By Reuben Abati
Today in Lagos, the Oyo family – husband, children, grandchildren, in laws and the extended families from Ekitiland, Urhoboland and elsewhere as well as friends and former colleagues would be holding a remembrance and thanksgiving service in honour of Mrs. Felicia Oluremi Oyo, at the Catholic Church of Presentation, Ikeja GRA, Lagos. Ten years ago, Mrs Oyo left this earthly prison house and transited to the great beyond, to tranquil Heaven at the relatively young age of 61. Thomas Campbell says, and he is right that “to live in the hearts of those we love is not to die”. Mrs. Oyo lives on, her memory endures, and her example stands out in terms of her great accomplishments. She was a journalist of the first rank. She did not want to be identified as a female journalist but as a pressman, and indeed a pressman she was, out there in the forefront of action, inspiring younger journalists both male and female in the process. In one of those ironies of life that no one can explain she was born in the month of October. She died also in the same month, less than two weeks to her 62nd birthday as a result of cancer. But hers was a life of impact, love and influence. She studied Mass Communication at the University of Lagos and obtained a Master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Kent. Journalism was her career and in this she excelled. She started as a reporter with the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) in 1973 – the story out there is that she met her husband, Mr. Vincent Oyo while working in radio, and the two Oyos would in later life carve a niche for themselves in both journalism and marketing communications. Mrs. Oyo left the NBC to join the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in 1981, and rose to become the Principal Editor of NAN. She later joined the Inter Press Service (IPS) and again rose to become the Nigerian Bureau Chief and later, West African Bureau Chief.
It was around this time that our paths crossed. Auntie as we fondly called her had become very active in the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE). Under Mr. Biodun Oduwole, NGE President, 1992 – 1994, Mrs. Oyo was a member of the standing committee but she was very influential, known by younger journalists as “Mama awon Boys” because of her generosity. Together, the Oduwole team presided over one of the golden moments of the Guild. Mr. Oduwole was then Managing Editor at the Nigerian Tribune in Ibadan, which was practically in the hands of both Mr Oduwole and Mr. Folu Olamiti as Editor Daily. Even before the emergence of Mr. Oduwole as President, he had been friends with some of us who were members of the OSU Collective, and three of us got close to him. In those days, in the early 90s, members of the OSU Collective were prolific on the pages of newspapers, generating debates and contributing to public affairs issues of the day. Three of us: Wale Olaitan, Sina Kawonise and I were close to Mr. Oduwole who took it upon himself to encourage these brilliant young lecturers from Ogun State University as it then was. I was in the Department of English, Kawonise in Sociology and Olaitan in Political Science. Like all young men, we thought we could change the world with our pens and lyrical prose. It was through Egbon as we called Mr. Oduwole that we got to know Mrs Oyo, and she just took to us as her aburos.
By 1994, I had left Ogun State University to join the Guardian Newspapers as a member of the Editorial Board. I recall that in September that year, I had to travel to Egypt to attend the International Conference on Population and Development (5 -13 September 1994) under the auspices of the National Council on Population and Environmental Activities, an NGO led by Prince Julius Adelusi-Adeluyi. I was then one of the resource persons to the NCPEA, under the guidance of Prince Adelusi-Adeluyi who provided opportunities for us to know more about developing trends in the world. When we arrived in Egypt and I went to the press centre, there was Mrs. Remi Oyo, manning the IPS desk. I saw her at work, writing stories, casting headlines, conducting interviews. She enjoyed what she did: to tell stories. When we were in Cairo, I casually mentioned to Auntie that I was planning to get married. She promptly asked me what I would need. I told her I brought some money to buy wedding rings. One late afternoon, she left her desk and she took me somewhere inside Cairo where she said we would get original gold. When we finished buying the gold rings, she asked me to follow her again to another store. She then asked me to look for any shoe that I felt comfortable with. She paid for the pair of shoes and said that is the shoe I want you to wear on your wedding day: from me to you! I would later visit Aunty at her office at the National Theatre where she had become the head of IPS. In those days, the National Theatre (now Wole Soyinka Centre for Culture and the Arts) was the rendezvous for artists. We went there to watch films, stage plays or simply to congregate at a place called Abe Igi, to socialize and enjoy an assortment of delicacies. Auntie’s office was just down the road from Abe Igi and I used to go there. It was not difficult to see that although she was head of IPS, she had great rapport with the people in NAN who shared the same premises. She moved from NAN to IPS, but she had friends on both sides. She was a doyenne of wire service journalism.
In 1998, Mrs. Oyo showed interest in the Presidency of the Nigerian Guild of Editors. Garba Shehu who was Oduwole’s Deputy President had just completed his term (1994 -1997) and the position was due to return to the South. We the boys were like “Auntie Must Win!”. IN short, all the boys championed her campaign. She eventually emerged as the President and ended up serving for five years (1998 – 2003). She lifted the profile of the office and was very good at getting support for the media from authority figures. She was for record purposes the first woman to serve as President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors since 1961, when Alhaji Lateef Jakande was the pioneer President of the Guild. Mrs. Oyo performed so excellently, it can be said of her legacy that she inspired other women within the profession to take a keen interest in the affairs of both the NGE and the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ). In the West, East and the North, women began to occupy key positions in the media unions. In Lagos, Mrs. Funke Fadugba as Chairman of the Lagos NUJ was such a formidable force. She singlehandedly set up two estates for journalists and turned many into landlords. Lagos Journalists would be forever grateful to Funke Fadugba as the brain behind Journalists Estate in Arepo and PEN Estate along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. Unfortunately, when Funke Fadugba wanted to become President of the NUJ, she was betrayed by her own colleagues from the Lagos Chapter. In 2016, following in Mrs. Oyo’s footsteps, Funke Egbemode emerged as the President of the NGE and spent three remarkable years in the saddle as the second female President.
Mrs Oyo’s distinction did not go unnoticed. In 2003, she was appointed Senior Special Assistant (Media and Publicity) by President Olusegun Obasanjo. Again, she served meritoriously in that position, earning her the national honour of Officer of the Order of Niger (OON) in 2006. When President Yar’Adua assumed office in 2007, Mrs. Oyo was shortly after named the Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria. It was a kind of homecoming for her, returning to her former base, and reuniting with old colleagues. Her tenure as MD, NAN was not without a measure of controversy. But what I recall vividly was her advice to me when President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan appointed me as his Spokesperson/ Special Adviser – Media and Publicity in 2011. She was one of the first persons to reach out to me.
“Reuben, my advice to you will be basically three things. Number one, the person you need most on this job is the President, the man who gave you the job. If you have him on your side, you are good. You will survive. This is a very tough job. The politics is heavy.”
She then went on to tell me about how many people would be interested in the office because of the glamour of being the spokesperson for the President. She mentioned names of persons who would go behind her to President Obasanjo just to malign her. But at every turn, President Obasanjo stood by her.
“No. 2”, she said, “be very careful with our colleagues. They are the biggest threat to anyone in this office. They will bad mouth you. They will try to pull you down. They will claim that they know how to do the job better than you. They will envy you and try to undermine you. Just hold on to your principal. Once the President believes you are doing a good job, there is nothing anybody can do to you.”
“No. 3”, she added, “take good care of your health. This job drains you from head to toe. You will be busy throughout and yet everybody will criticize you. But you have to keep healthy and safe. If anything happens to you, it is only your family that will be most affected. Stay healthy and alive for your family.”
This last bit frightened me a little. Mrs. Oyo’s predecessor in the same office, Mr. Tunji Oseni had died from complications from a respiratory condition. Seeing that I was a bit scared, she brought the conversation to an end with: “Aburo, good luck. You’d be fine.”
She was right on every score. Nobody can do the job of a spokesperson without the principal’s support. One of the first things I experienced was what became known in the Villa at the time as “The Gap Theory”. It was explained to me by a gentleman called Akachukwu Sullivan Nwakpo. In my early days at the Villa, Akachukwu had thought it necessary to explain the gap theory to me as follows: that the Villa is a dog-eat-dog space. You have to man your space and guard it jealously. If you are off guard for a minute, someone would see that as an opportunity and try to do your job for you. He advised me to be vigilant and keep out interlopers.
Media work was actually something everyone thought they could do including those who could not write a successful paragraph in the English language. People would come to me and tell me “Oga says you must write this press release”. Twice, I fell for their trick. I took the statements to President Jonathan, until he had to make it clear to me that I must never issue any statement without his direct authorization or listen to any third party giving me instructions. Nonetheless, there were persons who thought they knew best how to do the job. Our colleagues in the media, as Mrs. Oyo predicted, were not very kind either. They used to go behind to seek audience with President Jonathan. Some of them even brought drafts of speeches, not knowing the President would still hand over every draft to me with the rider: “see if there is anything you can take from this or that draft. Some of my friends in the media brought them to me”. These friends in the media had developed a method of by-passing my office. In the end, their hustle did not make any difference. President Jonathan had assured me that I should not be bothered. As President, it was his duty to encourage everyone and give people hope. Did I try to protect the territory as Akachukwu advised? I leave that to other people to judge. Did I keep safe? That is another story for another day. I was too glad to return home in one piece. It is not everything that a hunter sees or hears in the forest that he gets back home to tell. After leaving Aso Villa, one of the things I did was to visit Chief Duro Onabule (1939 – 2022), popularly known as double Chief. He is a veteran journalist, former Editor of the National Concord (1984-1985). He had just returned from vacation in England, and he called to say he had bought a book for me. I went to his residence at Dolphin Estate in Ikoyi. He had stories to tell, similar to Mrs Oyo’s comments about the spokesperson’s assignment. He re-echoed Mrs Oyo’s experience when he told me that the biggest threat to any journalist in government is his or her own colleagues. Double Chief was spokesperson to President Ibrahim Babangida.
I remembered Mrs Oyo’s advice the other day when Ajuri Ngelale threw in the towel as President Tinubu’s spokesperson. Was he muscled out by some of our colleagues who wanted his job, and thought they were better at it or better qualified? Did he protect his territory enough? Or was he a victim of Akachukwu’s gap theory? And there was a line in his letter of resignation: that he needed to attend to his family’s medical needs. Again, this thing about health and one’s family after an encounter with Aso Villa. Did he have President Tinubu’s full support? Many lessons for future spokespersons.
But we are here this morning to remember and celebrate late Mrs. Oluremi Oyo, FNGE, FNIM, OON (1952 – 2014). “Almighty God, we remember with thanksgiving Mrs Remi Oyo, Thank you for everything we treasure about her, for all that she means to us. Take care of her, Lord, until we all reach that time and place where every tear is dry, every question answered and all things are made new. Lord in your love, Hear our prayer. Amen.”