By Lasisi Olagunju
He was my friend and gist mate. I remember I was right on the Asejire Bridge on the Ife-Ibadan Road when his very first call came in. “Hello. My name is Yakubu Mohammed.
I call to commend your writings and to tell you that I read you and circulate your articles widely.” I held my breath listening to him. This man was already a god when I was in secondary school and building the ambition to write like him and his friends: Dele Giwa, Ray Ekpu and Dan Agbese.
I told him it was a great privilege receiving that call from him. I told him it was a greater privilege to get the compliments he drenched me with. I told him I didn’t take them for granted. That was some seven-eight years ago.
From that day until days before last week, he maintained close contacts with me – weekly, sometimes bi-weekly. I valued the friendship and strove not to mess up the privilege.
Every Monday, he read my column and every Monday he sent reactions he wrote, and reactions from other readers, particularly his secondary school mates on Okene Old Boys WhatsApp platform. When I wrote about politicians’ infelicities, his reaction was “Good morning. Madness has taken hold.”
When a minister was not happy about my writings and hinted at my “redemption” and I wrote about it with a defiance, Yakubu sent me a message: “I am happy you don’t intend to abandon that road or be frightened or blackmailed to abandon that road.
That is character…” I wrote on the Kabiyesi of our democracy; he commented, calling them “dictatorial democrats.” When I yelled softly at the powers’ bad behaviour and its implications for collective wellbeing, he said: “We crave trouble deliberately in this country!” He added that trouble was “apparently the only credible and valuable coin we hold.”
When his friend, Dan Agbese, died in November last year and I commiserated with him, he responded with “Thanks, Lasisi.” When I wrote about Nigeria’s fissured structures and said our real rulers were marabouts who held the yam and the knife of our husbands’ brains, Yakubu Mohammed’s reaction was fairly long, and I dragged it a little with him: “Thanks, Lasisi.
I can’t pinpoint the time when we started to lose it. I think the first accused is the 1966 coup out of which arose the abrogation of regionalism. I may be wrong. I may be pointing the wrong accusing finger.” “It is very sad, sir,” I replied.
“But, I think, the crisis in the West, which was stoked from the federal, was the beginning.” “Yes,” he responded. “Culminating in the 1966 coup and Ironsi’s ill-advised unitary system of government.” “Exactly sir.
We mismanaged our luck.” “Terribly so!” One afternoon last year, he informed me that his memoir was in the works. “Now that it has gone to press, in sha Allah, we may have copies from the next two weeks. I count on you and a few friends and colleagues in the media to help me push it through.
I don’t have the capacity to do public launching but some generous mention in the media will help. I appreciate whichever way you can help.” He sent a soft copy of the book to me. I did a preview, he read it and thanked me with superlative adjectives.
But some of his friends and media lords felt Yakubu’s memoir deserved more than sneak media mentions. They felt it should be properly presented at a befitting venue. They decided to fund and hold the launch at the NIIA Lagos.
Again, Yakubu called me and insisted I should attend the event as the book reviewer. The event was held; everyone played their part; it was successful. A book reviewer should not be a praise singer. One omission I saw in the book is the lack of information on how the name ‘Newswatch’ came to be. And I pointed it out.
Yakubu, apparently, did not forget that observation from the reviewer. A few days after the Lagos event, he sent me a message: “Good evening my brother. One of the boys in my house, in an attempt to pull my legs, thought I did not remember how we came about the name Newswatch, hence I didn’t reply you.
For the record, we took the name from a regular column in Time magazine by Thomas Griffith. I stated this in the story of Newswatch ‘Jogging in the Jungle’…I did not state this in my memoir as you rightly pointed out in your review.
I wrote it in another book, ‘Jogging in the Jungle: The story of Newswatch’. I shall get you a copy one of these days.” Death did not allow him to fulfill that promise. He died last week, one of journalism’s very best on this continent. He was 75.
May Oga Yakubu’s gentle soul rest in peace.
