To Nigeria and back!

When after my national service at Graphic in 1975 the company gave me a permanent appointment as a Staff Writer, I knew I had reached my final destination.

Yes, the chickens had come home to roost.

I was determined to make the best out of the opportunities offered me, to build a career as a journalist, and probably stay on the job to rise to become the editor of the paper.

Unfortunately, fate intervened.

After less than five years, during which time I was posted to Tamale as Regional Editor of the Daily Graphic between November 1975 and November 1978, in-charge of Northern and Upper regions and winning the Journalist of the Year award in 1975, 76 and 78, I had to change job again.

When the People’s National Party (PNP) came to power in 1979, I was one of those invited to be interviewed for the position of Press Secretary.

The late Mr Sam Quaicoe, then Supervising Editor at the Ghana News Agency (GNA) was also there with us at the Osu office of the late Kofi Batsa (Astab Books), then Chairman of the Publicity Committee of the PNP.

At first, Graphic was reluctant to release me. However, the MD, Mr Kwasi Adu, had to come in. It was he who finally released me to go to the Castle where I joined Mr Quaicoe, who was named the Chief Press Secretary.

I don’t think I have ever regretted going to work at the Castle as a Press Secretary between September 1979 and December 1981, when the PNP administration led by Dr Hilla Limann, collapsed on the last day of the year.

Republic

The Third Republic, like the Second Republic, lasted only 27 months, before then, Flt. Lt J.J. Rawlings came to power in a bloody coup.

Nonetheless, the Third Republic offered me boundless opportunities, moving in the corridors of power dining and wining with the powerful among the political class.

Soon I realised all the power was gone. So what next? I can’t explain why I was not allowed to go back to Graphic since Mr Quaicoe was allowed to return to GNA where he rose later to become the General Manager, even though we were all initially dismissed from office.

My father and other family members, especially O.A. El-Alawa and some good friends in Kumasi and Accra, were not happy seeing me doing what I was doing. There was pressure that I should leave for Nigeria to go and practice my profession there.

In March 1983, I flew to Lagos.

I stayed with a sister, Nuratu Pedro, who was related to my brother’s wife, Priscilla El-Alawa.
It was not my first time in Nigeria since I had accompanied President Limann on an official visit there in 1980.

This time, I was among the people and I tried to look for old friends from our youthful days in Kumasi who had relocated to Nigeria.

I visited them in Ibadan and Abeokuta.

Nigeria

Finally in August 1983, I moved to Ilorin in Kwara State where my grandfather came from. I also had a very good friend, a childhood friend from Kumasi, Bayo Eleshin, who had relocated since the 1970s but used to come to Ghana occasionally.

He was very easy to locate since he was running a Ghana–Nigeria station in Ilorin. When finally Bayo took me to our family house in Ilorin, my relations there were not happy.

They prepared a place for me and brought me where they told me I belonged.

My dear readers, like a joke I spent 13 eventful years in Nigeria working at four different places in Ilorin and Lagos.

It did not take me too long to secure my first job at Radio Kwara within six months.

I was lucky to bump into Alhaji Alarape Ayinla who once worked at GBC before he relocated to Nigeria.

He was a close friend to the Chairman of Radio Kwara, Alhaji Shehu Gafar, who quickly arranged for an interview and I was employed.

Life in Nigeria was not easy.

It was really tough as there was a vast difference in the attitude of the people to strangers. There was certainly no sympathy for the underdog.

I only had to cope somehow and keep my head above waters.

Fortunately, a new chairman came on board in 1985. Babatude Suleiman was related to Brig. Tunde Idiagbon, the then No. 2 man to the Head of State, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. He told me if I should see any job advertised in the papers for which I was qualified, he would help me.

That was how I made a major breakthrough by getting a job at the Nigeria Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in Lagos in 1986 as Deputy Head of Information.

It was a big jump for me as I became a top officer in the Federal Civil Service.

My boss was a woman and she was surprised at the way I cooperated with her and doing my work with diligence.

She was not a media person and she recommended me to the director that the job of Head of Information was mine. In less than a year, I found myself heading the Information / Public Relations outfit of the NYSC.

Unfortunately when a new director was coming in, the old director, who was so nice to me and happy about my performance, asked me to go on a course, while replacing me with a lady who was not a media person.

There was confusion when Col. M. Braimah took over as everybody was telling him to bring me back if he wanted to succeed because I had brought a new image to the NYSC. As soon as Col. Braimah settled down, he sent for me and assured me my position was intact.

As soon as I was reinstated, there was jubilation at the NYSC but it did not last long.

Those opposed to Col. Braimah made sure he did not have the peace of mind to operate. In no time, all those who were close to Braimah were disengaged, including myself.

However I had made a lot of friends in the media circles in Lagos and the M.D of Daily Times asked me to join the newspaper house, the biggest in Nigeria and West Africa in 1989.

I learnt a lot at Daily Times as I was put on the Rewrite Desk.

Very soon, another opportunity came my way when an aspiring Governor of Kwara State, Shaba Lafiagi, who had heard about me invited me to his office in Apapa, Lagos. He was impressed when we spoke and he immediately asked me to join his campaign team as Chairman of the Publicity Committee

Eventually, Shaba won the elections and became Governor in 1992. He immediately appointed me Editor of the state newspaper, the Herald.

I brought new ideas from Daily Times and soon the paper became popular in Nigeria.

Unfortunately, the attempt to choose a civilian president in Nigeria created chaos as General Ibrahim Babangida annulled the victory of M.K.O. Abiola who was believed to have won the elections of June 12, 1993.

After this event, the centre in Nigeria could no longer hold and I had to return to Ghana with all my family in 1996 leaving behind only my first two children who had grown into adults.

I was also encouraged by the late Alhaji Aliu Mahama to return to Ghana to start a newspaper, the New Ghanaian.

That was before he became the Vice – President in 2000.

I had to work hard to launch myself back into the main stream of journalism in Ghana and I believe it has been worth it.

Writer’s E-mail: elzakmediaconsult@yahoo.com/Mob: 0275 193140