In this Interview with EMMANUEL OJO, veteran journalist, Liadi Tella, shares the experience of his years of practice and other contemporary issues
You celebrated your 75th birthday on March 3. How do you feel attaining that age despite the below-average life expectancy in this part of the world?
Well, I’m grateful to Almighty Allah that made it possible for me to reach this stage. I’m in good health and sound mind; I just concluded my third book and I’m writing the fourth one. So, for the fact that I am this agile, I need to show gratitude to Almighty God, and I’m very pleased that Allah has been very kind to me. I’m so healthy; I still stand and I still drive myself occasionally. I have a driver and I also exercise a little. I hope I can live a little bit longer.
On your birthday, you got commendations from the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.); and the president-elect, Bola Tinubu. How best can you describe the way you felt?
I feel highly honoured and I pray that the Almighty God will bless the outgoing President and the incoming president. I thank God that he made me a journalist. If he didn’t make me a journalist, how would I have got such recognition from the outgoing President and incoming president? So, I thank God.
How did you venture into journalism? Was it coincidental or intentional?
When I started my journalism career in 1978, I didn’t know I would go that far. I started with Daily Times and by 1982, I was News Editor of The PUNCH before I joined Concord, where I spent one and half years on the foreign desk. God has been very kind to me.
I started unconsciously practising journalism at the Baptist High School, Iwo. I started the club, which was called Adete Press Club. We had a large board where we pasted articles, where people went to read in the morning, afternoon and in the evening, commenting on events around us in Western Nigeria and in Nigeria as a whole, and to answer questions on what we learnt in the class. So, with it, I eventually came up with a magazine called Adete Periscope. Adete Periscope was a student magazine launched by the principal of my school.
My class teacher then, Mr Oladunni, wrote in his testimonial, ‘A potential journalist.’ I went to him and said I couldn’t be a journalist because journalists of that era usually weren’t dressing well and weren’t wearing good shoes. So, I couldn’t fathom it. I said it was not going to be possible but he said, ‘That is what I see in you; you are the founder of Adete Press Club and the founder of Periscope magazine; is that not journalism?’ That was an apt statement from a psychological-oriented teacher. So, when I went for my degree course at the University of Benin, where I read Political Science, believing that I would be an administrator for politicians, in the class Augustus Adebayo, former SGF of the old Western Region, taught us Public Administration and told us in the class that administrators must be seen and not heard, they must be on tar and not on top. I said what kind of thing was that. I said I didn’t want to become a civil servant.
Having practised journalism for about five decades, how will you describe the experience?
Well, let me say that everything surrounds destiny but you have to walk into your destiny. When I was doing the NYSC service with Daily Times, I began to write articles for Times International. I wrote analysis for them since I read Political Science. I wrote great analysis for Times International and commentaries for Sunday Times. Within three months, the management invited me and others to choose between working in the administrative Department and going for Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism at the expense of the company. So, I chose to go for Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism at the then Institute of Journalism, Iganmu. That was where I became a trained journalist. Three months before the end of the NYSC programme, I was employed by Daily Times as a senior reporter. All graduate reporters were senior reporters.
I cannot be grateful to God enough. Four years as a reporter and news editor of The PUNCH. Again, PUNCH was the most radical newspaper in the 80s; respected and feared. You dare not give a PUNCH reporter a ‘brown envelope’, you dare not. We were very hard.
When I was appointed a foreign editor at the Concord, within one and half years, I was sent back to the news room as the editor. I never thought I would have gone back to the newsroom because I was travelling all over the world and I was enjoying myself and writing good reports, which were based on my knowledge of political science. There were no conferences held that I was not invited. I was a member of the International Committee against Apartheid. At some point, I was in Russia, in India, in Spain and all over.
Being an editor in such an era when the military government was in force, how was the experience for you not to compromise on the truth and on matters of public interest?
As journalists then, we were very stubborn. We didn’t mind the military. We were always ready to go to detention. When going to the office, we had our tooth brush and other items with us. Should they (the military) come to arrest, we were ready to go. We balanced our reports and gave people the opportunity to recall their sides of the stories. If we call and the person declines, we call again and after the third time, if there is no response, we publish the story like that and report that all attempts to get through to the person proved abortive. You can’t sue me for treason.
At Concord, I had an encounter that had to do with the military. My reporter scooped a story about military posting. It was detailed. I called the public relations officer of the military and he did not respond. So, we used the story like that and slammed it on the cover. Many of them that were promoted and deployed had yet to get their letter of deployment. The military came for my reporter and arrested her because it was her by-line that was on the story. I told the editor that we had to rescue the reporter, and the training is that you must never disclose your source of information. So, I surrendered myself by going to Apapa, and I told the director that the reporter couldn’t have published a story on her own because I edited and published it and that if there was anyone that should have been arrested, it should have been me. So, I was put in detention and my reporter was released.
After two days of interrogation, they got nothing from me. The last person to interrogate me was my friend from school days, and he told me that I had not stopped my rascality and socialist movement. Then he released me, saying that I shouldn’t die in their detention. I didn’t really care because I felt that the act of the arrest itself would make me more popular in career as a journalist; so, I never minded.
Even in the days of (Major General Tunde) Idiagbon and those eras, things were very tough. In my column in The PUNCH in 1984, I wrote a six-serial titled, ‘The Kingdom of rat and rabbit’ and it was only The PUNCH that could publish such at that time. That was during the time of (Major General Muhammadu) Buhari and Idiagbon, telling them of how they treated Nigerians at the time. Luckily, I was not arrested.
In 1993, the election won by Chief MKO Abiola, who was your boss at the time in Concord, was annulled. What roles did you play at that time and did you have a personal relationship with him?
Apart from official duties as a journalist, I was Special Adviser to Abiola on Islamic Affairs and later turned Religious Affairs, because I was the one connecting the Catholic Church and other churches, seeking assistance and help for Abiola. I was the one that was sent to them with money. I was very close to him and I usually went to his house after the close of work. I would be there sometimes till midnight or past midnight before leaving. That story had been told in a book, one of my books, which will be out soon. So, I was very close to him and was his errand boy to so many people. I enjoyed it.
I saw the whole thing coming. In 1990, I wrote him a four-page letter that in making reparation for the Black race for over 200 years of slavery, the Americans would not look kindly at him. The European colonists who are owners of France and Britain would not look kindly at you to let them to pay reparation. If Germans under Hitler, who killed six million Jews, were meant to pay reparation from 1947 to 1990, why shouldn’t Africa be paid reparation for over 200 years of slavery and who were the beneficiaries of the slave trade? It was America and Europe. I knew they were going to conspire against him.
Secondly, he held a world conference on food sufficiency for the continent of Africa where he brought agric experts from all over the world in London and for two weeks, they were brainstorming on the Africa food plan. That was adopted by the OAU (Organisation of African Unity), now called AU (African Union) and later adopted by the United Nations. MKO Abiola used his personal and private resources to do these things. If he had become the president of Nigeria, you can imagine what he would have done. So, the West feared him, so, they conspired against him and killed him, using our local artists.
When the election was coming, it was the Yoruba people that dragged him into the presidential race; he (Abiola) never wanted to contest the presidency. At a time, he said he didn’t have money to go for or contest such an enterprise, that if he knew, he would have been saving for some 15 years earlier. The leaders of Yorubaland, about 16 of them, accompanied by Baba Gbadamosi came to visit MKO and in a single night, they raised N600m as donation.
What was your experience of the Abacha junta that shut down media houses?
I was not under any particular threat at that time because I was the deputy editor of the National Concord and the daily production of the paper took me away from the centrality of the actualisation of the June 12 struggle. I was only providing backup, networking, soliciting to media and protecting Kudirat (Abiola), who was upholding the mandate of her husband.
The day she was killed, we struggled to prevent her from going out because we had information that mad killers were after her but she was to meet the French ambassador. Sadly, I wrote the story of her assassination myself, where I laid out the story the way it happened.
You also ventured into politics at some point and contested the House of Representatives seat for the Iwo Federal Constituency but lost. What prompted you to venture into politics?
Well, as a journalist, I was connected to the movers and shakers of Nigeria, and whenever they were taking critical decisions, I also wanted something for my town, Iwo. But each time I wanted to intercept, they told me to also go into politics. So, I ventured into politics so that I could also attract federal projects to my constituency. It wasn’t really that I lost, but the Action Congress of Nigeria then rigged me out through my agent at the collation centre.
The BVAS was used in accreditation but could not transmit results in real time during the presidential and National Assembly elections as promised and that was used as a yardstick by many, including international observers, to say that the polls were not credible enough. What is your response to this?
I disagree with that because they (international observers) are agents of imperialism and they marked Nigerians down and wanted us to move towards their own kind of democracy and not our own kind of democracy. Hillary Clinton had an election in America, beat her opponent by almost two million votes and she was not declared president. Is that democracy?
What do you actually mean by ‘our kind of democracy’ and how does that differentiate from that practised in the United States?
Hillary Clinton, despite winning, was not declared winner. The white supremacies of America are the manipulators of the American election. They must be told the truth; they should leave Nigeria alone. America should leave Nigeria alone. They are the ones that killed Abiola. They had several plots, about six plots to stop Tinubu (Jagaban) from becoming the president of Nigeria. They did everything possible but God disgraced them.
Peter Obi, the candidate of the Labour Party, didn’t garner his votes from the South-East alone. Some Yoruba and youths voted for him. How will you react to this?
Let them come out with the facts and figures. Facts are sacred. Well, Obi gave a good account of himself. The role of the church is that they are far more responsible for the election than the role of the youth. The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, Catholic and other churches went to the grassroots to make sure that Obi was treated as the preferred candidate. Religion was taken to the highest point than any other election in the history of Nigeria.
During the Nigerian Civil War when the Igbo crossed Benin to Akure, we, the Yoruba donated two trailers loaded with food items and animals to the Biafran Army in Western Nigeria. If we hated the Igbo, we wouldn’t have done that. The impression given to the young Igbo is that Yoruba are traitors, but we will treat that on another day. We were never traitors to the Igbo. The subject matter is that those who want to destroy Nigeria are at work and they are making sure that Nigeria does not industrialise and work to become the world power. I am saying it loud and clear, please quote me. If they like, they can come for me. I will die at the time appointed for me. This blackmail of election is a plot to destroy Nigeria and we must not play into their hands.
Are there changes that journalism has undergone over the years based on the kind of journalism you practised then and that which is being practised now?
It is a very grave disaster. This era we find ourselves is the era of ‘fend for yourself’ journalism. Many media houses are not paying salaries. They also don’t give letter of employment, don’t give condition of service or review salaries for 10 years and the Nigerian journalists will be fighting for the Nigeria Labour Congress, for government to review the salaries of workers.
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