Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Make Your Life Easily Organized

USA Africa Dialogue Series - Abdul Karim Bangura's Recent Wikipedia Entries

Abdul Karim Bangura's Recent Wikipedia Entries

As the Internet emerged to be the first and most popular choice for research---i.e. before most of us hit the libraries, archives, etc., I have over the years contributed entries to Wikipedia and other Internet media, first under pseudonyms and now my name. My purpose is threefold:

(1) I subscribe to the ideology that knowledge should be shared by the masses, not just reserved for the educated elite who will read our books and journals.

(2) Afrikan ideas and great thinkers will be better known by non-Afrikans, and even many Afrikans, through these very expansive media.

(3) The media allow for quick suggestive evaluations.

The following are my most recent Wikipedia entries. Please make improvements on them.

(1) Bangura's Vulture Paradigm:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangura%27s_Vulture_Paradigm

(2) Diop's Intercultural Relations Methodology:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diop%E2%80%99s_Intercultural_Relations_Methodology

(3) Diop's Theory of the Restoration of African Historical Consciousness

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diop%E2%80%99s_Theory_of_the_Restoration_of_African_Historical_Consciousness

Thanks a heap in advance for your good help.

In Peace Always,
Karim/.

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USA Africa Dialogue Series - Picturing Africa: Joe Penney interviews Azu Nwagbogu

http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/3285/penney_nwagbogu_12_1_11/

Picturing Africa

Joe Penney interviews Azu Nwagbogu December 2011

Lagos Photo Festival founder Azu Nwagbogu on combating Afro-pessimism, the dialogue between Africa and the West, and depicting the "other Africa" of industry and intellect.

Photography by Joe Penney

Think Lagos, Nigeria, and a certain nightmarish vision of the future often emerges: an overcrowded, polluted, and chaotic city with a reputation for violent crime. Africa's fastest-growing city of 15 million (in the continent's most populous nation) has a checkered past, but that's quickly changing.

Buoyed by the successful hosting of Fela!—the acclaimed Broadway play was the first to be staged in Nigeria, and played to a packed, raucous house of the country's growing middle and upper-middle classes for nearly two weeks earlier this year — a rising set of urban Nigerians (often with connections to New York and London) are forging a world-class arts scene that is set to command ever more international attention in the coming years. New boutiques promoting young Nigerian designers are springing up around the city, while galleries play host to emerging talents along with distinguished names like Yinka Shonibare. New publishers promote fresh voices like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Ben Okri alongside well-established figures like Chinua Achebe and Nobel Prize–winner Wole Soyinka, while musicians flock to the mecca of the Afrobeat renaissance, Femi Kuti's New Afrika Shrine.

Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola, widely regarded as the most successful administrator the city has ever seen, was re-elected in April with 81 percent of the vote. His cleanup of some of the city's most unruly areas and championing of a rapid bus system have contributed immensely to the current mood of optimism in Africa's most explosive and energetic mega-city.

It is in this context that LagosPhoto, a new annual photography festival aimed at "representing African sensibilities," has arisen. Now in its second year, LagosPhoto recently hosted an indoor and outdoor exhibition featuring a mix of forty-one Nigerian and international photographers, workshops, and a fashion exhibition. LagosPhoto attempts to challenge the idea that "discourses on the [African] continent are not necessarily applicable to their object [and that] their nature, their stakes, and their functions are situated elsewhere," according to Cameroonian academic Achille Mbembe.

The festival is the brainchild of Azu Nwagbogu, a native Lagosian and the founder of the African Artists' Foundation, an organization that works to promote Nigerian artists. Nwagbogu hails from a royal family in Onitsha, southeastern Nigeria, and contemplated entering the world of professional boxing before pursuing a master's degree in public health from Cambridge University. Upon returning to Nigeria, however, he switched his focus to promoting the arts in Africa's fastest-growing city and commandeering the information flow from the Global South. I met Nwagbogu during LagosPhoto at the marble-paneled bar at a hotel overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Wearing his trademark orange trousers—designed and sewn in Lagos—he spoke to me at length about the image of the continent he holds dear to his heart, his soft voice betraying the grand scope of his ambition.

—Joe Penney for Guernica

Guernica: How did LagosPhoto come about? What were the beginnings?

Azu Nwagbogu: First of all, I'm a fan of photography as an artistic medium. I flirted with a bunch of ideas around photography: I have set up a photo agency because there's a massive pool of talented photographers here. But there isn't really a formal school for photography here, and I thought, how do I stimulate this industry? Beyond that, in my international travels I've been to various exhibitions, various art shows around the world. Going out there and being inspired by images captured on the continent, especially in Lagos, made me think, you know, a lot of these guys, foreign photographers coming to Africa, working here, are documenting something really important, and a lot of people back home are not able to dialogue or really engage in these images because they're not exhibited here. So I thought it would be great to have a festival where local and international photographers can dialogue and exchange ideas, can share work and have a working partnership. This is really the key thing for LagosPhoto—to create a dialogue for local photographers and photographers based elsewhere to tell the stories and give voice to the stories that we feel are underrepresented on the continent.

[Photography is] the fastest growing art tool on the continent, and it's perhaps the easiest to gain access to.

Guernica: So in a way it's an initiative to develop image making in Africa?

Azu Nwagbogu: That's right. To develop the talent pool and also to tell our own stories in our own way. A lot of the stories that we want to tell are less commonly seen or represented in popular media.

Guernica: Why is that important?

Azu Nwagbogu: The key thing is we need to give voice to our people to tell their own stories; we need to give voice to the majority population so that we can actually visualize ourselves the way we want to be. If everything we know about our culture, heritage, and day-to-day living is imparted onto us from outside, then it makes it difficult for us to tell our own stories or to be inspired by the lives that we want for ourselves. So we need to fight against stereotypes. We need to tell the full gamut of the stories, represent the stories that are important to us, our culture, our lifestyle, our existence in the world, our space on the planet, and the way that we see ourselves. And that's why it's important to develop photographers and photography: because it's the fastest growing art tool on the continent, and it's perhaps the easiest to gain access to.

Guernica: What do you see as the role for Western photographers in this?

Azu Nwagbogu: I think it's a dual role. When we invite Western photographers here, we ask them and encourage them to partner with local photographers so that there's a cultural and creative dialogue going on. It's not a situation where we expect Western photographers to teach or impart. It's an exchange. The photographers here are doing very well for themselves, but they also need to learn the things that are important in the West, like how to get published, how to get access to mainstream media, how to get your work out there so that people can actually engage with your images. It's important to create that dialogue, and it's important to create the cultural discourse and the technical partnership as well.

Guernica: Where is photography in Nigeria now?

Azu Nwagbogu: If you had asked this question only five years ago, the answer would have been completely different. You would only be able to name a handful of photographers doing important work. But now it's different—there's a massive talent pool out there, and photographers are beginning to create niches for themselves, which is the key thing that we're trying to do with LagosPhoto. We're trying to encourage photographers to focus on specific areas at a time so the work has more depth and meaning. There's emotion, there's more investment in it; it's not just a quick thing that you go out and do for a few days. We want photographers to spend a month, spend six months, spend years developing a project, so that when viewers look at the images they can relate to them in a deeper sense.

When you have 150 million people and you develop the talent out there, it's just statistics that there's going to be a massive talent pool.

Guernica: Historically, photography has often been viewed as a trade rather than a social tool in Africa. Do you see that changing?

Azu Nwagbogu: Oh, for sure. The photographers who focus as sociologists, if you'd like, in the community and go out and do work for themselves and develop these projects—it's something that is growing on the continent over the last few years. Maybe the festival has played an important role in this, I don't know, but I can tell that a lot more photographers are interested in stories and following projects to a deeper extent. Also because they realize that if it's not published locally it can probably be published internationally, if it's done right. That's something that's not supported by the government. A Dutch photographer, for example, can get a grant from the arts fund or something, but locally the photographers here don't get the same support and have to really support themselves by doing projects on the side. This is something that we are well aware of, and we are looking to support the photographers in a deeper way by having artist residencies, supporting photographers to do stories for periods at a time. The African Artists' Foundation [AAF] has actually engaged a few photographers to follow certain projects for a sustained period and supported the artists for this period, whereby we have a shared ownership of the work. This initiative is actually working.

Guernica: Where do you see photography in Africa going in the next few years, and how do you see AAF's relationship to that?

Azu Nwagbogu: I think AAF's LagosPhoto is very important in driving photography in Africa, and especially Nigeria, because a lot more photographers are interested in developing their talent and in the fact that we have this month-long event that really develops photography through workshops, through seminars, through photo-walks, through various tutorials that we set up throughout the year. Nigeria has an incredibly large population, and if we invest in our population we definitely have a chance to develop the community. When you have 150 million people and you develop the talent out there, it's just statistics that there's going to be a massive talent pool. If you invest in this population, then you know that you have the chance to develop several future champions, big-name photographers who will do well and do the continent proud. The African Artists' Foundation depends on a lot of friends and support from both local and international photographers who have come to teach and impart skills to the young and up-and-coming guys, because there are no formal schools for photography here.

Guernica: Why photography? Why is it so important to you?

Azu Nwagbogu: I'm not a photographer myself, it's not something that I have an overly familiar relationship with. It's just another medium. What I do in photography I do in other visual art forms—in sculpture, in painting—and if I had more time I'd probably do the same in literature as well. So it's just another tool, and I think it's an important tool. You never forget a really powerful image. If you attend a photo exhibition and you truly engage with it, you never really forget the images that resonate with you when it's all done. My relationship with photography is not very personal, but I have a lot of respect for photography as a tool, as a medium. A lot of people can relate to it, and the opportunities for photography to travel are a lot faster than any other medium.

Guernica: Is there such a thing as African photography, or is the continent too big to speak of it as a whole?

Azu Nwagbogu: You can create patterns. There are definitely patterns of photography on the continent. If you look, for example, at the work of Malick Sidibé, we've moved on now. I wouldn't say there's any such thing as real African photography, but if you look back on what has been documented on African photography, then you can see patterns. But looking ahead and looking at the present, I wouldn't say there's any such thing as African photography. One of the things about LagosPhoto is that we're determined to represent photography in its full range. So we're interested in architectural photography, photo-documentary, art photography, book publications. We're interested in anything that really resonates and captures the sensibilities of the continent and the people.

Guernica: If you look at the way Africa is represented in the West, it's usually as a separate showcase of "African photography." How do you see that?

I don't think it's important to categorize work based on the country of birth of the photographer. It creates unnecessary dialogue with the work.

Azu Nwagbogu: I think that's unfortunate, and I don't think it's helpful at all. A lot of photographers who have shown at LagosPhoto 2011 are actually European photographers who have lived here, and the work they've done is different from photographers who have spent a week doing a story here. A lot of the people have spent years living in Africa, and so this is what's important: showing stories and showing work that shows a deeper understanding of the continent. You'll find that snapshots are overly represented in the mainstream media. I don't think it's important to categorize work based on the country of birth of the photographer. It creates unnecessary dialogue with the work.

Guernica: How would you like to see photography in Africa represented? Will LagosPhoto show elsewhere in the world?

Azu Nwagbogu: We'd love to show LagosPhoto, and we've been speaking with other partners like Foam [in Amsterdam]. We want to represent African sensibilities to a wider audience. I don't mean showing the work of local photographers—I mean showing the photographers who we think are representing the continent in a truer fashion, as opposed to showing the work of people who are coming for two weeks on an assignment and heading back to New York and sitting back with a drink after their hardship posting on the continent. We want to show the work of people who actually spend time here, who are emotionally invested, who have captured sensibilities on the continent. It's very important that the world take notice of these stories. I'm tired of people meeting me when I go abroad and saying, "you sound different, you think different from other Africans." I don't think different from other Africans—it's very common. I'm like a lot of people who are here, it's just that people aren't used to engaging or dialoguing with "the other Africa," if you'd like.

Guernica: How long will LagosPhoto go on for?

Azu Nwagbogu: Well if I'm on my deathbed, I'd like to hear that LagosPhoto will be going on the year after I'm gone. But as I say, it's not very personal. I want it to be bigger than myself, bigger than the foundation. It's unfortunate because other photo festivals on the continent seem to represent Africa in a very—should I say the accepted fashion?

Guernica: What's the accepted fashion?

Azu Nwagbogu: It's a bit like Hollywood—there are five or six formats for the way we tell stories in Hollywood. To tell African stories there are certain patterns: the corruption, the poverty, the "noble savage," and all of these stereotypes to those of us who live here. I think it's important to represent the "other Africa," as I call it, to tell a more rounded story. Of course these commonly represented stories are not untrue, but it's important to show fashion photography, for example, to show the style of the people, to show the industry and intellect, the normality of the life we live here. One of the things we hope LagosPhoto will be is a mirror to our politicians: we can create change by holding up a mirror to decision makers, to stakeholders. But I don't think you can hold it up to them if you overly represent the negative. I think it's important to show the positives as well, and to show a more rounded view. The problem of Africa really is the Afro-pessimism, where we show the hopelessness of the African situation. It leads to apathy, and no one wants to do anything. You think it's hopeless, so what's the point? But if we represent a more rounded view and we're able to advocate and get invested people to come together, then I think photography will play a key role in creating the vision of the continent we all want to see.

Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: [edo-nationality] Re: [NaijaPolitics] Fwd: Yoruba Affairs - Femi Kusa' s, former Editor in Chief of The Guardian writes an unflatte ring exposé on Late Alex Ibru

Thanks a lot.

But you are not really raising any new issues, dear Ken.

To say however that the information is "sick information," is again, to be carried away.

The information may have come out distatefully, but you know being a reporter yourself that the way the information comes out (especially in the courts of public opinion) is not as critical as the value of the information itself. Not so much about the messenger, but the message.

That is why we need corroboration if the information is to be a solid part of history. If it turns out as the truth, no amount of name-calling the information, can detract from it. But if is is merely the effusions of a repulsed former associate, that also would be eventually proven.

Look, dear good people, The Guardian and its history is too significant for the truth not to come out eventually, one way or the other.

However I agree with Ogbuagu Anikwe who raised the question : how come Kusa had nothing good to say about Ibru?

That is a very instructive one, that agrees with what I had said in my first post that Kusa had pent-up repulsion and annoyance! For whatever it is worth, Ibru has given Nigeria its foremost newspaper to day and that cannot be taken away from him.

I have raised the question of Kusa's timing and the question is still on the floor-i would personally have spoken much earlier at least at some point to the man's face, or at the very least, perhaps, wait for the body to be interred. But some views have been expressed as to the man's reluctance to speak out earlier including fear of harm.

Finally: you better don't bet on it that no one else will speak out one way or the other on this matter, or that Kusa is now being harangued behind the scenes. Ken, you really dont know that o!

At this point, permit me to sign off on this topic all together!

Regards,

Akande

From: Kennedy Emetulu <kemetulu@yahoo.co.uk>
To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2011 3:34 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: [edo-nationality] Re: [NaijaPolitics] Fwd: Yoruba Affairs - Femi Kusa' s, former Editor in Chief of The Guardian writes an unflatte ring exposé on Late Alex Ibru

Laolu,

There is a way to release information, which is why we have good and bad PR. This one is even far much more than mere PR; it is a moral question about empathy, decency, loyalty and selflessness. On all counts, Kusa failed.

From his own account, Ibru plucked him from a dead end job at Daily Times I have no doubt that he was not the sole candidate fit for the role of an Assistant Editor Ibru gave him upon coming to The Guardian; but it is a measure of the trust and respect Ibru had for him that he rose to be a Director in The Guardian and its Editor-in-Chief. He worked there with Ibru (and he needlessly emphasised this by saying he didn't "work for" him) for 17 years. The all-powerful Ibru never once came out in public to lambaste the man for leaving The Guardian in the acrimonious circumstances he left neither did he in the 13 years since he left before his death publicly take him to task. He did not set his attack dogs in the press after him nor antagonise him in any way.

Then Ibru dies, what do we get? Femi Kusa prancing around, dancing on his grave with "information"! Who needs this type of sick information? You think if it's true, it's only Mr Kusa that has this information? How many people amongst those involved at the time still alive do you see falling over themselves to publicly support Kusa? If anything, I can bet my bottom dollar that a lot of them would be calling him up to tell him he got it wrong! Why don't they come out to tell us that what Femi Kusa is saying is true and that they support his approach of releasing the information now?

To be honest, the information, even if it's true in all particulars is useless. I see nothing he has said that tells me why The Guardian lost its original spark nor do I buy his reasoning over the Abacha affair. Indeed, it is an exhibition of naivety or mischief to assume that Abacha was going to hide his cudgel if the "Inside Aso Rock" publication by Kingsley Osadolor didn't happen. It is total tosh to question the direction of The Guardian when he was no equity owner at any level, but a mere employee. If he so values his magic touch, why didn't he replicate this at the defunct Comet or now at the Nation where he keeps a column and where he published this attack on Ibru?

Let's not deceive ourselves. Mr Kusa is out here on a limb, which is why no one amongst the principal characters of the era is lining up to support him. He has let his bitterness get the better of him. Does he think all those he worked with at The Guardian think of him as a saint? In fact, he himself stated in his piece that there was "jubilation" at The Guardian upon Ibru's dissolution of the board! I mean, I know of people who worked and still work in The Guardian who think of him as a "tribalist"; I know of people who call him "duplicitous"; I know of people who say he's "vindictive". But I really do not care about their view, because I do not judge people by hearsay. As far as I'm concerned, if that is what they feel about him, they should tell him to his face or publish whatever uncomplimentary things they know about him while he's still alive, so he can have an opportunity of responding. It isn't an opportunity he's given Ibru or Akporugo; but it's the only fair thing. We don't need his type of useless information. As I said elsewhere, decency wears no disguise!

From: Olaolu Akande <akandeoj@yahoo.com>
To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, 30 November 2011, 13:13
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: [edo-nationality] Re: [NaijaPolitics] Fwd: Yoruba Affairs - Femi Kusa' s, former Editor in Chief of The Guardian writes an unflatte ring exposé on Late Alex Ibru

Say what we like, information is disseminated that otherwise was concealed.

And regardless of the legitimate questions about its decency and timing, it's revelations add value, somewhere, somehow.

All said: Rest in peace, Publisher!

Akande

Sent from my iPad

On Nov 29, 2011, at 5:29 PM, Kennedy Emetulu <kemetulu@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

...

Mr Adepoju,

I'm not sure exactly why you forwarded these posts by CUE and Austen Oghuma; but if I were to hazard a guess, it would be either to support your view and counter what Farooq and I have been saying or it would be just to show that others have a different view from us. Both reasons are legitimate, but none of these posts (including Laolu Akande's) has addressed or pooh-poohed the point Farooq and I have made about Femi Kusa's piece.

The point we have made is simply that Femi Kusa had all the time in the world before now to say the things he has said here against Ibru, whether or not they are true, before Ibru's death. We are not saying he has no right to voice his opinion; but there is a time for everything. He's chosen the wrong time and in the process showed himself to be small-minded, petty, inconsiderate, vindictive and selfish. If he'd waited a year from now to say it or write a book about his Guardian experience expressing these same thoughts, it would have been better. Not that Ibru would be waking up at that time to defend himself or give a response; but at least it would have showed consideration for his loved ones mourning him now. Femi Kusa making himself an issue at the time of Ibru's death, because of his disagreement with the deceased, does not make him look great. It's killed the validity of whatever point he has to make and reduced him in the eyes of decent and reasonable people. He can still redeem himself by apologising to the Ibru family. He does not have to retract what he had said, but he should admit that it is bad judgment on his part to choose this occasion to publish it, thus giving the unintended impression that he wants to rudely intrude in their mourning.

...

From: toyin adepoju <toyin.adepoju@googlemail.com>
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 29 November 2011, 14:20
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: [edo-nationality] Re: [NaijaPolitics] Fwd: Yoruba Affairs - Femi Kusa' s, former Editor in Chief of The Guardian writes an unflatte ring exposé on Late Alex Ibru

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <edosomwanlaw@gmail.com>
Date: 29 November 2011 13:46
Subject: [edo-nationality] Re:

People,
All great people have their minuses. The reason for the greatness could only be that their pluses far outweighed these minuses. Alexander, Napoleon, Henry VIII, Montgomery, Mao; you name them, they had them. Its not different with Alex Ibru. He was a visionary shrewd enough to have created an icon for Nigeria's print journalism by harnessing the best available materials - technical and otherwise including Femi Kusa and other sharp minds. Truly Kusa beside Macebuh and the galaxy of journalism's stars that he recruited for the Guardian project probably wasn't as celebrated and acclaimed as he became under the auspices of The Guardian. Ibru had the right to effect his vision in any way he saw fit and I think he did a great job of it as indeed his vision became the flagship of Nigeria's print media.
Kusa also had a right to be disgruntled about the way Ibru ran his newspapers. So? But he I suspect, would deep inside him be grateful to Ibru for affording him a higher pedestal never before seen in Nigerian journalism to have better shown his mettle and taken his reputation to heights he couldn't take it before his stint at The Guardian - Flagship.
After all said, I see no reason why Kusa should be excoriated for spilling his bile on Ibru albeit posthumously because there are always lessons to be learned from people's tales (even uncharitable ones) in businesses that are still a mystery to folks. While journalism is an old trade in Nigeria, it has never been successfully practised as a business before The Guardian! Rupert Murdoch's The News Of The World that recently closed over the Phone Hacking scandal was reputed to have run for about or over a century but Nigeria is like either a graveyard for dead journals or tabloids or a poor hospital for ailing ones. For those who see Kusa's tales on Ibru as uncharitable, many might be surprised on how many hard-nosed entrepreneurs who read it may want to lift a thing or two from them on how to kick ass and make business run right!
Alex Ibru was a great man regardless. Rest in peace
CUE

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN

From: toyin adepoju <toyin.adepoju@googlemail.com>

Sender: NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com

Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 07:31:34 +0000

To: <naijapolitics@yahoogroups.com>

ReplyTo: NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [NaijaPolitics] Fwd: Yoruba Affairs - Femi Kusa' s, former Editor in Chief of The Guardian writes an unflatte ring exposé on Late Alex Ibru

I wish Femi Kusa could develop this into a comprehensive and complete book on The Guardian Newspapers.
Austen Oghuma

On 29 November 2011 07:30, toyin adepoju <toyin.adepoju@googlemail.com> wrote:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Austen Oghuma <aoghuma@yahoo.com>
Date: 29 November 2011 05:11
Subject: Re: [NaijaPolitics] Fwd: Yoruba Affairs - Femi Kusa's, former Editor in Chief of The Guardian writes an unflattering exposé on Late Alex Ibru
To: "NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com" <NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com>

All,

I wish Femi Kusa could develop this into a comprehensive and complete book on The Guardian Newspapers. Part of the story that circulated was that Alex Ibru spent a lot of money in setting up the newspaper. Even after all the equipment were in place, no one had the technical production details to roll it out until he was told of Ladi Bonuola who was at the time still with the Daily Times. It took Bonuola no time to produce what is arguably the flagship of Nigeria's print media.

For those who feel it was too revealing and as such disrespectful, they should understand that Ibru's management style was not different from a typical Nigerian business enterprise. Ibru, however, gave a voice to independent journalism and every publisher that came after him tried to emulate him and possibly to replicate his success. There were backroom politics It is not different from any other business.

There may be bitterness in Kusa's tone but he recounted his personal experience. Nigeria needs these types of detailed information as part of a process to transform our society. No one can claim to be a saint, so why don't we read about the intrigues that were also part of the man's life.

Austen Oghuma

From: toyin adepoju <toyin.adepoju@googlemail.com>
To: naijapolitics@yahoogroups.com; naijaobserver@yahoogroups.com; naijaelections <naijaelections@yahoogroups.com>; nigerianworldforum <NIgerianWorldForum@yahoogroups.com>; "NigerianID@yahoogroups.com" <nigerianid@yahoogroups.com>; ngpolitics@googlegroups.com; Naija Business Naija Business <NaijaBusiness@yahoogroups.com>; Edo-nationality <edo-nationality@yahoogroups.com>; Edo Global <Edo_Global@yahoogroups.com>; abolo <tonbole@yahoo.com>; Tony Abolo <abolotony2@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2011 12:02 AM
Subject: [NaijaPolitics] Fwd: Yoruba Affairs - Femi Kusa's, former Editor in Chief of The Guardian writes an unflattering exposé on Late Alex Ibru

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Toyin Falola <toyin.falola@mail.utexas.edu>
Date: 27 November 2011 22:22
Subject: Yoruba Affairs - Femi Kusa's, former Editor in Chief of The Guardian writes an unflattering exposé on Late Alex Ibru
To: USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com, yorubaaffairs@googlegroups.com

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

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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
1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222 (fax)
http://www.toyinfalola.com/
www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa
http://groups.google.com/group/yorubaaffairs
http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue

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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
1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222 (fax)
http://www.toyinfalola.com/
www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa
http://groups.google.com/group/yorubaaffairs
http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue

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