In all my years of reading articles written by some of the very finest in this noble profession called journalism, two articles are stuck in my brain like the hair planted on the scarf of the head.
The first of these TWO articles….WHY I WILL NOT FORGIVE MY TEACHER, was written many years back by Dare Babarinsa of the then Newswatch. I still remember it as if it were yesterday, cramped in the popular Lagos Danfo bus on my way from work, shuttling between Oyingbo through Orile and finally to Okokomaiko where I shared a two-room apartment with my cousin. I had started reading the article out of boredom, little did I know that it would hold a lifetime influence on my literary reasoning.
The said article, written in the days when the military held sway in the governance of this country, in summary, depicted the regrets of the average Nigerian who was advised by his secondary school teacher, however correctly, into attending the university as against going into the army to become an officer. It was a fairy tale of the young university graduate looking for a non-existent job or working with lean wages side by side his counterpart who went to the Nigerian Defence Academy, graduated, went for further training in India, UK, etc., got a good job with the prospects of even becoming a military governor or Head of State at a young age. While the university graduate always feared being treated like the bloody civilian that he was, the NDA graduate was above the law. The police dared not question let alone arrest him for fear of being administered military discipline. Then, all you needed to lose your girlfriend was to pay her a visit and find parked in front of the parent’s house a Toyota Celica with moving headlight, a young Captain is visiting, fresh from a UK trip. This young officer, six feet plus and carries a six pack just like you but he has something you only dream of, comfort, because he graduated from the NDA, and because he has comfort, he can even propose marriage to your girlfriend, something you dare not do as a young unemployed graduate. As the saying goes, that is the end of discussion.
then on the sub-desk of the then Daily Times and I proof-read this article during production but only realized the import of the message carried by the writer when the late Dele Giwa offered Mr. Whiskey a job in his Newswatch saying, these words: “Those who can write as fine as this, should be writing for Newswatch”. In brief, Imelda Marcos was the wife of the disgraced Phillipino strongman, Ferdinand Marcos, whose wife Imelda, was reputed to have had the highest number of shoes on earth.
By Tim Owhefere
