By Dotun Oladipo
There are two things I avoid when people I adore die: I don’t write tributes and I avoid their burial. Twice in the last few years I have broken the second one: Attended their burials. The first was for my father-in-law, Alhaji Suleiman Yusuf, who is better known as Salam Salam. The second was that of my brother-in-law, Justice Adegboye Gbolagunte, who I affectionately call Chief Justice (CJ). But I never wrote even a single line about them. Because I really didn’t know where to start from.
Now that my greatest mentor in journalism, who I describe as a boss and a friend, Dan Agbese, is gone, I am being forced to break both the first and the second. My dilemma in breaking the first of the things I avoid now is: Where do I start from? Not when just a few days before Oga Dan died I still spoke affectionately about the four Directors of Newswatch magazine who shaped my journalism career: Ray Ekpu, Yakubu Mohammed (who I still keep in touch with), Soji Akinrinade (we jam once in a while on WhatsApp), and Agbese. Without them, I am not sure I would have had such a solid foundation in journalism.
But I must confess that Oga Dan did more than the others did. And that was because at the time I returned to Newswatch after my youth service, he was overseeing the Back of the Book section of the magazine. And I was more or less the Sports Editor after the death of Kayode Olaokun, who encouraged me to chase Taiwo Yusuf, who is now Taiwo Oladipo.
Beyond my beat on the Sports Desk, I was also looking into World News and the Security Desk, where Janet Afolabi, the CNN award winning journalist, who is now the Olori (Queen) of Apomu in Osun State, was firmly in charge.
I learnt so many things from Oga Dan in the years I spent in Newswatch. One was humility. He carries his bag, newspapers, and other stuff he brings to the office himself. It is only when it seems too much that you will see his driver or office assistant assist him. For other staff, it was a no, no. I took that from him.
And in terms of the real work itself, he has a way of pushing you beyond what you assumed was your limit. I remember my first Cover Story for Newswatch. It was a Sports story. And that was the week Olaokun died. The gangling (that’s what Oga Dan called him) Olaokun had all the materials we had gathered for the Cover with him and was on his way to the office on a Monday morning to defend the story at the Editorial Board meeting when he was knocked down by a motorcyclist riding one-way.
After we discovered what happened on a Tuesday, with production scheduled for Thursday, the burden to write the Cover fell on me. How I recovered from the shock of Olaokun’s death to write that story was the effort of Oga Dan who calmed me down. In fact, when Olaokun’s family opted to bury him before we concluded production that week, the Directors of Newswatch prevailed on them to hold on until the Friday of that week, providing the vehicle for the transportation of the corpse.
From then on, we forged a bond that remained unbroken. I still remember the Cover I anchored on late Chief Bola Ige as the Minister of Power when he failed to fulfil his promise of providing 24 hours power supply to Nigerians within six months or a maximum of one year in office. We waited for it to be one year before we took him on. It was the last I did before leaving. The Editorial Board had decided on an entirely different Cover, which some of us the young reporters felt was not going to do well in the market. I led a protest team to his office. I expressed our reservations on the proposed Cover. He asked one question: Why are you convinced of the choice of this Cover? I marshalled the points. Then he told me: If you are going to anchor it, then it will go as Cover. And it did.
With Oga Dan, scolding in abrasive manners is completely out of it. You will only get what we called then: Love letter. I recall a trip I took to Abuja for a Cover. By the time I got to Abuja, I had taken ill. I did a very bad job with the Cover. And I got a Love Letter. But that Lover Letter is not for when you don’t do well alone. When you perform well, you get it also. I remember his cursive writing on his office memo pad. I still have a couple of them in my folder.
Compassion is at the top of his good qualities. On the badly written Cover when I traveled to Abuja, as soon as I returned and he saw me, he apologised for the Love Letter seeing that I looked ill. To the company clinic he sent me.
He also suffers nothing, including his personal resources, when it comes to getting stories out. His nose for stories is unquantifiable. I remembered as the Defence Correspondent when I had to go to Liberia when our troops were enforcing peace in that country. A day before we were to depart, the Accounts Department did not make provisions for the trip. He saw me in the office and asked what I was still doing around. I said no money. He took me to his office, scribbled his house address on his memo pad and dispatched me to meet his wife for what he described as little: $200. That was how I made the trip. He dipped his hands into his pocket on other occasions too.
Indeed, we were so close that I couldn’t tell him the truth when I was leaving for PUNCH. Though when I initially resigned, it was to do something else outside of journalism, but by the time he called me, Azu Ishiekewe had ensured I couldn’t run away from the job he offered me on the Saturday Desk of PUNCH. So when he called me to ask what my plan was, I told him: I wanted to go manage the companies my father, who died a few weeks before I turned in my resignation letter, left behind. Indeed, the late Commissioner of Police, CP David Ayodeji Sunday Oladipo, left three companies for me and my older ones to manage: Three boys who were still in school.
After I left Newswatch, I kept in touch with him and others. We still meet in places he delivered lectures, at functions of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), and others. And the meeting had always been warm.
For the relationship we shared, I am going to break my second avoidance when closely loved ones die: I will be at his funeral.
A good man has gone. A mentor of mentors. A columnist who couldn’t be ignored. And a news man per excellence. He packed all and more. He was a man that couldn’t be ignored.
Rest in peace, Sir.
*Oladipo is the Managing Editor and CEO of Premium Eagle Media Limited, owners of The Eagle Online and The Eagle Online Nigeria YouTube channel.