Remembering journalism legend

Talk about the struggle for the freedom of the Press, the mind cannot but race to Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande, fondly called LKJ by his peers. As I was saying…with the formation of the Nigerian Union of Journalists solidly in place, an effort that entailed hard work between 1952 and 1955, and in which he had become a driving spirit, Lateef Jakande thought the next level was the coming together of editors and senior journalists to form an association to be known as Guild of Editors. As I did mention last week, he sold the idea to his fellow senior journalists: Abiodun Aloba (Ebenezer Williams); Theophilus Awobokun, the first editor of the Sunday Times; Peter Enahoro (Peter Pan) and Peter Osugo (Pecos).

They flowed with him. In line with his accustomed unremitted application to whatever he set his mind to accomplish, the Guild came into existence in 1961 and he became its first president. The objective was to have a body of senior editors who would worry about the industry and professional ethics being the officers in management and be a bridge between publishers and the NUJ. Jakande’s reasoning was that while the NUJ was needed to do the work of a trade union, to seek the welfare of its members and fight against any attack on the Press, the Guild would serve as a buffer between the publishers and the staff union and be responsible for implementing and enforcing the code of conduct of the Press.

Before the advent of the Guild on the scene, there had been this bouncing of ideas by senior executives on the need for an association of the publishers themselves to protect and vouch safe the interests of their newspapers among which was registration of advertisers. The mulling was speared headed by Jakande and concretised in 1960. He and Mr. Barmasik of the then Daily Express summoned a meeting of publishers. The outcome of it was the inauguration of the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria in 1960 and the emergence of Jakande of Allied Newspapers as President.

According to Jola Ogunlusi in his book, “NUJ, A History of Nigeria Press,” NPAN in collaborative working with the Guild of Editors was to take care of the conditions of service in their respective organisations, but the NPAN to exclusively source for funds to finance matters of joint interests and concerns. Even when his tenure ran into storming waters with his imprisonment in 1962 following the crisis in the western Region and charges of treasonable felony along with some other Action Group party leaders, notably, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, such was the effulgent quality of his leadership that the NPAN only had an acting president throughout the four years he was in jail. Upon his release by General Gowon in August 1966, he was re-elected the association’s president. From then on, he was re-elected again and again until 1979 when he relinquished the office to become the first elected governor of Lagos State.

Under his leadership, the NPAN successfully fought many battles. First, he saw that in unity lies strength. He was in the forefront of the bringing together the three main organs for the advancement and protection of the media. The three main organs, the NPAN, the Guild of Editors and the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) came together under the umbrella of Nigeria Press Organisation (NPO) in 1978. The formation of the NPO was accelerated to fight the Nigeria Press Council Decree 31 of that year. Jakande was made the first chairman of NPO as well. In 1988, long after he had vacated the office, another edition of the Press Council decree was issued cited Press Council Decree 59. Brandishing the flag with the unyielding doggedness of Jakande’s spirit, the NPO fought the authorities until the composition of the members of the council was amended. The government had ignored the amendment made by the NPAN to the draft forwarded to it as far back as 1976. The NPAN in response ensured that none of the NPO members served on the board of the Press Council.

The account of the battles cannot be completed without a special mention of the battle to get justice for the Nigerian Observer Correspondent in Port Harcourt who was humiliated by the government of Rivers State. Minere Amakiri had filed a report on teachers strike in the state. The publication coincided with the governor’s birthday on July 30, 1973. The authorities in Rivers State considered the publication a hostile action designed to embarrass the governor and spoil the joy of his great day. Mr. Amakiri was arrested and given 33 strokes of the cane on the orders of the military governor. He was detained, stripped naked and had his head forcibly shaven with a dull-edged razor blade by the agents of the state government. There were lacerations all over his body. Jakande wasted no time in contacting human rights lawyer, Gani Fawehinmi as the NPAN attorney. NPAN was joined by the Guild of Editors in the battle.

Fawehinmi, supported by Dr. Olu Onagoruwa, was in his elements arguing that journalists had a right to their dignity and to do their work without molestation. Chief Judge Ambrose Allagoa personally handled the matter. The battle was successfully fought with Amakiri being awarded a hefty sum of money for his humiliation. For every cane he received, the state government was fined N200. There were other fines imposed on the government. Jakande got all newspapers to take more than passing interest in the matter.

Dr. Onagoruwa later published a book on the incident titled “Press Freedom in Crisis—A Study In Amakiri Case.” The Observer was owned by the government of Bendel State which was later split into Edo and Delta States. Seeing through the move by the government, the NPAN also fought the Productivity, Price and Income Board which was to fix prices of commodities. Jakande’s NPAN argued that producers should be free to fix their own prices to recover their costs, record surplus and have reserves so they could continue in business and provide employment.

A multi-tasked and highly organised fellow, Jakande had time for everything he wanted to do and needed to do. As he was attending to IPI matters, wading through documents as its president, he was attending to Tribune issues worrying about newsprint, chemicals and spare parts, he was getting ready for political meetings, sitting at Chief Awolowo’s feet to learn wisdom and to add to his own. Such was it that it could be said of him that he was a permanent face in Awolowo’s residence. His work schedule would begin very early in the morning. By 5 a.m. he had already left home for his office on Broad Street. It was in the office he said his morning prayers. By 7a.m. the editorial of the Tribune was ready to be dictated to the editors at Ibadan. The type-written copy would later be forwarded to them through the newspaper’s circulation van returning to the Ibadan head offices after delivering Tribune copy packages to distributors in Lagos. Jakande himself was at Ibadan as Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief twice every week—on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In Lagos, upon closing at Broad Street, he would head for Chief Awolowo’s house. Jakande was a work-alcoholic. His work came before his home and predictably an absentee husband he was throughout his journalistic life. His editorials were robustly argued, informed and engrossing even if fierce and unsparing. He was fearless despite experiences in jail houses. Indeed, following harassment of Tribune editors by security agents, Jakande wrote to the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Kam Salem, to leave his editors alone. Should they have complaints about the Tribune editorials, it was he they should come for and no-one else. During the treasonable felony he said to Chief Awolowo how he wished his leader was left alone and if it was possible the charges against Chief could be added to his own. He said for everyday Chief Awolowo was in incarceration, Nigeria was the loser for it. His own imprisonment was from May 1962 to 06 August 1966 when he was released by General Gowon. Jakande was ready for the consequences of his convictions.

Jakande started his journey into politics under the shadows of his leader and mentor, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. He began his foray on his own steam with his appointment as one of the Lagos Leaders of Thought in Lagos by Major Mobolaji Johnson who became the Military Administrator of Lagos in May 1966. A couple of months after he settled down, Johnson raised a committee of prominent Lagosians with whom he held regular meetings on the affairs. Some of the others were H.O.Davies; Fagbenro Beyioku; Femi Okunnu; Ganiyu Dawodu; I.A.S. Adewale fondly hailed ‘The boy is good’; Adeniran Ogunsanya; Ademola Thomas; Abiola Oshodi; Senu Oke and TOS Benson. Johnson’s appointment signaling the end of office of Minister of Lagos Affairs Lagos raised expectation that Lagos had begun the journey to becoming an independent entity. This eventually materialized on 27 May 1967. With the official carving out of the state, Johnson himself transformed from being a military administrator to a Military Governor. With the development, he appointed his commissioners.

In September, 1966, General Gowon announced the setting up of a National Conference of Representatives of the then four Regions and the capital territory of Lagos. Jakande was among them representing Lagos. Others from Lagos were legendary Teslim Elias; Femi Okunnu; Ishola Bajulaiye, Eletu Odibo of Lagos and Chief Jas Ogundimu, the Oloto of Oto. That was when the Lagos Representatives for the first time pressed for the Creation of Lagos State. This was the class to which Jakande belonged, yet Jakande was known not by throwing his weight all over the place but by his action. He was incognito; one could pass him by without recognizing him. He was neither loud nor did he indulge in opulence. As governor, he used his own car and lived in his own house. When stories went round that he was going to fly the UPN flag as governorship candidate, like the Americans wrinkled their faces when a similar story leaked about Jimmy Carter and they asked: Jimmy who? The same was asked contemptuously of LK Jakande: What! Which Jakande? Jakande ke!

On October 1, 1979, Lateef Kayode Jakande became the first elected governor of Lagos State and he received his glittering testimonial from no less a personality than Bola Ahmed Tinubu when in his glowing tribute on the passing away of Lateef Jakande in 2021, he said no one can beat the record set by Jakande as Governor of Lagos State.

On becoming governor of Lagos, Jakande set the tone and opened the floodgate to the establishment of radio and television stations. The first battle he fought had to do with the setting up of radio and television stations which was stiffly opposed by the Shagari NPN Administration. That Administration sought to vest the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria with the power to establish and operate state radio stations. The Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) was to set up at least one television station in each state of the Federation. The Federal Authority said states setting up radios and TV would amount to proliferation of broadcast stations. They did not know the person they were dealing with; they attempted to ignore his credentials, someone who for years was president of IPI, the first African to occupy the position; the founder of the Nigerian Guild of Editors; the founder of the Newspapers Proprietors Association; the founder of the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ), managing director/editor-in-chief of Nigerian Tribune and one who had led the media, nationally and internationally in battles with the military as well as irresponsible civilian administrations. They wanted to take him on on his turf. He accepted the gauntlet thrown at him. Waving the 1979 Constitution he fought it and was victorious.

His administration thus became the first state government in the land to own a TV station. Thus by 1982, although NTA had had stations in all the states, 15 states leaning on the victory of Jakande had set up their own television stations independent of the Federal. Altogether the total number of television stations both state and federal to 38 and radio stations to 40. After it took over in December 1983, the Buhari Administration closed down those owned by the Federal Government leaving Lagos and Abuja, and zonal stations—Kaduna, Enugu and Ibadan.

Working like lightning, Jakande’s miracle achievements spread across the state. Not surprisingly, before the election of 1979, Jakande visited all local government areas in the state taking note of the peculiar needs of each place. Education was priority. On the occasion of his being sworn in on October 1, he declared education free. To take care of the pupil/ student surge in population , he built simple, functional schools, a great many products of the schools have become professors and high-flying professionals. The functional primary schools he built to abolish the three-session system he inherited were recommended by UNESCO for developing countries. When Gbolahan Mudasiru came, he started to upgrade them.

And he did a lot. The Jakande schools were not meant to be permanent. They were meant to take care of the exigencies of the time and they fulfilled the purpose for which they were built such that pupil enrollment leapt from 90,172 in 1979 to 136, 987 in 1983.

Secondary schools rose from 79 when Jakande took over in 1979 to 319 by July of 1983. The student population which was 59,584 by October, 1979, had by a year later jumped to 107, 835. The teachers were the highest paid in the nation with a right to car and housing loans like the state civil servants.

In housing, he established 18 housing estates in the state but mainly in Lagos. He embarked on a crash on a crash programme to build 50,000 housing units in four years. For 17 years before his ascension, LEDB, the state housing corporation succeeded in building only 4,502 housing units. Jakande’s focus was on the low and medium classes of our people. He succeeded in delivering 21,000. An allottee was required to pay only a deposit of N4, 000 as a deposit. Whoever was unable to afford that could pay just N1, 000 and he would be eligible for a loan to balance up from LBIC. A two-bedroom flat was sold for N6, 000 and a three-bedroom unit went for N8, 000.

The government bought the building materials for the contractors after ascertaining what needed to be done. The total length of roads he built in the four years he was in power was 195,426 metres. In his words: “We took inventory of all roads in all the local government areas…our estimates of how much for instance 500 metres of drainage should cost. We now gave jobs to contractors in addition to direct labour efforts of the Ministry of Works. I personally knew the true position of the roads because I went round everywhere.” His further strategy was to establish a Works Management Board and one unique activity of it was that it had its asphalt plant which could produce 200 tonnes of asphalt an hour. So it was possible to build neighbourhood roads without stress. The board constructed 94 public buildings, including Lagos House of A, the rebuilding of Onikan Stadium, coconut industries and Conference Hall in Badagry.

Jakande transformed the finances of the state to an unbelievable level. When he met his predecessor before being sworn in, the latter wondered where he was going to find money to fund all his campaign promises because the state had no money. Jakande assured him the state would generate its own funds. And it was that which happened. Jakande did say: “We generated enough to meet our obligations without dependence on the Federal Account.” And so, Lagos State was the first State Government in the land to announce a billion Naira budget and it gave loans to some states, notably Borno. Jakande established the Lagos State Ministry of Environment under the headship of Alabi Masha. He then set up Lagos State Waste Disposal Board with Alhaji Mumini as chairman. Equipped with a fleet of 157 vehicles, 21 mechanical Shovels and 2,000 movable dust bins in every part of the metropolis, the board collected 400, 000 tonnes of refuse. As I had cause to state earlier in the year, the population of Lagos has increased by leaps, it should necessarily be expected of his successors to roll up their sleeves and Fashola fitted the bill. It was part of building a cleaner Lagos that Fashola embarked on environmental transformation everywhere turning Lagos into an exemplary leafy surroundings—plants, flowers, green lawns even in the most unexpected terrain.

Jakande established Flood Relief Committee deflooding Ebute Ero, Oroyinyin; Obalende; Aguda; Opebi; Apapa; Eric Moore; Simpson; Oba Akran; and many more upto Somolu! Drains collectors were built at Gbagada; Oshodi; Mafoluku; Ojota; etc. Jakande introduced the following in the attempt to improve the physical appearance of Lagos: Annual Sanitation Day for Women; Annual Sanitation Day for Workers; Annual sanitation Day for School Children; Annual sanitation Day for Community Development Committees and annual competition on environment among the 20/23 local government councils.

Jakande Administration invested in the following companies to have permanent and unfailing revenue inflow into the state’s treasury: Guinness Nigeria Limited; Nigerian Breweries; Dunlop Industries; Capps & Da’Albrto; Julius vBerger; G. Cappa; UAC; BEWAC Ltd: UTC Ltd; CFAO; Volkswagen Nigeria Ltd; Nichemtex; Clay Industries; British American Insurance; Westminster Dredging and Crusader Insurance. These were just only one stream of financial turn-around for the state.

Dear readers I had thought I was to speak extensively on LKJ that I knew so closely. My bosses, Osoba and Uncle Sam that the world knows as Sad Sam were in attendance for the memorial outing in honour of Jakande; they knew him much more closely, so I could not afford to fail. Also amongst us gathered for the memorial were colleagues; senior editors; Fellows of the Guild of Editors who are as informed on the legacies of our leader, LK Jakande as I can claim to be.

I have a box load of glittering testimonials for Jakande. He was a role model for some of us— in application to work and in his simplicity. Professor Idowu Sobowale said in one of his public lecture series in 1913: Genuine communication must entail exchange of ideas, if it is interpersonal and must have a feedback loop, if it involves large, scattered and heterogeneous audiences. It usually leads to consensus either of agreement or disagreement.” That was Jakande’s guiding principle. It was said of Bernard Levin, the celebrated columnist of The Times of London in the review of his book titled “Speaking Up”: ‘A welcome selection of the works of Scoop Levin, the ace reporter, with the hottest news about bumblebees; Cato Levin, the passionate moralist, pouring his invective over oppression…’ Another reviewer said of him: “There must surely be very few of his readers who would deny that he is the most remarkable journalist of our time.” I make bold to say, Lateef Kayode Jakande was more—an oracle in journalism and a giant in governance who just didn’t sit in judgment but proved that all his preachments as conscience of the nation are achievable.