acceptance to serve in Abacha's government. These are things he should have had the courage to say while Ibru, Akporugo and Macebuh were alive. That would have given them a fair opportunity to respond.

 

I note your straw man argument that you do not believe that death is a time to speak only positive things about the departed; but nobody is asking Kusa to venerate Ibru. If this was all he wanted to say about Ibru, then he should have as well kept schtum until the appropriate time. In his case, the factors against him doing so now are clear, not least is the fact that he has had over thirteen years or thereabout outside the employ of the man or The Guardian to speak out. If he chose to keep quiet all this while, then reason demands he continues doing so until a time when he can appropriately speak on these publicly. Making himself the issue upon the death of Ibru is akin to dancing on the man's grave! You may not agree; but that is a matter of opinion. God forbid, but if you were in Ibru's shoes and some fellow who had the opportunity to speak publicly about you (because of a close working relationship) comes thereafter to yarn publicly about what they consider to be your bad side in dealings with them, I can guarantee that for every one person who will stand to support such a fellow's right to speak about you or reveal things anyone may consider to be in public interest, there will be twenty more ready to slap him down and tell him to shove it! Even without knowing you, if I'm alive, I will be amongst the twenty and my one slap will possibly take off the fellow's head! Such exhibition of wanton selfishness, bitterness and uncultured display of inconsideration deserves nothing less!

 

So, Farooq took Kusa to task over his grammar? Everyone knows that Farooq is finicky about his grammar and when he does this type of thing with anyone or any writing, some of us believe he's doing us a public service, even when we happen to be his 'victims'! Farooq will take bad writing from anyone apart, even if you're his closest friend! Nothing personal! So, if you want to clobber him for that, please do; but note that in this particular case, he is absolutely right to take Kusa on, because the latter was an Editor-in-Chief of supposedly the best English Language newspaper in Africa at the time and if he cares very little about his grammar and public writing, then it would be difficult to defend him against a Farooq! To whom much is given, much is expected!

 

 

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From: toyin adepoju <toyin.adepoju@googlemail.com>
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, 28 November 2011, 12:22
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Femi Kusa's, former Editor in Chief of The Guardian writes an unflattering exposé on Late Alex Ibru

I identify with you in the loss of your wife, Farooq.

Could you please give any directions on learning obituary writing?  I've done some writing of that but did not know it was considered a genre of its own that could be systematically studied.

I dont see this essay on Ibru as negative.

It tries, instead to give us an image of Ibru in his various manifestations, as businessman and politician.

Allow me to embarrass you and others by stating that I would also have liked to read about what transpired between Ibru and the man who might be the leading light of the Guardian at its founding, Stanley Macebuh, a dispute rumoured to be over a woman that seems to have led to Macebuh's leaving the Guardian and taking with him the magical photography of Sunmi Smart-Cole, if I have the name right, as well, in my view, the culture of the Guardian as an intellectual lighthouse. which was for a time, at the centre of Nigerian intellectual life in the humanities as evident in the Guardian Literary Series, where some of the best essays of  leading Nigerian literary critics, such as Abiola Irele and  Biodun Jeyifo were published, not to mention some of the most comprehensive explorations of various facets of Nigerian literature, essays written by scholars in Nigeria before a number of them fled abroad. The series was published as a set of two books edited by Macebuh. As far as I know, after Macebuh, the Guardian tried to continue that series, but it did not seem particularly successful and no more books came out of it. To my mind, from that point, the Guardian became more or less an ordinary newspaper of less than sterling quality. It was through the Guardian, for example, that Philip Emeagwali laid the  decisive foundations of his massive global fraud of self misrepresentation, through a glowing interview with Reuben Abati, later to became chairman of the Guardian editorial board, an interview full of bare faced lies of achievements of global stature, lies which a journalist  ought to have been able to uncover  through some diligent and even basic research, before going to press.

I hope the Guardian will one day apologise for unwittingly  aiding this fraud.

I dont belive that death is a time to speak only positive things of the departed. What human is only positive? Let us leave the exclusive rights for encomiums to the graveside. Those who have opinions, emotions etc unlocked by the death of the departed person should please air them. That is part of the departed person's legacy. Those who read that can then piece together the bits and come to their own conclusions.

Evidence of small mindedness on my part, the vicissitudes of the Guardian after Macebuh and the fact that Macebuh's career does not seem to have recovered after leaving the Guardian have made me unhappy with Ibru, even though I know nothing for a fact of the circumstances in which Macebuh left the Guardian, even though I read he got a handsome severance package tied to his promise not to disclose anything on the conflict that led to his departure and even though Ibru as a person and his achievements go beyond the Guardian. I mention this bias of mine of mine in the name of being honest. I have never interacted with or even seen Ibru or Macebuh.

On the contrary to the idea of veneration through pure celebration, it might be more respectful to the departed to present them in their full unflawed self, Ibru as shrewd businessman, Ibru as politician, canny or otherwise, Ibru in his struggle between the ideals of a newspaper proprietor and counsels of expediency in his  struggle with the Abacha regime impacting  massively on his paper etc. All these are part of what make Ibru himself  and his departure might be the only time that some of his former associates might be motivated to speak up candidly. True, it would have been better if these points wee made when he was alive, but his presence is so massive that this description of him cannot diminish his gargantuan  shadow. Note, this man passed away at only 66. Can you imagine what he has achieved in that time?

I am also keen on knowing how he became so  rich at 27 in Nigeria and before the culture of dot.com wealth pioneered by the  US. There is a culture of legitimate, honerst wealth in Nigeria not significatly publicised. It is not in oil, banking, perhaps not even in commoditues marketing or manufacturing, as with Dangote, not in telecommunications, as with Adenuga, Dangote's fellow Nigerian billionaire. Ibru might be one of those who represent that other stream of wealth, along with Victor Odili of Aeromaritime and Brawal Shipping.

thanks
oluwatoyin

On 28 November 2011 06:12, Farooq A. Kperogi <farooqkperogi@gmail.com> wrote:

This is a poorly written, unbearably narcissistic, petty, vindictive, and cowardly piece. The writer was clearly not in the right frame of mind when he wrote this. This is evident from the essay's crying lack of internal coherence, its embarrassing structural deformities, its avoidably ugly grammatical errors, and its general vacuity.

How could someone who is inviting us to see him as the reason--or at least one of the reasons-- for the distinctive style and success of the Guardian not know enough to know that there is no such word as "confusionist" in the English language (except as an alternative spelling of Confucianist, i.e,. a follower of Confucius), or that the expression "he called off" should have been "he hung up," or that "inseperable" is properly spelled "inseparable," or that "sleepless" is not spelled "sleepness," etc? (Has this man's computer's spellcheck been disabled?) I have noted several other mortifying solecisms that I don't expect from my undergraduate students. And he is supposed to be one of Nigeria's journalistic "icons"!

 But let's even ignore his inexcusable grammatical incompetence for now. The writer comes across as a mean-spirited, juvenile, and egocentric swellhead who is inebriated with an exaggerated sense of his importance and who has a fragile ego that needs constant rejuvenation through scorn-worthy self-congratulation. Somebody died, his family and loved ones are still in a state of emotional turmoil, and all that this narcissist can do is to exploit this tragic situation to construct an image of himself as the apotheosis of moral uprightness, as Nigerian journalism's nonpareil personification of morality, and as the patron-saint of "principles" who is unblemished by the faintest sprinkle of ethical dirt. And he does all this at the expense of a dead person, nay dead people, who can't defend themselves.

Plus, what's all that nauseating twaddle about Yoruba versus Urhobo? Is this man really that small-minded?

I am NOT defending Ibru. I don't know enough about him to refute or confirm what Kusa wrote about him. But having recently lost a wife and having taught obituary writing and journalism ethics for years, I DO know that it's distasteful and insensitive to the survivors of the dead to so carelessly malign their departed kin just days after his passing. Of course, clearly evil people who brought death and misery to large swaths of people are exempt from this consideration. Ibru, with all his foibles, hardly fits that description. This violent animadversion against a dead person could wait--that is, if it must be written. I don't know what kind of journalism Kusa practiced and still practices. But it's certainly not one that is worthy of admiration.

Farooq

Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Journalism & Citizen Media
Department of Communication
Kennesaw State University
1000 Chastain Road, MD 2207 

Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell:  (+1) 404-573-969:
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/farooqkperogi

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"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will

On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 5:22 PM, Toyin Falola <toyin.falola@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:

 

Femi Kusa departs from our tendency to sanctify the dead. Please see below for his take on how Alex Ibru ran The Guardian. It was published in The Nation of 24 November.

Alexander Uruemu IbruŠ Publisher, The Guardian

By Femi Kusa 24/11/2011 16:45:00

Font size:    

I WAS some way through the conclusion of the series on eye problems when Mr George Akintobi informed me of breaking newsŠ Alex Ibru was gone!. A few minutes later, the editor of a newspaper telephoned me for comments. I was numb, and apologised that I wasn't in the mood for comments. He apologised and called off. My mind had been set on the breaking news on Dr. Contreras, the central figure in a book on how he had been healing HIV and cancer patients with coconut oil, yes coconut oil. This is the same doctor the American Medical Association hounded out of the United States to Mexico for healing cancer with laterile. I planned to quickly break this news, especially as Dr. Contreras is now the toast of American media, the same medical stone once rejected, and then wrap it up with possible healing for eye problems in homeopathic cell salts. Well, all of that will now have to come next week. What breaking news could be bigger than Alex Uruemu Ibru, I reasoned. As the numbness disappeared, I remembered the man who told me he made all the money he needed in his life at 27. I remembered the young man who told his big brother, Olorogun Michael Ibru, he wanted to buy a Rolls Royce. I remembered he told me Olorogun thought he was too young to own a Royce. How would his brothers take it, having no Rolls? Alex said he asked Olorogun if it was alright if he bought his and theirs. Olorogun thought that was impossible, and gave his blessing. Alex bought five Rolls in one day, one for each of his brothers, himself and Olorogun!. At his home in Chelsea, England, he showed me his custom-made car which was much bigger than a Rolls Royce, and I told him he would be stoned on the roads of Lagos if he drove it there. He said, even in England, policemen saluted him in it.

That was the Alex Ibru I worked with, not worked for, between 1983 and 1999. There's a huge difference between working with and working for. When you work for, you are a slave, you may be owned. By 1977, I had known no one owned anything, not even his or her life, children, wife or husband, even property. Working with, you work for yourself, working as if the company belongs to you, one day expecting the reward not from the employer, but from the application for personal ends of the inner heat you have generated working in love, and not out of the enslaving compulsion of duty.

Alexander Uruene Ibru founded The Guardian newspaper in 1983 at a time many journalists of conscience were fed up with manipulations of the The Daily Times, then the leading newspaper, by the National Party of Nigeria (NPN). Umaru Dikko was leading our editor, Martin Iroabuchi, by the nose. One of the directors could take your secretary on a trip abroad without any notice and you dared not raise a finger against her. Martin often demanded that headlines be submitted to complete strangers to the organisation for vetting. The News Editor, Felix Odiari, had links to Moshood Kasimawo Abiola (MKO). Bamanga Tukur had his own insiders. If you didn't belong to any NPN clique, you were thought to belong to Chief Obafemi Awolowo's Unity Party of Nigeria, diminished in status and castrated as it were. Lade Bonuola was put down, and sent to work under a former subordinate. So, the coming of The Guardian was a professionally rejuvenating experience. This is not the time to tell the story of The Guardian. I am even one of the least competent to tell it, although I gave to it 17 years of my most creative and adventurous years.

Until a few years before my departure from The Guardian, I deliberately avoided direct dealings with Mr. Ibru. I was at various times Assistant Editor, Editor, Executive Director/Editor and Director of Publications/ Editor-in-chief. I was, and still is, a systems man. I'd rather report to the Publisher/Chairman, Alex Ibru, through my boss, Lade Bonuola My job was to generate editorial and business ideas which would make The Guardian first choice newspaper in the market, and I think I did that to the best of my abilities. But Mr. Ibru always sought to work past the bosses, and the difficulties he had with me in that regard would make him conclude Bonuola and Kusa were two inseperable sides of a hardy coin, contrary to the reality of both of us being diametrically apposite people in many respects.

Many people saw Mr. Ibru as shrewd and unfeeling when he would be expected to lavish his money on his workers. Such people had no business instincts. Alex Ibru would spend working capital on nothing but the business. I didn't see his riches, let alone think of them or desire his crumbs. To me, he was just a human spirit privileged in this earth life to be entrusted with resources of Creation for the welfare of creatures of the Most High God. If he didn't use them the way he was meant to, that was a matter between him and his Maker. This concept of wealth, which he and I often discussed, led him to coin the slogan, "God's Money", which many staff of The Guardian often heard from him any time he had to square up against rippers of the company, sometimes ruthlessly. In this regard, he meant they were stealing from the Creator and it was his duty, as custodian, to stop them. I remember him dispatching Kingsley Osadolor to Zimbabwe in pursuit of a circulation clerk who fled from Warri or Ughelli when he was found out. His connections in the government of Zimbabwe paid off. I had no problem with "God's Money". I was brought up to be content with the little I had and to loathe subsistence on the crumbs from another man's table, whether freely given or stolen. Thus, I had to sell ice block, vegetable, chewing stick, palm oil, coconut and egg and raise pigs to keep my family going during General Sanni Abacha's proscription of The Guardian for one year. Alex had thought suffering would break our spirit to the point that we would beg Abacha for our lives.

So shrewd was Mr. Ibru as a businessman at the time I became editor of The Guardian that my salary was not topped to reflect the new office and extra workload until one year after when the company grudgingly made a token addition with only about three months arrears. The company simply said it had no money. I was not alone. Eluem Emeka Izeze, now Managing Director, was appointed editor of the Sunday title and Mitchell Obi was appointed editor of the afternoon title, Guardian Express. I earned Mr. Ibru's respect because I did not seek to make the company spend on me money it said was not available for spending. I asked Mr. Ibru if he would let me have a say in the budget of the newsroom if income in the following year exceeded his target, and he agreed, believing it was impossible, given the trends. He had just had a rumpus with Dr. Stanley Macebuh over the company's commercial viability. Many people thought we should bury our pride and accept obituary advertisements to earn four pages of advertisements every day to make us viable. I raised no objection, but looked beyond this scenario I had been tutored spiritually that competition and covetousness were the major causes of crises in man's affairs. Trying to take the obituary market from either The Daily Times or the burgeoning National Concord would exhaust us, we would not hit the target and Mr. Ibru would be impatient, if not angrier than he was with Dr. Macebuh. The sky was broad enough for all birds to fly in and not collide. Why not discover and nurture your own market? I had been studying the Columbia University Journalism Review and the Washington Journalism Review for trends in American and European newspapering which helped them survive the onslaught on radio and television. I saw that these newspapers were abandoning age old aloofness and connecting to society and the business class to create editorial/business niches for themselves which made every day of the week brandable as a product such as, say, Maggi or Milo. That was not being done in Nigerian newspapers. They all pursed, like a herd, public news, creating no variety or niches. I cannot detail here the many tortuous steps and sleepness nights it took to brand Monday as a PROPERTY day in The Guardian. My respect and grateful thanks for its success, like that of many other days of the week, Tuesday in particular, go to Mrs. Harriet Lawrence, Architect Paul Okunlola, Mr. Raheem Adedoyin, Mr. Jide Ogundele, Mr. Dele Babatunde and the likes of them who stoutly withstood acrimonious personal attacks from the rigid advertising department. Emeka Izeze was to replicate this idea with a Section for computers and information technology on the Sunday title which he edited. We made good money by the standards of those days. Mr. Ibru permitted three pay rises in one year. We bought 42 plots of land at Isheri from OPIC for staff who had spent five years with the company, and five hectares for the GNL to build a Guardian staff village. Had The Guardian flame been permitted to burn on, perhaps we would have had a more buoyant paper than The Guardian is today. Ethnic and religious jingoists detrailed the train after taking Alex Ibru hostage. Gen. Abacha also made a mince meat of it.

Mr. Ibru in my view exposed The Guardian to Abacha's danger. Perhaps unknown to Alex Ibru, Abacha wanted a formidable newspaper such as The Guardian to back his venture to sweep away Gen. Ibrahim Babangida contrived Interim National Government (ING) of Ernest Shonekan. I remember vividly an emergency meeting of the caucus of the Editorial Board to which Mr. Ibru summoned four of usŠ Lade Bonuola. Femi Kusa, Dr. Tunji Dare and Andy Akporugo. Akporugo was a "yes" man any day, and employed fear for top editorial people to keep Alex Ibru tightly under his armpit. He always asked in the newsroom if anyone had seen a Yoruba company in which an Urhobo man was managing director. One day, he and Bonuola almost came to blows at an editorial board meeting. Akporugo once told Tunji Dare Mr. Ibru had sent him to ask Tunji to resign one of his two powerful appointmentsŠ Chairman, Editorial Board, and Executive Director of Guardian Newspaper Ltd (GNL). Dr. Dare was lucky he discussed the matter with Lade Bonuola, then, I believe, GNL MD. Mr. Bonuola asked Dr. Dare two simple questions: Are your appointments not Board appointments, and has the Board met over such a question? Dr. Dare thanked Bonuola and went his way. Had Alex Ibru always played on level field, would such a confusionist have arisen in our ranks? Lest I derail, at that said emergency meeting, Alex Ibru said he had learned Abacha wanted to take over government the following day, and asked for an editorial opinion to be published hours before the general struck, telling him not to dare it. The editorial was published in the morning as requested, and in the 4.0'clock news Alex Ibru's name was mentioned on national radio as having been appointed Minister of Internal Affairs! Dr. Dare was to say afterwards that, from the manner Mr. Ibru spoke to him at a diplomatic party one or two days before that emergency meeting, it was clear the publisher was privy to his appointment, and may have accepted it!

My next shocking experience with Alex Ibru was to come - He freely went into politics. I recall suggesting to him at the Editorial Board meeting he attended to say he was going, that he should resign from GNL Board so as not to drag The Guardian along. He humbly did. But he would love us to come to Abuja to "brainstorm" with him. I do not know if anyone agreed. Without my knowledge, he got my deputy, Kingsley Osadolor, to go to Abuja. And the resultant copy, INSIDE ASO ROCK, which Mr Osadolar did not clear with me before publication, perhaps because the matter was beyond me anyway, led to Abacha's proscription of The Guardian.

Mr Ibru failed to take personal responsibility for this event. He would rather see the proscription as caused by the pro-democracy stance of the newspaper. It was even speculated that he was toying with the idea of neutralising Yoruba elements in senior positions to re-assure Abacha he had ridden the paper of his enemies. Before then, he called a meeting to demand the directors and editors go to Abuja to beg Abacha to re-open The Guardian. Abacha had been under international pressure to let go. But he was seeking a local explanation for the reopening. The Punch, too was under lock and key. The journalists at The Punch voted not to go, and they didn't. Alex Ibru scooped the editors of The Guardian to his side. At a Board meeting to resolve the disagreement of Lade Bonuola, Mr Ibru asked him rather roughly and crudely to resign his office as Managing Director if he would not go. The question was: does one bow one's spirit before evil for the sake of bread and butter!. Lade Bonuola looked Alex Ibru straight in the eyes, and resigned his appointment as Managing Director of The Guardian.

Alex Ibru didn't expect it. Silence fell. The fighter that he was, Alex Ibru turned to me and appointed me Managing Director of The Guardian. It took me by surprise. I had expected he would find a way to mend fences with Bonuola. Alex Ibru should have known I am not a man who, for a pot of porridge, hacks down the man above to inherit his estate. It was one of those occasions in my life when my brimming spirit gave no room to the intellect. I rejected the offer and said, having rejected it, it was only honourable for me to resign my appointment as Director of Publications/Editor-in-Chief. It is that man whose faith in God has not become conviction in Him who fears the morrow and goes for the crumbs. My resignation generated uproar. Mr Ibru was shouting and sweating. He called me an ingrate, said he made me editor against the wishes of Macebuh and others. I replied that I didn't beg to be editor, or know of any intrigues he swept away for me. In any case, didn't I justify my appointment? Didn't the company become profitable in the first year of my editorship of the newspaper? Dr. Tuji Dare, Sully Abu and Eddy Madunagu did not attend the meeting, wishing to be identified as having even contemplated the idea, and having resigned their Board appointments hitherto. Mr Ososami, a director and childhood friend of Alex Ibru, brokered peace, advising we went for lunch during which rioting emotions would have calmed. We did. During lunch time, Alex Ibru was saved by Nicholas Iduwe, the director who managed printing aspects, from taking a rash decision that may have drowned The Guardian. Ibru told Iduwe he would call the bluff and make Andy Akporugo Managing Director. Iduwe screamed, and told Alex many reasons why he should not. He suggested instead that he mend fences with Bonuola. Alex Ibru saw reason through his anger, and agreed. But he made a bad unmanagerial mistake in telling Akporugo what Iduwe had said of him. Akporugo was angry, and waited for an opportunity to punish Iduwe. Iduwe and Alex Ibru soon had a disagreement. Ibru wanted directors of The Guardian to adjudicate. Bonuola declined on the grounds that the matter was private, not corporate enough to warrant our attention Alex Ibru angrily transferred the inquisition to the directors of Federal Palace Hotel, a sister company of which he, also, was chairman. Those directors nailed Iduwe, calling for his retirement. Alex Ibru brought the "judgment" back to Bonuola, asking him to implement it. Bonuola declined again. Alex Ibru then got Mr Oritshani, Admin Controller to do the dirty job. The man did! Alex was determined to break this intransigence. But he didn't have the opportunity before his shooting. It was nevertheless on his mind, and, using Akporugo, it was one of his first acts on returning from exile in England. He dissolved the Board which had faithfully held the fort for him, turned directors into Consultants who were to only advise their juniors who were immediately upgraded as new helmsmen of the company. It was a way of telling the old guard that if they had any sense of shame, it was time to go. Some of us did.

There was jubilation in The Guardian. But I do not think it took long before the new helmsmen experience Mr Ibru. It is not my place to try to know what went on after my departure. I haven't set foot on the grounds of The Guardian since my exit about 13 years ago. A dog doesn't return to its vomit, it is said. But suffice it to say Mr Alex Ibru's departure would have as much profound effects on the company as his presence. The challenge before the new managers should be to turn it into a real institution, one with checks and balances, not the one that looks like one on the outside but is not within the perimeter fencing.

The best bet may be for the family to make it a PUBLIC TRUST as Alex Ibru so often dreamed. Maiden, the widow, should learn to be wary of all the do-gooder sympathisers. I send her and the Ibru brothers and sisters heart-felt wishes for inner strength to go through this season.

Bye, Alex.

--  

Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
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