The Doyin Abiola I Knew

FEMI ADESINA

When you have a bachelors degree in English and Drama tucked in your belt, and follow up with higher degrees in Communication Studies up to doctoral level, you are poised to conquer the world of journalism. And that was what she did.

Dr Doyin Abiola (née Aboaba) took Nigerian journalism by storm. From Daily Sketch, to Daily Times, and then Concord Press, she was a lady of many firsts. First female to edit a national daily (National Concord), first woman to be Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of a newspaper conglomerate (Concord Press), and many other landmark achievements.

I was both privileged and fortunate to have passed through the tutelage of Dr Doyin Abiola, and became one of her editors at the Concord Press.

From Staff Writer at Vanguard Newspaper, I joined Concord in 1991 as a Senior Staff Writer, recruited by the great and inimitable Mike Awoyinfa, who was editor of the soar away Weekend Concord.

That very first year, I won the award of Best Editorial Staff at Weekend Concord, nominated by Awoyinfa. And that was my first opportunity to meet Doyin (as we called her behind her back) in her office. She congratulated me for winning the award, and put the icing on the cake by saying, “I read your stories. You are very literary.”

It takes a person of literature to recognize another one. And Doyin was one of the best we had. A couple of years later, I did one column on Ibrahim Babangida, where I said what he gave to his friend, MKO Abiola (Concord Publisher and Doyin’s husband) was “the unkindest cut of all.” I added that Babangida smiled a lot, but “there’s dagger in men’s smile. The near in blood, the nearer bloody.” Those were William Shakespeare’s words, and Dr Abiola was quite impressed.

“I love your literary allusions,” she said when she met me a couple of days after the article appeared.

Woman of iron and steel. That was Dr Abiola for you. She didn’t suffer fools gladly. If you were sloppy (a favorite word of hers) or unprofessional in any way, you got the sharp part of her tongue, or you may end up being screamed at.

The day I was appointed deputy editor of National Concord, I was presented to her in the office. She congratulated me, and said we would be working closer now. Of course, I had made it a point of duty to avoid her as much as I could as a much junior person. She told me:

“I bark a lot, but I don’t bite. If you do your work well, we will be best of friends, but if you are sloppy (that word again), we will fight. I’ll scream and shout at you.”

Fortunately for me, that never happened. Not once.

I worked as deputy editor to Dele Alake, and later Tunji Bello, when the former went into government first as Special Adviser to Governor Bola Tinubu of Lagos State, and later Commissioner for Information and Strategy. Eventually, I was named editor of National Concord.

Concord Press had become quite troubled by then due to the privations of the Publisher in the hands of the military. Chief MKO Abiola was held in solitary confinement for upwards of five years, simply because he claimed the mandate Nigerians freely gave him as President in June 1993, but voided by the military.

We were all waiting for Chief Abiola to come out of detention, so that the newspaper could be reflated. But it didn’t happen. He died. We kept Concord Press alive for a couple of more years, but “a cold coming we had of it.” (T.S Eliot, Journey of the Magi). The paper also died.

While a lot of people had left when the newspaper was gasping for breath and couldn’t pay salaries, I stayed, though I also could have gone to ply my trade elsewhere. That meant I saw Dr Abiola daily. I was abreast with all her efforts to resuscitate the newspaper, in honor and memory of her husband. It didn’t work.

Eventually, a senior friend and editor-in-chief of the Nigerian Tribune titles, Sir Folu Olamiti, invited me to join the editorial board of the newspaper on visiting basis. That meant I had to leave Concord Press, where I had spent 11 years.

The day I approached Dr Abiola to tell her about the offer from Nigerian Tribune, we were both crestfallen, sad that things got to that sorry turn.

“Your life has to continue. Your career has to continue. Me, I’m a wife, I can’t go anywhere, “ she said. “You have my blessings. But who knows, our paths may still cross in future.”

She added in Yoruba: “Omo atijo ni e (meaning you are a child of yesteryear). So very well brought up, so loyal. I watched how you related with the two editors you were deputy to. So loyal to them. I noticed that you never came to me to backbite or run them down in any way. You will go far in life.”

How prescient! From Tribune, I became the pioneer editor of Daily Sun, and rose to Managing Director/ Editor-in-Chief of the company. From there, President Muhammadu Buhari appointed me as his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, a position I held for eight years.

All through, I was in regular touch with Dr Abiola. She had valuable pieces of advice for me whenever things got rough, and also words of commendation when we did things right.

When she turned 80 on February 1, 2023, she had personally told me a few days before. She got presidential greetings.

A doting mother, she lived with her daughter, Doyin Abiola-Tobun, in her final years. Many times when we spoke on phone, I heard her remonstrating lovingly with her grandchildren in the background. I was glad she was happy in her twilight days.

When I heard of her passing from my ‘Oga for life’ Mike Awoyinfa in the wee hours of August 6, it was a huge shock to me, though she was 82. She had seemed indestructible.

Dr Doyin Abiola showed me friendship, which lasted for life. Eternal rest grant her oh Lord.

*Adesina was editor of National Concord under Dr Abiola, and adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, 2015-2023.