Emmanuel Aziken
22 September 2008
Former broadcast journalist, publisher and radio mogul, Chris Anyanwu, etched her name in media reckoning in the early eighties, well ahead of today's celebrated international correspondents. She has, indeed, paid her dues, including a prison punishment by the then dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha.
The daughter of one of the country's post colonial lawmakers, Mrs. Anyanwu has, herself, never been far from the affairs of the National Assembly since the Second Republic, dotting around either as a correspondent or as legislative expert.
In 2007, she finally got a seat for herself in Nigeria's Senate to represent the Owerri Senatorial District. Following a town hall meeting where she gave a report of her activities in the Senate in the past year, she spoke to Vanguard at the venue in two interview sessions in Owerri and Abuja.
Was it your life ambition to become a Senator?
No, I never even thought that I would be a Senator, but you know that I have been around the National Assembly for a long time. I was a correspondent for NTA at the National Assembly and, after that, I started doing a publication on the National Assembly and that entailed that I had to be in close touch with the administrators and also be a close observer of what was going on at the National Assembly.
So, I guess it was just a natural transition, that being a part of it, you understand the beat, you understand the processes and, maybe, cyclically, I was moving towards this point. But, honestly, I never sat down and said this is a life ambition, this is where I want to go, it just happened so suddenly.
I would rather say it was spiritual stirring because I once went to my constituency and saw people and I felt their pains and so much angst was over there, retardation, if not retrogression. I didn't feel that the place was moving forward.
You hear about so much money being spent in government, so many projects being undertaken by the government but none of these was evident in the place that I was born. I felt that this place has been left to fallow, that this is not part of Nigeria. There was no evidence that they are part of this rich, strong nation. So, something just snapped.
One night, about 2.00 a.m. or thereabout, I just woke up and I felt a feeling that "you have to go." I said go for what? You have to go, but I was so frightened because it was something that I really didn't think of because, based on the things that I had on hand - business pursuits, career goals I had set for myself - I didn't feel that was the right direction.
Then, I went and told the PDP chairman that I want to run and he encouraged me and told me the things that I needed to do. I went and told the President that I want to run. He said to me that it is women like you that should be running but you have to go home and let your people know you and you understand their plight.
You mean the former President?
Yes. Then, I packed and started going from one leader to the other, telling them that I wanted to run. I am sure that something registered deep inside me, something inside me said you have to pick this gauntlet. For me, I had to set aside everything and do this.
As a young girl, what was your ambition?
I think that the thing I wanted to do was to be a writer of novels. I read a lot of novels and I come from a family with a tradition of writing. My father was an author of many books. But, at one point, I thought it would be cool to be an ambassador. I never really thought about being a politician to tell the truth.
But once I got into journalism, I came to understand what journalism is, especially when I got to the United States where I saw the deft exploits of journalists in the hey days of investigative journalism, of Woodward and Bernstein, I said that was what I wanted to do.
I went to Journalism School and once, I got into journalism, I never wanted to do anything else. You just go from one aspect of journalism and media work to the other.
How do you compare your journalism experience in the United States with what you met in Nigeria?
Things were, of course, a lot easier in the United States - you have records, you have telephone numbers, communication works as you can reach people all over the world. Of course, our communication has improved drastically in Nigeria now, but it wasn't that way when we started in Nigeria.
When you have a system and tradition in place, then all you do to concentrate on is excellence and not struggle with how to do the job. For example, if you are working for NTA, you don't struggle with whether the satellite is going to work or not. The system and equipment ought to be in place and in excellent condition, with the jobs well defined. So, all you have to do is to concentrate on being the best journalist that you can.
Over here, when I started, we were struggling with the most elementary aspects of operations. The journalists almost stopped getting the news and started getting about how to get the camera to get the news, about how to get the car to take you to the place of assignment,coupled with other management and administrative issues.
Over there, management and administrative issues are not your concern. It is taken for granted that those things are going to be taken care of. If you are a TV correspondent and you are going to Nigeria for an assignment, your organization will do all the advance work, they will even send someone ahead of you to prepare and clear the ground for you, make contact with the people you are going to interview, agree on timetable, etc. All you have to do is to fly in, do the interview, stand in front of the camera and it is on!
But, over here, you do everything. You do administrative, logistical and journalistic work. But we have come a long way.
To tell you the truth, when I started at NTA, it was a very daunting job. Only the true believers in the profession could abide. You have to have the hunger to succeed, to get something out, to hang in there for a long time.
Honestly, I admire my colleagues for their courage in hanging there at that time because it was an impossible place. But, of course, NTA, just as other media organisations, including the print sector, has vastly improved and that is a good thing. You guys are enjoying the fruit of our suffering (chuckles.)
What would you consider as your most memorable moment as a journalist?
Waow! There were many of them. A few weeks after I joined NTA, my first assignment was to go cover the OPEC meeting in Venezuela. Intially, I was a print journalist, then I went into radio in the U.S. and was covering the State Senate and the Housing Commission.
So, I had never worked in television station before I got to NTA. What I had to do was to use my imagination. So, a few weeks I came into NTA, I was sent to Venezuela, but without any arrangement. I was to cover OPEC, call in my story or use satellite to send in my story and nobody arranged for satellite feeds!
Quite frankly, at that time, I knew very little about all these things and nobody took the trouble to arrange for satellite feeds, pay them and give me a real brief about what to do. When I got there, it was so difficult and I had to call in my story by phone, which was impossible because NTA telephone numbers were not working at that time. So, after running around, covering and writting the news, I was not able to call them in.
What I resorted to was to call my husband's office, the secretary will take my story, transcribe it, then take it to NTA.
At some point, I think I was even calling Babagana Kingibe's office, at that time I think he was in the cabinet office. That showed you the extent of desperation for a young reporter who was so eager to get the news across to the people and had to explore any avenue to get the news.
Of course, there was the story I did on water hyacinth. When water hyacinth first appeared in Nigeria and nobody knew what it was, I followed the story, researched on it, talked to experts and eventually was sent to some of the countries that had had some experience dealing with water hyacinth.
I went to Egypt and Sudan, up to the border with Eriteria. It was a very memorable experience because we spent a lot of time in Sudan, we saw things that are now beginning to manifest as a social problem. At that time, we saw the anti-Nigeria sentiment, we felt it, we read it in their papers, we saw the way they treated Nigerians.
We saw the way they aggregated Nigerians in one little slum called Etchesh. And if you have any vision of hell, Etchesh was it, it was a slum of all slums, it made my heart bleed that this was where these people were sequestered.
As you go upward to the Nile up north, you would see another Nigerian community, again sequestered. So this problem they have now in Darfur did not start overnight, it is historical and a culmination of the negative feeling that the natives, mostly Arabs, have towards black Africans.
It was quite memorable because we went by boat with their experts up the Nile and also in Sudan, we saw that Southern Sudanese, who are Negroid; t was like they are the slave caste.
They were the people that carried things in the hotels and did the menial labour. I think we would be hearing more from Sudan in the near future because after Darfur, they would still face their issue with the Southern Sudanese.
Were you part of the glamour girls that held sway at NTA in the early eighties?
No, no. I think the glamour girls were the ones that sat in the studios and presented the news. They didn't go out to gather news. How can you be a glamour girl when you are out there, having your hair scattered by the wind, having to rush around to meet deadlines. It was not possible to be one of them but I wished I were one of them; just to sit down, present the news and all of that.
But, I think that glamour is also a natural part of television. The visual medium is such that it looks for the best. The visual medium is not for the ugliest, it is for the pretty and beautiful, what is pleasant to look at. If you work in television house, you have to look bright.
You became one of the first journalists to step into political office. What came across your mind when you were appointed a Commissioner in Imo State in 1986?
It took so long for me to accept it. Because of my reluctance, they delayed the announcement for almost three months as they were chasing me all over the place. That was about the time I started my show, Newsline.
Newsline was an opportunity of a lifetime for me professionally. For long, I had been trying to persuade them to allow me start the programme and when that opportunity came, it was so exciting for me, I was running all over the country and even abroad, putting together stories and then the appointment came.
At that time, I was told that they had thought and talked about it and that I was to be sent to the Nigerian mission at the UN.
To do what?
To work there, maybe in information or whatever. They just felt that I was a little bit too much of an alien and that I would just fade into America and never come back again. So, they said was "send her home to know her people."
They felt that it would be better for me if I was sent to my state to know my people and work for my state. And the governor wanted me, he wanted someone who knew the Lagos press and who would inject some interest in the state, someone who has reputation.
I was, indeed, very reluctant. I was so reluctant that, up to the time I was being sworn in, I wanted to just run away, I nearly broke down and cried.
My boss that time at NTA, Yaya Abubakar, saw this. They knew how passionate I was about the TV job and it was as if they had to come and lead me away, you know how you see off someone, say a daughter that was getting married and they had to escort me and, quite frankly, if some of them were not there, I would have cried and left.
That shows that I was very reluctant but, in the end, I decided it was an experience that will, maybe, strengthen and broaden my scope of knowledge in some way, and, besides, the job will not be forever, so why not go, do it and get back to my profession.
Did it strengthen you?
Oh yes. You know journalism does not teach you how to administer and run things. It is an experience in a different plane. It strengthens you from bottom up. Journalism is an activist thing.
Journalists go on assignment or investigate things and put it together, that is the profession, but this one teaches you how to run things, how to manage people and resources, how to present a case, how to write proposals, how to write memos and all that.
Being that I had no knowledge on all these things, I had to rely on my staff, including my secretary, my directors and all that. They actually taught me a lot and, by the time that I was done with the assignment, it helped me and built my confidence.
But there were insinuations that you left unceremoniously.
That is not true.
What was your relationship with the governor?
You are asking me this twenty years after. We had a good relationship. At that time, Imo was up, the media took a lot of interest in Imo and some of my colleagues came to Imo. We opened up the place for them, which helped a lot. We organised an information system so that if anything happened in Imo, that same day, we fly someone with it to Lagos. It was a good time.
That happened during a military regime?
Yes.
So what was your experience with subsequent military regimes?
I didn't work with other military regimes.
I mean your experience under the Abacha regime?
I didn't work with the Abacha regime.
No, your experience as a journalist and publisher under that regime compared with the Babangida regime?
You know that the Babangida regime was a much more liberal regime. They took a lot of knocks but I think that they had a lot of broad shoulders to accommodate all that. It was a far more liberal time for the media.
Of course, there were a few hiccups and a few bad experiences, especially the loss of Dele Giwa, which was the darkest spot of that period. But, beyond that, I think that the practice of journalism was far more liberal at that time.
Abacha was maybe different and I think it had to do with his attitude to life and the fact that he was not sociable, he didn't go out much and he had little contact with the media. I think that coloured his own media policy.
Distinguished Senator, you are a beautiful lady and it has been speculated that, beyond reasons adduced at your trial, there were some hidden reasons for your trial? Were there some romantic overtures from some principal officers of that regime towards you?
You know we hear all sorts of things in this place and this is news to me. I am not aware of such. Once in a while, one hears these things, but I think that there is absolutely no truth to that.
I'd like to look at it in terms of what I know, not what people imagine. If there is anybody that actually has facts and knows what happened, the person should come up with it.
I don't think it was that. I think that it was strictly because someone reacted based on briefings and you know when he started doing the arrest and the rest of it, he got a little bit more defensive.
He knew he was wrong, he knew what he wanted to do and he had to take all measures to make sure that he did not face strong opposition or that people didn't stand in his way. I think that it was just that he wanted to shut the press up so as to create a climate to carry out his plans, nothing beyond that.
Do your really believe that there was no plan to oust that government at that time?
I don't think so but, then, we are journalists, not soldiers. If they go in their bedrooms or mess and plan something and that information is not available to us, there is no way we can report for sure.
But I think that what we report is based on the facts that we have, based on things you hear from the military itself. We deal with facts and what we reported was based on facts available to us.
Is it true that one of your investigators, Zakari Biu, tried to sexually molest you in detention?
That is nonsense. Absolutely nonsense. In a situation like that, especially in a society like ours where information is not flowing freely, there are bound to be a lot of speculation, but what I tell you is what I know.
Did they respect your person?
I did get respect and I think that had to do with how I turned out in the end. A lot of the people that went through this experience came out destroyed. Many of those men were totally destroyed psychologically.
Even one of the girls is dead now and it is part of the culmination that we had. We are beginning to loose many of the people that went through that experience but I think that I did get some respect.
The only thing is that Zakari was trying to stick his fingers into my eyes, which I refused. He was trying to force me to write a report the way he wanted and I told him that he couldn't tell me how to write.
He thought that I was being recalcitrant and he tried to point his finger in my face and when I did like this (raises her hand to her face) he put his finger in my eye.
That was one of those bad experiences. It's just like you don't know what is happening, you are in your office,doing your job and somebody you don't know comes to you and says I am the brother of Mr. X, and that he has been arrested and all that. What would you do? Run away? News falls on your lap you grab it with both hands. Where is the guy? What did he do? Where is his family and you start looking for somebody who can shed light on it.
I also know that there had been some articles written in my paper by Comfort Obi that inflamed them before that time. These are build ups. You people are sympathetic to these people, that is your sin and we have to teach them a lesson they will never forget. That is what it is.
To teach the media a lesson they will never forget and, at that material time, I was the symbol of authority in my own outfit.
So, you had to pay the price for the actions of your subordinates?
Yes, but what were we writing? If it is a price you pay, then I am willing to pay because what you are saying is to make sure that the proper process of trial is followed, that people are given opportunities to defend themselves.
We had a history where they arrest people and, before you know it, you will be watching on TV where they will say that they had just been slaughtered! Do you understand me?
This is a duty. The duty of a journalist, try them but give them opportunities to defend themselves and don't repeat what you have been doing in the past, by killing people before we even know it.
But, do you believe that what your subordinates, including Comfort Obi, wrote were true?
Well, it depends on the particular story that you are talking about. At that time, people will point at different stories that you won't know which one they are talking about.
There were insinuations that those you left behind to manage your paper got on well with the Generals? How did you take it?
It was painful, but that is in the past now.
At 57, you still radiate a beauty that belies your age. How do you maintain the shape and beauty?
As they will say in Nigeria, it is the grace of God. We didn't create ourselves and I don't know what mix the Good Lord used when He was moulding me, but I do know that He moulded me very nicely and put some nice things there and I feel very grateful that I am well and strong. There is no particular secret. I also keep a clean mind and I am not over ambitious.
Did your prison experience in any way affect your disposition to life, especially dressing?
I have never been a fashion or glamour girl. I have been very pragmatic in terms of my choices. I dress in classical ways. I am not the sort of person you will see wearing labels, that it has to be this or that. I well what goes well with me.
I try to dress well but I am not consumed by appearance, I like to put myself together, I wear what is decent, neat and what fits me. The colour has to be right, the texture has to be right. I am not flowery, I am not showy, I don't like a lot of frills and the rest of it. I don't dress in such a way that says 'look at me'!
You have just presented your report card to your constituency. What is your assessment of the reception you received?
I think the reception has been very warm and excellent but you saw that the message resonated with them and they responded very well. We have been doing this report card thing in layers, first we went to the traditional rulers. Their response was very impressive, they showed full understanding of what I was trying to do and they acknowledged that this was what it ought to be because, under democracy, elected people are really supposed to be servants of the people and they should be reporting back to them.
It is a culture that we have been trying to create but this is the first time that I would be getting back to the traditional rulers and they were very warm in their reception and they did say that this was new to them and that they hoped that it would continue. I think that by the grace of God, we will continue to get back to them.
I also took the liberty of inviting them to make contributions, to actually go down and study what their needs and problems in their communities are and then make an input as to what I should be really aiming for to get for them in the 2009 budget.
You also saw that they responded immediately and one of them told me that he would submit his own before the end of the month. That is how receptive they were and how keen they were with that kind of thing. I believe that if this kind of information comes from down up, then you are going to be better focused.
I could go to Abuja and look for a dam for the people here but I could come back and find that there is no land to put the dam, so what do I do? Carry the dam on my head? Or that they don't need a dam; that, actually, their needs are in the areas of electricity.
That is the reason why it is important to go back to the people, the actual people who have the ownership to say to them, what do you want me to do in the next financial year? Give me your input so that when I go out there, I will be confident that I will be reflecting the wishes of the people.
So, what would you consider as the high point of your representation of Owerri Senatorial District in the last one year?
Well, the high points have been that I have tried to fight for and see that everything that should come to Owerri come here. Whether it is ministerial or ambassadorial appointment, whether it is making of budgetary provisions for projects in my constituency or if it has to do with expanding our airport to make it a cargo airport, or whether is it that the airlines want to pull out, I have always articulated the interests of Owerri. I think that the people are now seeing the difference.
What would you consider as setbacks in projecting the needs of your constituents?
Well, there has not been too many setback. The setback has been that one has had to learn the ropes. If you are new in a business, you will have to take time to understand it and this is the first budgetary experience that we have had and one had to understand where to press for these things, who to lobby and all that. That has been a setback.
Also, another setback has been that those areas that I thought that we had the greatest need have had very small envelopes (budget).
Water is the major problem for us in Owerri zone but the envelope for the river basin authority has been very small. Much of the money went into the gigantic dams and most of them are located in the North.
What we are saying is that you don't spend all the money on these dams and concentrate them in one part of the country. Put some of the money in the dams but also bring some of the money to spread to other parts of the country so that people will have water.
In this part of the country, our needs lie not just in water for farming, but water to sustain life and that is very fundamental. I think that, in the 2009 budget, we are going to press for the Ministry of Water Resources to do a shift in the direction of spending and balance up a little bit because it was really skewed too much against this part of this country in the 2008 budget.
You made some inferences to the marginalisation of the southeast in the siting of River Basin Authorities in the country. Can you clarify this?
It wasn't so much of marginalisation as it is imbalance. There is an imbalance in the way the River Basin Authorities are structured. The whole of the Southeast, with five states, has only one River Basin Authority and, when you begin to budget on the basis of river basins, you will find that there is a serious disadvantage.
Like this year, each river basin had an envelope of N1 billion. That means that five states of the Southeast would share projects of N1 billion, whereas there are river basin authorities that cover only one and half states or two states, and others three states. So you can see the disadvantage right there that five states are sharing N1 billion worth of projects. It is like a drop of water that doesn't go anywhere.
I think there is something fundamentally wrong in this, which is why we are drafting a bill to create another River Basin Authority in the Southeast so that development and the effect of river basin authorities will trickle down to our people. Right now, the impact is very limited in the Southeast.
Actually, there are two bills, one I drafted and another one drafted by the deputy Senate President but I have deferred to him to let his own move on since it serves the same purpose.
Considering the claims that the zone had previously been under-represented, what strategies did you adopt to boost the representation of the constituency?
There has been no special technique. It has just been plain hard work and commitment. I care for the people of the zone because they haven't really had a good shake in previous budgets. Looking through the last three budgets, it was as if my constituency was not part of the country.
Apart from the few things Senator Ama Iwuagwu put in, especially in the water sector, we really didn't have much coming this way. I think the people are now seeing the difference and it is a good thing.
We will continue to work on that, to try and achieve more, to try and lobby our colleagues, the ministries to empathise with the people here for them to know that this is part of the country and that there is need to also carry them along in federal spending. It is very important to carry them along because the level of disillusionment is very high.
So, I don't think I adopted a special technique. But, one thing I also tried to do at the very beginning was to go round to try and assess the state of affairs and to try and sound out the people on what they need and what they thought that one should emphasise on and it was on the basis of that that one began to press for projects.
In the long run, what would be your focus for the constituency?
In the long run, my emphasis would be on anything that will create employment here. The level of unemployment is so high, it is dangerously high. You know when you have a lot of unemployed able bodied people, you will have a lot of mischief going round.
Young men will resort to armed robbery, kidnapping, advanced fee fraud and things like that. But, if they were fully employed or even half employed, they would have less time to do such mischief.
So, employment is a priority and I will really press on the government to see if there are projects that can come here that will bring employment.
Outside of that, I am also planning for a skills acquisition centre to teach young persons basic skills that can keep them earning some money and putting food on the table.
Even if it means that they are going to train as bricklayers or whatever it is, I will know that that is the contribution I make for the workforce. To train skilled labour and push them into the job market. That is something I will like to do and that will be an emphasis.
As you spoke to the traditional rulers, you said that your being a woman did not mean you could not deliver. Why did you say that?
I said that because I am a woman, but also an achieving woman. That you sent a woman to Abuja does not mean that you sent a weakling or someone who cannot get anything for you. I am not there as a piece of decoration, I am there as a woman who is seriously looking for things to bring home to the people, to touch their lives, to wipe away their tears and bring smiles to their faces. That is what I was trying to say.
A lot of people say, 'no, she is a woman', but being a woman is not being a handicapped. You have a woman that can hold her own anywhere in the world, you have a woman that can go anywhere and ask people or even beg people to help her people.
I think that is an asset and they should recognise that as an asset. I believe that they have begun to recognise that and it showed in their response and in the things that they have said to me, even privately.
A final word to your constituents?
I am very proud to represent them, I am honoured to be their servant and I made a promise that I will not go to Abuja to waste their time or waste my time and I am doing everything to make sure that they made a right choice by voting for me. I will deliver on my promises. We have started delivering and we still have about three more years to do more.
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