To Mahmud Jega, an appreciation note

The only permanent thing in life goes the saying; is change. I have spent the first three days of the year meditating on how to react to the news that Malam Mahmud Jega is taking a deserved break from journalistic bureaucracy. How do you eulogize a quintessential professional, with an elephantine memory, an encyclopaedia of historical anecdotes that carries himself with the discretion of a true dove?

It is not natural to write about another colleague, but I have stayed long enough with the Media Trust Group to lose friends and colleagues who have impacted my life and professional journey before I could tell them how indebted I am to them. Ten years is a long time away from home but I am convinced that to honour people while they are alive is much preferred than to write a fitting memorial. Malam Jega deserves a living panegyric because he has earned it.

If I remember correctly, Malam Jega met me on the external editorial board of Daily Trust at a time when my infantile rants used to adorn the paper’s Monday back pages. Our first encounter was at ‘the garden’, where we fed on tea, biscuits, kolanuts and sometimes, sumptuous meals to discuss issues worthy or weighty enough to deserve editorializing. This unflappable professional with years of experience under his sleeve had no airs about him.

Before taking the first of my many leaves of absence, I do remember writing an editorial he tweaked to my objection. My consequent vituperations would have ruined a good relationship but Jega is unflappable, and took my complaints in style. I wouldn’t know if that encounter prompted his ‘Oga Tunde’ sobriquet that has stuck even with people not familiar with the encounter. He uses it in the most respectful non-derisive manner.

By the time Jega was to take over the paper’s back page, it became obvious that I was a haughty student who needed to sit gently and learn the ropes of satire and penmanship from a pro and equally enroll in his school of professional humility.

Jega picked on his subjects with the memorialized candour of an elephant; he delivered it with the scalpel of an experienced and excellent essayist. You did not have to agree with his topic to learn a thing or two from his inimitable punchlines laced with the historical anecdotes not written in chronicles. This consummate zoologist shows how limited education becomes when restricted to a subject or expertise and how rich life becomes with wide reading, sharing and the gift of keen observation.

Whenever that mortal enemy called writer’s block hit my brain, I combed the official website for a Mahmudified inspiration. Being far from the headquarters, I have learnt that each time I could have been placed on the chopping block of officialese, Jega would blot out my ‘transgressions’ with professional wisdom and relational justification.

Jega recognizes talent and how best to deploy it for professional effectiveness while making it look like a mundane impetus of a man merely exercising his call to duty. I think his exit from management at this peculiar time of our national and political transition would create a chasm his successors better prepare to fill.

With his wealth of experience, journalism needs the unique energy left in his reservoir to mentor budding reporters/essayists from every corner to a service with integrity and conviction and patriotism. I hope that this wealth of experience is tapped and put to good use.

On a personal level, I hope I can continue to count on the friendship, camaraderie and professional inspiration he provides. I pray that Malam Jega finds time for a riveting biography and/or compilation of the compendium of his professional contribution to the growth of journalism, management of Media Trust and to nation building. This walking, living and practicing encyclopaedia must not be allowed to burn. I wish a happy working retirement to the inimitable Malam Mahmud Jega.

POSTSCRIPT

Its 2020 and I would take the liberty to name my best journalists of 2019.

Ja’afar Ja’afar for his expose on corruption that has changed perception of governance in Kano. The social activism that has come out of his professional doggedness has wiped the tears of that matriarch of the Kano musical crooner, Magajiya Danbatta. Ja’afar would win a Pulitzer if there were one and I know he is too humble to even enter his works for a national award.

Fisayo Soyombo, the Cable journalist who put his life on the line to expose the seething corruption in the police, prison and judicial systems that punishes the innocent.

Abdulaziz Abdulaziz, an untiring investigative reporter and multi-award winner.

Ruona Agbroko-Meyer, the Sweet Codeine exponent to put Nigeria’s journalistic acumen on the Emmy Award shortlist. Ruona, a cancer survivor takes my award for her doggedness in the pursuit of truth.

Kiki Mordi whose documentary, Sex for Marks shook the predatory foundations of Nigeria’s ivory towers reverberating across institutions.

Journalism has no capacity to change anything, what it does is point society to the images that should make it cringe. If that society feels queasy enough to make the change, life is better. If that society fails to look, the society sinks deeper in its morass. My hope in the New Year is that investigative journalism keeps making enemies where it matters so that our society is piqued enough to demand adjustment.