Celebrating Onyema Ugochukwu, an accomplished journalist at 78, By Segun Ayobolu

Last week, this column dilated on the constitutional responsibility of the media and the personal, professional and institutional integrity required of media practitioners to fulfill their societal obligations. Luckily, there are role models in the profession, albeit of an older generation, whose examples of unstinted professionalism and unblemished moral integrity can shine the light for contemporary practitioners to find their way out of the current ethical malaise that paralyzes the profession. One sterling example of such a distinguished and accomplished journalist with a track record of impeccable personal and professional credibility is none other than the celebrated former Editor of the defunct Daily Times when it was Nigeria’s leading newspaper, Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, who clocked 78 on November 9. Before his ascendancy to the illustrious position of Editor, Daily Times, Chief Ugochukwu had served exemplarily as Editor of the Business Times, one of the most successful titles in the sprawling Daily Times conglomerate, as well as the first African Editor of the London-based West Africa magazine, which was established in 1917 and was at the time the most authoritative publication on politics, economics and society in the West African sub-region.

Flashback to 1987. This writer had just finished his M.Sc degree programme in Political Science at the University of Ibadan and, despite the downturn in the economy and growing graduate unemployment, looked forward to fulfilling his dream of pursuing a career in journalism. This desire had been ignited by the fiery writings of the ace columnist, ‘Aba Saheed’ in the Daily Times. Aba Saheed was the pseudonym of the legendary Akogun Tola Adeniyi whose uncompromising columns often ruffled feathers in the corridors of power even under the military. I associated journalism with courage and a missionary zeal for the good of society. Thus, armed with my academic certificates, my CV, copies of articles and poems I had published in campus journals as well as some national dailies such as the Ilorin-based Nigerian Herald as well as a reference letter from a retired Director of the Daily Times addressed to the Editor, I headed for the offices of the Daily Times seeking employment. Aba Saheed had endeared both the profession and the newspaper to me.

As I waited in the office of the Secretary to be attended to, a tall, imposing figure came out of the Editor’s office about twice, issued instructions to her and went back in. Dressed in a smart blue suit with a blue shirt and red tie to match, he looked urbane, debonair, cosmopolitan with every pore exuding good breeding and high class. That was Onyema Ugochukwu as I soon discovered when I was ushered into his office. Perusing the documents I handed to him closely after I had briefed him on my mission, the Editor proceeded to ask me a number of questions. ‘Your master’s degree thesis is on the military and underdevelopment in Nigeria’, he noted, ‘talk to me about the relationship between the two’. As I responded to his question for a while, the Editor sat back in his chair, adjusted his glasses and asked, “Are you a Marxist?” “No sir”, I replied, “but I am Marxian in orientation”. A wry hardly discernible smile on his lips, Chief Ugochukwu asked a few more questions and said I could go.

To my utmost delight, nearly a month later, I received a letter by post from the Daily Times offering me employment on probation for a period of six months in the first instance as a correspondent in the Features Department of the Daily Times. When I resumed, Chief Ugochukwu literarily took me under his wings. Unknown to me then, he had asked the Chairman of the Editorial Board, the cerebral, ever stern-looking but kind hearted and ever generous in spirit Mr. John Araka to keep an eye on me probably because of the potentials he saw in me. I was thus constantly under pressure from Mr. Araka to write opinion articles and news analyses in addition to my work as a features correspondent and this did my career a lot of good in the long run.

I am of Yoruba extraction though from Kogi State in the North-Central region. Chief Ugochukwu is Igbo from Abia State. Yet, he related to staff including me on the basis of strict professionalism and commitment to excellence devoid of ethnic bias. There were in my set several brilliant and indisputably capable Igbo members of staff to whom Chief Ugochukwu could have shown ethnic bias but he exuded a pan-Nigerian spirit at all times.

Incidentally, Chief Ugochukwu could have had every reason in the world to be an ethnic chauvinist. Not only did he witness the gruesome killings of the Igbo in the North leading to the civil war, he was a combatant soldier in the conflict rising to become a Captain in the Biafran Army before the end of the war as a result of his bravery and commitment on the warfront. He carries on one of his thumbs till today the scars of a serious injury in a war that led to his loss of three years at the University of Nigeria, (UNN), Nsukka, where he had been admitted in 1966 to study Economics before the war disrupted his studies as from 1967. After the war, Chief Ugochukwu resumed his studies at UNN from where he graduated in 1972 with a Second Class Upper Degree in Economics.

Incidentally, Chief Ugochukwu’s career did not begin with journalism. Rather, after the war, he was employed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as an Economic Research Analyst. That he left the CBN in 1975 for a career in the media is a reflection not only of his adventurous spirit but also of the considerable prestige and respect enjoyed by the media at the time. As he tells one of his stellar reporters and mentee, Dr. Tunde Olusunle, in an in-depth academic journal publication by the latter, “The CBN paid the highest salary then…But I wanted to be a journalist because it was exciting. I took a salary cut to become a journalist. My starting salary in the CBN was 1,400 pounds. The federal civil service was starting people at 800 pounds. When we converted to Naira in 1972, it simply multiplied by two. My salary became 2,880 pounds per year. In 1975, my salary was N5,600. Daily Times offered me N4,500 and I accepted it. I went over to work for Business Times which was just starting then”. To prepare himself for his new career path, Chief Ugochukwu obtained a post-graduate certificate in sub-editing from the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ).

By the time he retired from the Daily Times on his turning 50 on November 9, 1994 after 20 years of service, Chief Ugochukwu had made indelible contributions to the growth and development of the profession. Under his Editorship at various times, the Business Times was an outstanding success story, an informed and authoritative publication in its sphere of specialization, while the West Africa magazine flourished as he built and improved on the legacy of his predecessor, Mr. Kaye Whiteman. His training as an economist was brought to bear on the character of the Daily Times when he was appointed Editor of the newspaper. Authoritative economic stories and informed analyses of the economy became one of the strongest selling points of the newspaper. One of those he mentored on the Business beat, Mr. Ndu Ughmadu, went on to become a hugely successful Editor first of the Business Times and later the Daily Times. Others including Kunle Bello, the late Femi Olatunde, Kene Okafor, Wole Olatimehin and Emeka Odo went on to pursue successful careers within and beyond journalism.

Those of us on the political desk including Dr. Emeka Nwosu, the late Basil Obi, Gbenga Adeshina, Tunde Rahman and Bayo Oladipo, however, gave the Business Desk a run for its money especially as the tempo of political activities picked up with the onset of the Babangida administration’s transition programme. Ugochukwu was an exacting, rigorous and ethically uncompromising Editor. He always demanded excellence and strict adherence to the tenets of professionalism. His appointment as Editor of the Daily Times was during the tenure of Chief Segun Osoba as Managing Director of the Daily Times group and dovetailed into the years of revolutionary rejuvenation under Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi who assumed office as Managing Director of the Daily Times on March 1, 1989.

Ugochukwu was a key part of the Ogunbiyi management team that restored the glory the media conglomerate had attained in the pioneer Alhaji Babatunde Jose years even though they operated in the constraining and constrictive environment of military rule. He was the moving spirit behind the resuscitation and repositioning of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) and served as President of the guild from 1988 to 1990 after almost a decade of the association’s inactivity.

By the time of his departure from the Daily Times, Ugochukwu had risen to the positions of Executive Director first of Manpower and Development and then Executive Director, Publications. It is unfortunate that Nigeria’s Casino-capitalist system allowed buccaneers and carnivores to take over and ruin a Daily Times legacy built on the sweat, hard work and commitment of earlier generations of management and staff. On his departure from the Daily Times, Chief Ugochukwu went into successful public and media relations practice and later, following in the footsteps of journalists like Chief Olabisi Onabanjo, governor of Ogun State in the Second Republic, Alhaji Lateef Jakande, governor of Lagos State in the Second Republic and Chief Olusegun Osoba, governor of Ogun State both during Babangida’s short-lived transition programme and between 1999 and 2003 in this dispensation, he rendered selfless service in public office without blemish.

He served as Special Adviser on National Orientation and Public Affairs (NOPA) to President Olusegun Obasanjo and was one of the key publicists of the administration. Not once did Chief Ugochukwu ever engage in mudslinging or exchange of insults and abuses with the opposition or critics of the administration. Such behavior was beneath him. It was a measure of Obasanjo’s confidence in him that in December, 2000, he was appointed pioneer Chairman of the newly established Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). According to Wikipedia, “Ugochukwu helped to articulate the president’s vision of sustainable development in the Niger-Delta region and developed a policy which encouraged partnership among its stakeholders…During Ugochukwu’s tenure, the NDDC focused mainly on economic revival and prosperity, environmental rehabilitation and development of social and physical infrastructure”. The massive corruption that has since become synonymous with the NDDC was not a feature of Ugochukwu’s tenure.

Although the Abia State Elections Petition Tribunal on 25th February, 2008, declared Ugochukwu the winner of the 2007 gubernatorial election, which he contested against Theodore Orji of the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA), the Appeal Court in Port Harcourt overturned the decision on 11th February, 2009, and declared Orji winner of the election. Ugochukwu calmly took it in his stride and moved on. In a clime characterized by political vagrancy among the political elite with politicians gravitating towards the ruling party at the centre, Ugochukwu has remained as constant as the Northern Star in the PDP and is a member of the opposition party’s Board of Trustees (BOT). That speaks volumes of his credibility, reliability and strength of character.

First published in The Nation Newspaper on Saturday