In this final part of “He left journalism for academia”, the gleaner-glimpser-glitterer is putting down, as briefly as possible – and as glitteringly so as well – the “full disclosure” relating to why he who left journalism, left it for academia. The purely personal matters the gleaner has screened out of this final lap of the conversation. The will and wheel and whim of destiny are ripe for the deeply personal story and stories, narrative and narratives, but the gleaner has tried to mute them as best as he can, on account of our teller’s dramatic, ethical and imagistic structure as our conversation approaches the finish line. You may call this the fitting climax – or better, the fitting anti-climax – of our conversation.
The Gleaner’s Final Question
Gleaner: It is time for you to give the gleaner and his readers, our audience, a total and irrevocable disclosure. You went to journalism, your dream profession, a profession that you dreamed of, that you dreamed about, right from your secondary school years, and left it for academia. Why? What happened?
Reader: Let me reply to you in a round-about manner: by first commending you for publishing this superlative conversation which is entering, which has entered, its final phase….
Gleaner: This is the last lap. It’s time to release the last baton.
Reader: Yes. But I must, at this point, before then, commend your “earthquake”. Traditionally, earthquake is natural. This earthquake defies tradition. This earthquake is human, methodically arranged, and delivered by Tony Afejuku the Inimitable. Owojecho Omoha is grateful. You have treated me like a king.
Gleaner: The “earthquake” that is the “earthquake” is yet to appear and will not appear for the gleaner has resolved that it should not appear, at least for now, for Professor Owojecho Omoha’s own good and protection. By the way, are your chaps and detractors over there grumbling yet?
Reader: They must be internally grumbling. It’s like a thief stung by a scorpion, crying out loud is as difficult as a stifled sneeze, lest the owner of the goods being stolen becomes aware of the thief!
Gleaner: Idoma-man, you are speaking now as Owojecho Omoha, who has respect for Idoma oral poetics/form and a deepening sense of the values which underlie it. You are not forgetting your cultural roots. Now “disclosure” your disclosure as a journalist, ex-journalist and an academic, Oh scholar-poet Professor Owojecho Omoha! Get us out of the suspense room you have kept us this long. The gleaner shall cleave to silence until you are done. No interruptions.
The Full Disclosure
Reader Omoha: I started journalism as News Assistant Trainee with Radio Borno (now Borno Radio Television) on September 26, 1980. I left there on September 26, 1986, when a policy to give room to indigenes came into effect. On January 2, 1987 I, a non-indigene of Borno State, moved to Benue State, my State of origin where I started working with Radio Benue. Up to now I still have my NUJ National ID Card. My number is 1241/1980.
I did remarkably well in my journalism practice both in Borno and Benue states and I progressed and advanced well and steadily as a straight-forward, dedicated and diligent journalist and truthful person. But something I am not hesitating to call a rupture ruptured my journalism career. It was in 2005. The Benue State Government was to give the Benue State Council of NUJ an operational vehicle. After a visit to the then Governor, George Akume, we were told to bring the estimated cost of what it would take to purchase the vehicle. The Chairman of the Council submitted the estimate without my knowledge, and that of the State’s Working Committee (SWC). I smelt a rat and felt undermined as Secretary of the Benue Union. I wrote to the government, informing it that the estimate did not have the blessing of SWC. Consequently, the estimate did not fly. It was withdrawn. There was crisis thereafter.
Radio Benue Chapter of the NUJ claimed that it had recalled me as Secretary from the State Council. I appealed to NUJ Headquarters in Abuja under Smart Adeyemi as the President. The recall was nullified. Two local government chairmen, who sided with the NUJ chairman, made frantic efforts to dismiss me from the service of Radio Benue. Radio Benue claimed that I made a publication in a now defunct private newspaper, The Bell, saying that the publication contravened civil service rules, and that it was against the interest of the state. Consequently, I was issued a query by the Manager News….
In my reply, I stated that my signature was scanned and attached to the published document. Yet, even then, I argued that a publication as Secretary of NUJ Benue Chapter, had nothing to do with Radio Benue. Notwithstanding my defence, the Management interdicted me and placed me on half salary. I went to the court of justice. The presiding judge, Justice Audu Ikiye, gave judgment in my favour in 2006. There and then, I decided to be no longer a part of Radio Benue. Subsequently, I acted in terms of that decision. I began to apply to universities for a teaching position.
While I was in Radio Benue, I completed a Master’s degree in Literature at Benue State University, Makurdi. The late Professor David Ker supervised my dissertation entitled “Facing Fire with Style”. In the work I studied Dennis Brutus and Jack Mapanje. I showed and argued in the dissertation how in the face of tyranny the poets escaped imprisonment by dictators. You now can glean, glittering gleaner, that my experience as a journalist, and my academic experience which “I have already glimpsed you”, again to borrow one of your “terms of luxury” – to quote you again – are inseparable. The inseparability is my life. It is like the civil service, I mean journalism in a government establishment. To work in the civil service is like going to hell. It is easier to go to hell than to get out of it. So I brought the objective principle in journalism to academia. I do not care about what anybody says so long as my action is of public interest.
Despite my rough experience as a journalist, I am to say that my background, my journalism background, confers on me up to now the kind of advantages my academic colleagues did not, do not have. I was used to investigations, to investigative pursuits, as a journalist. That aspect of my life stood me in good stead when I went into research in academia. With and without the riotous, vicious distractions and irritations I have encountered and endured in academia, the biggest advantage journalism has offered me in my academic career is the realisation that I am of two professional worlds: the world of journalism and the world of academia. This realisation compelled me, and sweetly so, to engage myself in interdisciplinarity, in interdisciplinary pursuits, scholastically speaking. Today I am the only lecturer fully engaged in interdisciplinary studies in the Department of English in my university – University of Abuja. My Ph.D. is in Literature, and madness, poetic madness, in African Literature, is my primary area of research. I developed the idea when I was working as a journalist in the very intense years of this country. It was during those extraordinary years that I thought of and invented capture theory, my greatest academic invention.
Mentor, my mentor Professor Tony Afejuku – this is how and what you are to me since I set my inquisitive eyes, heart and mind on your outstanding work even though we never met physically – what do you now say to my truths revealed in this conversation? Answer me honestly, ambidextrous teacher who is more than an ambidextrous teacher and mentor!
Conclusion
Gleaner: What does Professor Owojecho Omoha want me to say other than this? – Your mental actions deserve nothing but healthily healthy thanks from the gleaner-glimpser-glitterer. Concluded.
Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.
