Why my father bowed out from Shagari’s presidency in the first term – Osaro Aloba

Ebenezer Williams Abiodun Aloba was a thoroughbred newspaper man, who rose through the ranks to the top echelon of the Nigerian journalism profession. A nationalist and member of the Zikist Movement, he worked at different times with the Daily Times of Nigeria, Morning Post, The Nigerian Observer, The Herald and The Mail. He was a fearless newspaper man and columnist, writing under the pen name of Ebenezer Williams, which was also his baptismal name. His Sunday series in the Daily Times earned him the sobriquet of “intellectual radical”. The Nigerian Observer remained dearest to his heart as he was the former General Manager of Midwest Newspaper Limited and later a pioneering staff of The Nigerian Observer. He was one of the newspaper gurus inducted into The Nigerian Observer Hall of Fame by Governor Godwin Obaseki when the newly built office complex of the newspaper and the Edo Printing Centre in Benin City, the Edo State capital, were commissioned last week.
  In this interview with MOYOSORE SALAMI, one of his children, Osaro Aloba, who lives in the U.S., spoke glowingly of his late father and his legacies as a newspaper man while also expressing appreciation to Obaseki for the honour. Excerpts:

What are you to the late Abiodun Aloba?
ABIODUN Aloba was my father. I am his son.

As a son, what kind of father was he to you and your siblings?
  He was a very caring father and at the same time, he was a disciplinarian. He was a man with principle that did whatever he felt he needed to do in the best interest of his family, especially as we lived in a polygamous home.

Was there any occasion when he had to apply corporal punishment on you or any of your siblings?
  There was no time that he did that with me. There is no story that I can tell you about how he punished my other siblings or had to do that with me.
  Whenever he punished any of us for anything, he would make us write an essay on why we shouldn’t do whatever we did. We had to explain the importance of not doing it. That was the kind of punishment that he gave us as children. He never gave us any physical form of punishment. That never happened at all to the best of my knowledge.

What can you recall that made your father angry at any one of you?
  (Cuts in) Stealing or any kind of wild behaviour that he considered as not worthy of an Aloba, which was the common word he used. He used to tell us that ‘this is not worthy of an Aloba.’ Stealing was something he could not tolerate. He had zero tolerance for lying too.

Your house must have been a beehive of activities considering the status of your father in society. What kind of people visited him at home?
  My father was not really at home at the height of his career. I was born in the late 1960s but towards the end of his career when he relocated to Benin, I spent time with him. At that point he had people like the former governor, Brigadier-General Samuel Ogbemudia, who used to visit him. He also hosted people like Alhaji Babatunde Jose.

What time did he wake up in the morning and when he woke up, what were the first set of things he did in the morning?
  My father was someone who never really slept. The question should be what time did he sleep? Knowing him, he was always working. When he was home, I saw him many times sleeping on the couch. The next thing you see when next you wake in the night is where he is behind the typewriter typing.

What was the relationship between him, his colleagues such as Chief Anthony Enahoro and nationalists of the time?
  Interestingly, the relationship between the two of them went a long way. According to my father, the first time they met as contained in his autobiography was when the two of them sat for the common entrance examination; I don’t know what it was called then but the examination took place in Akure. He said they both wrote the exam in the same hall. That was the first time they met and they became friends. This was in the 1930s.
 
When the late Enahoro was arrested, Abiodun Aloba was also arrested with him during the coup hoopla. Enahoro was a Zikist and he was arrested when he was trying to address a crowd. He claimed he was there just to visit Aloba but he (Aloba) too went there at the same time. That was the first time that Enahoro got arrested and Aloba was arrested with him too.

Why didn’t he join politics like his friend?
  He never really believed in running for office as doing so would weaken his position as a journalist. So, he wanted to be free to say whatever he wanted to say or write without fear or favour. He wanted to be able to do so and damn the consequences.

Which other journalists was your father close to?
  There were so many of them. Don’t forget that what we are saying goes back to the 1940s and 1950s. He was close to people like the late Alhaji Babatunde Jose. He had so many of them as friends; I can’t remember many of them again. Apart from friends, he also had so many protégés whom he nurtured. I can remember that many prominent young journalists in the 1950s worked with Aloba.

What was his relationship with the late Brigadier-General Samuel Ogbemudia?
  The two of them were very close till he died. They worked together and I can say that they had their ups and downs too when they were setting up The Observer. But I know that I went with him to pay courtesy visits to the late Ogbemudia in Benin. But the interesting thing is that when he was asked by Ogbemudia to set up The Observer, he (Aloba) was actually a national figure and international sensation. So coming to Observer was somewhat condescending but I think he felt he needed to do something for his home state of Bendel at that time. It was Aloba and late Chief Tony Enahoro that started it.

How did your father make his way into the government of late President Shehu Shagari?
  One interesting thing was that my father was not in any way associated with the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), which was the ruling party when he was offered that appointment.

He told me something that was also corroborated in an autobiography written by late president Shehu Shagari where the former president wrote that my father was responsible for his image making. He said that Aloba was the one that actually wrote an article about the late Alhaji Shehu Shagari in 1955 titled, ‘Watch this man’.

Did he tell you about his experience in the government of the late Alhaji Shehu Shagari?
  What I can recollect was an occasion when we lived together in Benin City. I was the only one he could talk to and I can say that I know so much about Nigerian politics. What he told me was his concern for where the country was heading to at that material time. He wasn’t a part of the second coming of president Shehu Shagari. He bowed out in the first term because he was so concerned about the direction the country was heading to at that time. He told me about the corruption and corrupt practices that were going on. I mean the depth of corruption that he was noticing.
 
Aloba was so scared that should Nigeria continue in that path, the future was going to be very dangerous for our children. Sadly, most of the things he said at that time have come to pass.

What did he do after leaving office?
  He moved back to Benin and retired but at that time, he just wanted to be a freelance journalist. So, he wrote for different newspapers that came to ask him to write articles for them. He wrote books and he kept getting requests from different people to write articles for them.
 
He also worked briefly at the Benin campus of the Nigerian Institute of Journalism where he was helping to build future journalists. He also had a stint with the Mail newspaper in Lagos when they sought his help to establish the paper. He worked with them briefly and remained a freelance journalist until he died.

When was the last time you saw him and what was the occasion?
 The last time I spent some time with him was when I came back home from the United States of America where I had been for the past 13 years prior to that visit. I think that was 1999, in December. I was around for two months and I used the opportunity of the visit to spend some time and bond with him.
He told me so many things about Nigeria and how he wanted his legacy to be. One of his wishes was the setting up of Ebenezer Williams Foundation, which we floated to carry out his works.

Did you have any kind of premonition to suggest that it was going to be the last meeting with him?
  Sadly enough, when I was on that long flight back to the U.S., I wasn’t feeling comfortable. But I was at home here in Florida watching American football on a Sunday afternoon. A week before that, we spoke with one another but I was later told that he had a massive stroke that prompted his admission into the hospital.
 
We were already hoping for the best. So when the news hit me that he was dead, I couldn’t say whether I was in shock or whether I was surprised but I had to be calm to fathom out what would be done. This has always been the strength of the Aloba family.

Are you satisfied with efforts to immortalise him or how best do you think he should be immortalised?
  I know that I speak for my family when I say that I appreciate what Governor Godwin Obaseki has done to immortalise him. I can’t really express our gratitude for what he has done to us as a family though we strongly believe that it is long overdue. Everywhere we go; there is one article or the other about him.