It is hard for me to forget the legend of some great men, Nigerians, who put their lives on the line and dared to hold military juntas of despotic heads of state accountable to the people in trying times in Nigeria.
Democracy has brought some levels of sanity into the Nigerian society. No matter how bad it is today, it can never be compared to military dictatorship.
Ironically, hardly do people talk of media martyr, Dele Giwa. Hardly do people reverence Dan Agbese, Ray Ekpu and Yakubu Mohammed among whom Dele Giwa paid supreme price with his life in a parcel bomb believed to have been sent by Gen Ibrahim Babangida.
Tunde Thomson and Nduka Irabor of Guardian newspaper who were jailed by Gen Mohammadu Buhari and Babatunde ‘Tunde’ Idiagbon for daring to criticise their reckless and controversial decrees have been forgotten.
The brave Stanley Macebuh, Andy Akporugo and Gabriel Oviogbodu are no longer remembered as fire brand journalists who were fearless in their write ups and opinions, no matter who and what was involved.
I respect all journalists of brave will in the military era where they were not scared of the power of guns and khaki. Alex Ibru was courageous to have set up a Guardian paper that was a target of Gen Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon who shutdown then Nigeria’s most popular newspaper for its rare focus on probity and accountability on the nation’s political leaders.
For daring to publish stories against Buhari’s administration, he shut down the Guardian. Ironically, Buhari today is a beneficiary of the fight for social justice among journalists and pro-democracy movements against repressive military administrations including that of Buhari.
Later, Alex Ibru, publisher of the Guardian narrowly escaped assassination at the hands of Abacha’s killer squad led by army savage, Sgt Rogers, under orders from Hamza Al-Mustapha.
Ibru never endured for long, the trauma that ordeal in which shot dangerously on his face. He was sent out of Lagos to his Agbarha-Otor home town in Delta state after being flown abroad in an air ambulance for treatment.
The same Hamza Al-Mustapha is enjoying the freedom of democracy in his comfort zone on Brekete TV show as a regular guest claiming a saint and having the solutions to Nigeria’s many problems, problems that were created by him and his master.
The democracy of today no matter how bad couldn’t have been possible without these brave journalists and pro-democracy activists who, including Kudirat Abiola, were killed by Abacha’s killing squad led by Sgt Rogers on the orders of Hamza Al-Mustapha.
Individual fames are difficult to maintain for a long time. The internationally renowned Clarkson De Majomi, publisher of Daily Mail is no longer known and talked about. He was one of few who made journalism prominent in Africa.
He was said to be the most flamboyant and successful journalists in Africa and he also excelled later as a public relations expert.
Those who are famed today will, few years ahead, be forgotten same way all these famed journalists of the 70s, 80s, 90s, are now hardly remembered.
We Mobilize Others To Fight For Individual Causes As If Those Were Our Causes!