VANGUARD @ 40 – Reminisces
By Richard Akinnola
Damn! Those were crazy years!! I got poached from The Guardian by Vanguard in 1984 and the “kidnapper” that was sent by Uncle Sam and Muyiwa Adetiba, the editor, was Jimi Disu (JD), who was then the business editor of Vanguard.
Chai, JD was a good “kidnapper”.
Uncle Sam was a talent hunter, and he knew exactly what he wanted. Having seen one feature material l wrote a year after l joined Vanguard, he called me to start my weekly Law column in 1985.
My transition from The Guardian style of reporting, which was long and detailed, to the concise, human angle Vanguard house style took some time.
Those were the analogue days – no mobile phones, no internet. We made use of the land phones in the news room, editor’s office, and Uncle Sam’s office. Inevitably, all reporters in Lagos, including Tope Awe, covering the Dodan Barracks, must report to the newsroom with their stories.
It was a common practice in the newsroom then to use offcuts, derived from the wastes of newsprints, as our writing pads for our stories.
Prior to the construction of CANAL, which later became the envy of other newspaper houses, we made use of a makeshift canteen, which was a melting point – a newsroom annexe, if you don’t mind. I remember Igbuku Otu (now late), who, as a youth corper, was initiating a coup d’etat. He got arrested, and after much advocacy, we got him out and introduced him to Vanguard management, and he was hired as a member of the Editorial Board.
Oh, Vanguard of Yore was a place to be. Chris Okojie, who later transited from being the Sports Editor to become the deputy editor, would walk barefooted from his office to the newsroom, a stick of Benson and Hedges, hanging between two fingers.
Ide Eguabor would come and meet me in the newsroom, “Baba Ricardo, Abu never balance o”. I knew the code. Abu was the bartender at the Canal, and each time Ide said “Abu never balance o”, it was a coded message that we needed to finish the beer at the Canal. When tension was high in the newsroom, l would light a stick of cigarettes and quaff some bottles of beer. And because l couldn’t leave the scripts l was working on in the newsroom, l would shout “Eze, where are you?”, “I’m here sir”, he would reply. “Go to the Canal and get me two bottles of Star. Tell Abu to put it in my account “, l would order Eze Anaba. Both Eze and Onochie Anibeze (now Saturday Editor) were under my tutelage as judicial reporters. I would assign them to cover some big cases so that they could make the lead stories with their bylines in order to encourage them to grow. Somehow, Chris Okojie planned a coup against me, and Onochie found himself at the sports desk where he rose to become the Group Sports Editor before becoming the editor of Saturday Vanguard.
As news editor during first Gulf war coverage in 1990, when we monitored the CNN using one very large satellite dish, (unlike the small ones we have today), one had to sleep in the newsroom to supervise the coverage. Sometimes, we produced three editions, particularly on days Iraq had to fire missiles at about 5 a.m. when we were about printing Lagos/West edition. Inevitably, sometimes we had to change the cover for a fresh Lagos edition.
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