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.
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