1992. I sauntered into the office of the corporate affairs manager of the Central Bank of Nigeria. My mission was to solicit support for The Communicator, a journal of the Mass Communication Students’ Association of the University of Lagos.

Before this encounter, I considered the names of my school and department a master key. I believed it could open any door; all I needed to do was mention the names and flaunt my identification card. So getting into this office in a tight-security zone was not a problem. I was from the University of Lagos and I expected everybody to respect that fact.

The office was a beehive of activities. With journalists crowding every inch of the room, the big boss, the corporate affairs manager, reclined in his swivel chair, as he cracked jokes with those around him. There was no vacant seat available, so I stood in the crowd, watching and expecting this rowdiness to end. After what looked like eternity, I walked my way through the crowd and came face to face with the manager.

“My name is Sylvester…. I am from the University of Lagos.”

“Oh, you are one of them.”

“Sorry, sir?”

“You are one of those Beko’s boys.”

“I am not, sir.”

“Young man, instead of reading your books, you allow that guy who has nothing else to do to use you to destabilise this country and spoil the good work this government is doing.”

“No, sir. Actually, I am from the Department of Mass Communication, and I am here to ask for help to print our magazine.”

“I am not interested.”

“Sir….”

“Go back to your school and ask Beko to sponsor your magazine.”

“But….”

“Good day.”

All the pressmen in the office who had been listening with rapt attention to our conversation burst into unrestrained laughter. I felt so embarrassed. For a moment, it was as if I was wearing the emblem of shame. On second thoughts, however, I realised that whatever he said could be taken as a compliment, not an indictment.

It is true that the student body had risen up to protest what they considered to be the ugly face of the government’s economic reforms. In fact, that was the second time it was happening in unimaginable proportions in my four years in the university and the school had been shut down. Although I had never been involved in student activism, I was glad, as I walked out of that office, that I was a student of an institution of higher learning reputed to be at the forefront of fighting the government’s inhuman posture.

Being the editor of The Communicator had brought me in contact with many people. Good enough, the responses I got from them were always positive. Once in a while, I met someone who could not be bothered whether I was from the moon or the sun. But not once did I meet someone with an unpardonably negative and biased attitude to my university and its students, except on this occasion.

Now, as a final year student, all I wanted to do was work less and play more. After all, I had worked extremely hard up till my fourth year in the university. In fact, I had deliberately taken almost all my courses in the first three years. The few courses I had left were basically the compulsory ones – four in the first semester and three in the second. Of course, there was my research project. My only fear was that life would be boring if there was not much to do academically.

And t was not an accident that I was one of the few popularly referred to as Professor in my class. This was a title reserved for bookworms or people who were intellectually minded. For three years, my life had revolved around books, studio and fellowship.

If there was any group assignment, many members simply went to sleep if there was a Prof in their group. This sometimes had some dire consequences! As one of our lecturers later explained, there was just no way one student would do an assignment meant for ten people and it would look like the work of ten people.

When the call to edit a magazine came, therefore, I had to accept it for some personal reasons. Although I was studying mass communication, I was a broadcast major and so had refused to have anything to do with the print sequence up till my fourth year in the university. I therefore considered the call an opportunity to do something new. Again, I believed it would, to a large extent, keep me on my toes academically.

Our mandate was to resuscitate the magazine which had been dead for four years. In fact, the last and only edition was published before we entered the university. With Allwell Okey Nwankwo and Benn Osang (both Profs) as the editor-in-chief and business/advert manager respectively, it was only natural that whatever we would come out with could not be a run-of-the-mill magazine; it had to be an academic journal through and through. Even my lecturers would be disappointed if it was not.

Interacting with the high and mighty in the mass communication industry on the project turned out to be real fun. Dan Agbese (the then deputy-editor-in chief of Newswatch magazine), Dr Charles Okigbo (the then registrar of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria), Obadiah Tohmdet (the then executive secretary of the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria), Chief Mike Okereke (the then chairman of the Federation of African Public Relations Associations and president of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations), May Nzeribe (the then president of the Association of Advertising Practitioners of Nigeria) and Chris Doghuje (the then managing director of Lintas Advertising) all contributed articles to the magazine. So did a number of academics, including Dr John Merrill, a renowned American communications expert and retired professor.

Ray Ekpu (the chief executive officer of Newswatch magazine), Folabi Olabimtan (the then managing director of Multi-media and later OBM Advertising) as well as Abiola Oloke (the then managing director of Redasel and later Cowrie Media) were all there to render a helping hand. The positive comments of my strict and highly critical lecturer and two-time project supervisor Dr Adidi Uyo ultimately was all I needed to know that we had done well.        

Noteworthy is the fact that some of the relationships I developed in the course of the project are still waxing strong till now.

“So, how is the magazine doing right now?” my colleague in the office asked me as I wrote this piece.

Robot  Villager

# 1 var sbtitle7920=encodeURIComponent(A Prof, Not...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 08.02.2008 10:54

Exxcuzme  Villager

# 2 Hey my man, can you recall the name of the CBN man, so we can do a follow up on where he is today? Posted by Exxcuzme| 08.02.2008 13:09

aguabata  Villager

# 3 I would have been angrier was the article any longer, i was expecting an interesting story or is it me? Posted by aguabata| 09.02.2008 09:32

emj  Villager

# 4 The office was a beehive of activities. With journalists crowding every inch of the room, the big boss, the corporate affairs manager, reclined in his swivel chair, as he cracked jokes with those around him. There was no vacant seat available, so I stood in the crowd, watching and expecting this rowdiness to end. After what looked like eternity, I walked my way through the crowd and came face to face with the manager Hmmm.......could that have been Tony Ede's tenor?Hmmm...he was the Corporate Affiars Manager for close to 17yrs....hmmm:cool: Posted by emj| 09.02.2008 09:54

SILOJE  Villager

# 5 =Exxcuzme;4294987268>Hey my man, can you recall the name of the CBN man, so we can do a follow up on where he is today? emj got it right. Tony Ede - that's his name. Posted by SILOJE| 11.02.2008 03:35