By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi.

The famous English playwright and novelist, William Shakespeare, once wrote in one of his most popular plays, ‘Julius Caesar’ that “the good is oft interred with the bones”. It was a line in the speech of Mark Antony, who was at the occasion of the burial of his close friend and the once powerful Roman Emperor, Julius Caesar, killed by a mob, worked up by another famous close friend of the deceased, Marcus Brutus. Brutus had alleged of the ambition of Julius Caesar to perpetuate himself on the throne. Brutus not only encouraged the mob, but also participated in the massacre, which led the dying Julius Caesar to make the evergreen remark ‘Etu Brutus’? ‘You too Brutus’?

I remember Mrs. Zainab Kperogi for no particular reason that I can say. It was neither her posthumous birthday nor the anniversary of her death, which occurred as a result of the tragic road accident she had in 2010, and which in turn gingered my memory. I was just relieving my past when I ‘stumbled’ over her name and the help she rendered me. I would never let her good deeds to be buried with her remains and forgotten.

The recall was certainly not meant to remind her then husband, Professor Faruk Kperogi and her daughter, the (then) little (but now a grown up woman in her teens) daughter, Miss Hauwa, fondly known and addressed as ‘Sinani’, her parents and others close to her, of their lost loved one. I am particularly concerned about the two people known to me, Professor Faruk Kperogi and Miss Hauwa (Sinani). The two of them are living in the US. It is likely that they may also remember me, no matter how partial it may be.

The late Mrs. Kperogi was a line editor in charge of the opinion pages, and I was her counterpart on the political desk, in the same media organisation in Abuja. For the benefit of those who have not worked in a media house, a line editor is only the head of a certain desk of the newspaper, not the general editor. There may be as many line editors as there are desks in the organisation. The general editor is however, the boss of all the line editors, including the news editor.

One day she came out of a meeting with the management of the company and asked me to see her. When I went to her seat, she informed me that a decision was reached to issue out a circular soon, announcing a blanket ban prohibiting all staff from writing articles in any of the titles in the house. The clincher was that, the circular was targeted at me only. There were many of us in the organisation who wrote opinions frequently.

Why only me? I naturally asked. She told me that the management had told her that my ‘sins’ were that, I wanted to pitch the Villa against the organisation, and that I was trying to turn the newspaper titles into my ‘boss’s property’, since the subject of my write ups was, according to most members of the management, almost always about him. I was either fighting for, or defending, him.

With the benefit of hindsight, I now came to understand why the spokesman of a Presidential Candidate at that time advised me three times to ‘reduce defending your principal’, because when ‘some people decide to deal with you ruthlessly’, there will be nobody to protect you against them’. The unnamed person is still alive to corroborate what I have said.

However, Mrs. Kperogi advised me to use and do any article in the future with another name, and that was when my pen name was born. At the time, apart from myself, only two other people knew about it. Herself and my ‘boss’. I used it sparingly to avoid detection from members of the management and my other detractors.

The pen name was made up of the day I was born, as the first name, and my father’s given name at birth, as my surname. This was known to only those who knew from the beginning.

And to think that my ‘boss’ thought that some of his most vociferous attackers among members of the management were his friends. They indeed were, only to the extent that he never progressed above them.

I was then moved to what was considered a less glamorous desk, from which an attempt was made to make me a glorified advert person by later making me the head of the so called Special Projects Desk. The work of the special projects is to canvass for business for the company. The problem was that I was a journalist not an advert canvasser, a job many others who see themselves as journalists are, in actual sense. That was the beginning of my move away from the organisation to another one.

 For her candour, fearlessness and the help she rendered to me, I will remember and cherish her memory as long as I live. May her soul rest in eternal peace. However, I am by no means competing with the loved ones she had left behind.

This also reminds me of a one time colleague, who had moved to a Lagos based media organisation, as its pioneer Northern Bureau Chief. His new organisation had given him the assignment of interviewing ‘someone from the home state of the new number one citizen’ in the country. He knew me, but still sought the advice of his friend, who worked at the same place as me. The friend recommended me to him.

So he requested if I could oblige him with an interview, to which I did not hesitate to answer in the affirmative. So an appointment was made between the two of us for the lobby of a hotel not far from the headquarters building of the media house I worked for.

After the interview, which took us two hours for two days (he was the fastidious type), he concluded that all my answers were nothing but ‘the local politics in your state’, to which he said he had no intention of being dragged into.

However, some months after the interview, I woke up around 5.am to say the early morning prayer, and I noticed that he had called me at about the same time. I did not call him immediately until around 8.am, when the hour was more ‘saintly’ than the time he had made his call.

Immediately he saw the call was from me, he went straight to the point confessing that not using the interview he had done with me was one of his greatest regrets. According to him, most of the things I had told him came to pass about the then President.

For what he considered as yours sincerely’s foresight, he became so impressed that he would invite me to his newest station without the knowledge of his boss, just to ‘advise’ him on what he was thinking or planning of doing. 

He was then a Special Adviser on media to a governor in the north west. He was in that position for eight straight years during which he went to every state in the country. Before then, he had served as the spokesman of a foreign minister for four years during which he had been to almost all the parts of the world.

The man is now in a country in far away Europe studying for his PhD. He happens to be the type who I would love to have as a classroom teacher to my children as a university professor. He is the very serious type who would brook no nonsense from his students, no matter the position of their parents.

I deliberately refused to mention the name of the interviewer nor that of his boss, since I had not sought their permission to disclose their identities.

Malam Malumfashi wrote from Abuja.