Nigeria has lost yet another great citizen, a crusader for human rights and a man of admirable grace, Dr Olu Onogoruwa.
I met him in circumstances that were not ideal.
As a young man given the enormous challenge of editing the country’s only broadsheet at that time, The Sunday Triumph, I picked an early lesson on how not to blindly trust a news source.
A spokesman of the Vice President, Yusuf Yaro Mamman called my phone in the thick of production to offer an exclusive story. It was a relieving moment on a day that was dry of good stories.
The story, as he read out was that Dr Onogoruwa had stolen a sum of N60,000 from the Daily Times newspaper when he served as Company Secretary. Having left the Times, the lawyer had turned a critic and sore under the skin of the Babangida administration which Mamman served as a spokesman and an ideologue.
We asked for documents supporting the allegation and the Vice President’s image maker gave every assurance that they will be mailed to my desk on the next working day, Monday.
Tragically, the paper went with the story, counting on assurances given by a man, who I must add enjoyed my respect, if not reverence as a news source and media tactician. Himself and Chief Onabule offered the best media team any President could ever have and may have himself been misguided by security or other elements in that administration.
I did not meet Mamman at the Bayero University, Kano but I caught a whiff of his reputation, still thick in the air when we arrived as freshmen.
Mamman was the Speaker of the students parliament but beyond that, he was an exemplary radical, adored and idolized.
Early signs of trouble showed when Monday came, no documents from Dodan Barracks. None the next day, the day after and the one after and on and on like that.
A few days after, “Gbam!” landed a letter on my desk from Dr. Onogoruwa asking for retraction and apology, failing which he would sue.
Despite repeated assurances, the seat of power gave me nothing with which to defend myself and the paper.
Ultimately, appeared before a certain Justice Thomas of the Lagos High Court.
The judge was stern and in full charge of the court but amazingly, showed clear signs of reverence to Dr Onogoruwa. The lack of evidence coupled with the atmosphere in court were enough to warn me that this was a losing case.
At the end of the day’s sitting, Dr Onogoruwa not minding being the plaintiff walked up to me and asked why we did that kind of false story.
“Do you have the evidence?,” he asked and I replied in the negative. He then counseled me.
“You are a young man, don’t allow anyone to destroy your future” and I said thank you Sir.
He narrated to me how he, as a lawyer registered the newspaper in which I worked, The Triumph Publishing Company for “next to nothing in terms” of payment.
“I did this out of conviction that the the paper will be credible; that it will promote progressive causes in the country. This is not how how I should be repaid.”
I felt shame all over me and I’am sure he too noticed that.
He said go back to the office, send N20,000 for my expenses and I will discontinue the case. “Let us settle this out of court,” he said me with a marked sense of grace.
Feeling relieved, I went back and we promptly did that. He brought the case to its end. That saved me and the paper the humiliation of a conviction for a false publication, for which I remain eternally grateful.
I wish his family the fortitude to bear this loss.
[myad]
