As a young man I used to read as many newspapers as I could lay my hands on. The New Nigerian was one of them and what I liked most in this daily was CANDIDO, a kind of grapevine column. It was not the contents, per se, that really mattered to me but the style of writing. Free flowing, prose laced with wits and wisecracks , innuendoes, verbal gymnastics in twists and turns to the admiration of the reader.
I was really hooked on this CANDIDO column and I longed to know the man or whoever was behind the mask. I swore one day the mask man would be unmasked.
And how did I get to know? It was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, while covering the 1983 OAU Conference, for the Concord Group of Newspapers, in a casual discussion with a colleague on the media in Nigeria, that I mentioned my interest in knowing the man behind it. Sina Odugbemi, , the colleague, a top ranking member of the Editorial Board of the Tribune Group of Newspapers, was quick to point out a man in suit among the crowd. “That’s the man”, he said, “that’s Dan Agbese, the man behind the mask”. Really?
A brief introduction and that was it! I hit it out with him. Mr. Agbese looked urbane, likeable,, social and humorous. Could “kill” you with laughter even when the situation or issue was not a laughing matter. And we jelled. I admired his humour and humility in “condescending” to hit town with us from our Blue Nile Hotel accommodation, a well guarded garrison, as it were, during the Marxist revolutionary Mengistu Haile Marian era, to the less secured downtown that was still smarting over the overthrow of their emperor, Rasta Haile Selaise, “semi god” of the Rastafarians.
As Fate would have it Dan became my boss along with Dele Giwa, Ray Ekpu and Yakubu Mohammed, the four musketeers who came together to found Newswatch, the first independently owned mews magazine by journalists in the country. The rest is history…
Not yet. I’m not going to end without mentioning Dan’s attitude to work. He was very hardworking, punctual and very meticulous. Copy tasting was his forte. He relished it. He owned it. He would make sure all the ‘T’s were crossed and the ‘I’s were dotted. He did not suffer fools gladly. Firm and thorough. Would not spare you as a line editor to submit a badly edited copy to him. “Adele (ha-de-leh, that’s how he used to jokingly call me), don’t you know how to make use of the waste bin by your desk?” You do not need an interpreter to know that you should have returned the script to the writer for a redo and not brought to his desk. Point blank, just like that! He meant well.
He was the editor’s editor. I liked his style, his sense of humour and his belief in me that one day he and I would jointly write a book on the NEW religion in Nigeria because of what he credited me with, to wit, that I am a detached writer on delicate and emotional issues like Religion. Unfortunately that did not materialize because of my early exit from the Newswatch organization. Now Dan is no more. When shall we write The Book? Maybe when we meet again at the bank of the river, on resurrection, when we shall part no more.
Dele Omotunde
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