Before You Sign on to Journalism, Check your Courage Quotient

By Ajibola Amzat

Two years ago, there was this fellow by whom I used to sit close at my office in Lagos. The sitting arrangement was not something fixed by our organisation. It just happened that way. That is the newsroom culture we all found at The Guardian.

For several weeks we didn’t get to talk much, because he was some introvert, and I am reserved. So our exchanges were never longer than ‘hello, how are you?’.

Moreso, anytime he came into the office, he always wanted to get his stories together as fast as he could in order to beat the deadlines. That’s what we all tried to do anyway. Journalism is meeting deadline. But being on political desk makes his job more demanding than mine. He had to keep calling sources for additional information as he wrote, scanning previous editions for background for information, checking facts with colleagues for accuracy; all in attempts to get the story right. And getting your story right you must do at The Guardian, otherwise you might get some severe sanction that could make you frustrated for life.

Besides, the Political Desk he was writing for is the most interesting desk and the most dangerous too. In Nigeria, politics is as interesting a game as dangerous. Journalists on the beat are like solders treading on landmines – with no protection. Therefore, your only armour is producing a balanced story, and hoping that you are correctly interpreted.

Anyway, after some months Bayo Ohu and I began to share more sentences in greetings. Now, I could ask about his family and his blue smoky Mercedes. I even got an adaptation for his name, Mr. B.

His music flavour was traditional. I am not sure I ever liked it. But I found it interesting all the same when he played those tunes as he churned out sentences after sentences on his apple computer. Such music doesn’t feed my muse.

Many more months later, we could discuss the terrible Lagos Traffic, the shenanigans of Nigerian politicians and sundry issues of the day. He had once worked so close with the late President, Yar ‘adua when the latter was Governor of Katsina State. So he had sources in the presidency and in several other Federal agencies.

And he was a journalist with ears close to the ground. In fact, he knew too much than an average journalist. But he could communicate less in conversation than in writing. So, you only need to read his stories to realize the volume of information stored up in his head.

One morning in September 2009, five men dressed in white robes paid Mr. B a visit. It was a Sallah day on Sunday. Bayo’s wife who naturally received the visitors at the door was already away in church. The children went to the next compound to fetch water. So the visitors had to come in without encountering anyone in the yard.

And they entered, met Bayo who was already stepping out to find out who the strangers were. Then ...gboa!...gboa!…gboa!

In his pool of blood, Bayo lay dead.

Till date, no knows why he was killed. Not even the police have a clue; at least their investigation has identified no one yet. But everyone knows that if Bayo were not a journalist he probably could still be living. Quite a number of journalists in Nigeria have been killed in the same gruesome manner after then. Yet, there are many more journalists on the field reporting the good, the bad and the ugly in the polity.

For It appears that defying those with power to suppress the truth is the only way journalism can help establish a society where justice reigns. That is the duty we owe the society. And accepting that obligation, therefore, is a true test of our professionalism.

Ajibola Amzat is a Rhode student from Nigeria