Rotimi Fasan
7 October 2008
column
My view of Ajibade as a member of that disappearing class of journalists who in the ordinary line of duty manage, quite unobtrusively, to provide an intellectual dimension to the profession was reinforced when several weeks back I received a copy of his latest book, 'What a country', published to coincide with his golden jubilee celebrations.
His earlier book, 'Jailed for Life: A Reporter's Prison Notes' chronicles his experience behind Abacha's gulag.
A friend, himself a former journalist, who now lectures with a Ph.D in a university, had seen the book with me and wondered, in a derisive tone, what the author had to say. No doubt what lurked behind his mind was the unspoken question, What can a (Nigerian) journalist write about in a book?
He simply did not think that the Nigerian journalist is educated enough to write a book. Beyond flipping through the pages, I was yet to read the book but I advised him to read it first before reaching any conclusion. With no apparent intention to give it more than a cursory look he took the book from me and started reading.
He would sooner than I expected turn to me and announce gleefully: 'The book is well written- I mean it!'
His words were the first I heard as to the quality of the book. Which is another way of saying Ajibade's book is indeed very readable, written in direct, lucid prose; so eye-friendly and uncluttered with too many details.
It's the kind of book you could read and finish in hours- a testimony to the quality of labour that went into it, proving that every part of it must have been planned before the first word was ever set to paper.
The best way to describe What a Country! is to call it a collection of essays. But just five of this nine-chapter book are actually essays in the conventional sense. They dwell on subjects ranging from politics and journalism to Ajibade's abiding interest, literature.
Essentially they are features on such personalities as the German Nobel Prize-winning writer Günter Grass, slain journalist Dele Giwa, the late medical practitioner and human rights activist, Beko Ransom-Kuti and of course, Wole Soyika.
Almost always if you read anything literary on Soyinka or Grass from publications on the Independent Communications Publishers' stable you could be sure it would bear Ajibade's by-line.
The essay on Beko is a portrayal of his life as an activist and a prisoner twice jailed for life for his activism and, indeed, scion of the Ransom-Kuti family; the piece on Grass captures the essence of his writings in the wake of his winning the Nobel Prize, while 'Wole Soyinka and the Nigerian Media' is simply Ajibade's own account of Soyinka's durable relationship with the Nigerian media.
The ease with which Ajibade punctuates his writing with quotes from the subject's works underscores his deep understanding of those works.
Describing What a Country! as a collection of essays is, I say, the closest one could come to putting a conventional tag on the book.
But a collection in the like of Ajibade's is in every sense futuristic as the reader cannot but notice the avantgardist strand of the book with two chapters of interviews with Indian-born British writer, Salman Rushdie and Ghanaian President, John Kufuor.
There is yet another chapter of pictures 'A People in Dire Need: Visual Representations' that tells the heartbreak that is the Nigerian story in pictorial form.
Perhaps nowhere is Ajibade more scathing of the Nigerian state than in the chapter titled 'What Exactly Is Good Governance?' in which the Nigerian leadership, especially the likes represented by the Obasanjos and the Babangida's, comes in for much bashing.
The apparent blend of righteous anger and anxiety in this chapter is anchored in Ajibade's worry that there is no clear agenda towards which Nigeria aspires other than that which places it in the direct line of failure.
As a whole, the nine chapters of 'What a country!', in as much as they tell the Nigerian story from diverse perspectives- interviews, essays and pictures- can be taken as a narrative of recent Nigerian history from someone who is in certain respects a participant in that history. It is in this sense that the book can be called a collection of essays.
And the good thing about Ajibade's account is that, for him, all hope is not lost provided the Nigerian child, the much-touted but abused leader of tomorrow, is given a good study/training in leadership, the sort that has apparently eluded their parents.
Nigerian journalism is perhaps the only professional group where people are hired and set to work with nothing next to training- not even some kind of professional orientation. Journalists are employed and simply put to their beat with no preparation whatsoever. A friend recently got employed by one of the media organisations repositioning in the Nigerian market.
The very day she was employed she was assigned two pages to produce every week. Some days after her employers provided her with a camera that could also serve as a recorder- for interviews. And that was it.
The only thing that prepared her for the job was that she could write but the inadequacy of this would become apparent when days later she came asking me how she was to go about gathering materials for her pages.
Such a journalist would sooner than later get frustrated with the job with the outcome that she would see no reason why she needs to equip herself intellectually anymore than her bosses prepared her for her job.
An ill-prepared journalist will not and cannot be expected to have the right attitude and knowledge as would enable them write a book, as Ajibade's, that demonstrates their commanding knowledge of the field.
Until this trend is reversed, today's journalist though better educated (certificated?) than their predecessors cannot match their knowledge.
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