Jola Ogunlusi At 90: Doyen of NUJ | By Bolaji Kareem

On September 25, former National Secretary of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Comrade Jola Ogunlusi, will be 90 years old. His friends and associates have planned a Thanksgiving service for Saturday, September 28, at the church of Pentecost, 21 Road, FESTAC Village, to give praise to God for preserving the life of the man who crossed many turbulent waves, along with others to make journalism and its practitioners get to the promised land in professionalism and unionism. Mr. Ogunlusi has course to praise God for sparing his life. He was humiliated, suffered setbacks, survived a ghastly motor accident, and was incarcerated and even mocked by his peers in his younger days at Ayedun Ekiti. Because of his poor background, he could not complete his secondary school education. He dropped out at Ansar-Ud-Deen High School, Ikole Ekiti, in Form four due to a financial crisis. He ended up as a pupil teacher and studied privately at home for the General Certificate of Education (GCE).  His love for politics and the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s ideology made him join the services of Africa Newspapers of Nigeria, Publishers of the Nigeria Tribune, and Iroyin Yoruba. This was in the early 60s, when a political crisis had engulfed the popular Wild, Wild West and Chief Awolowo was incarcerated. Then it was a crime to buy or read Tribune titles openly. He joined the Iroyin Yoruba as a reporter under the late Pa Olu Olofin. His passion for welfarism and trade unionism in the 1960s grew as he was influenced by comrade J. O. James to join the United Labour Congress of Nigeria as an assistant secretary. Because of the poor financial standing and political victimisation of Tribune workers, working for months without salary. Jola Ogunlusi, to keep body and soul together, was also a freelance reporter for Africa Arts Magazine and LAMP Magazine. He was discovered by Chief Ayo Adedun, who eventually made him take up an appointment with Western State Government newspaper, Sketch Press Limited, where he was seconded to Gboungboun, the Yoruba publication of the newspaper. Chief Mike Pearse, who later assisted him to gain employment with the New Nigeria newspapers. His journey unto full-fledged trade unionism started in the late 1970s, when NUJ was at its peak of leadership crisis, which led to Michael Asaju and Sidi Ali Sirajo’s factions. The union was then operating a controversial constitution; luckily for Mr. Ogunlusi, he found himself in the camp of Asaju’s faction, which became the reorganised faction by the government. I remember the brunt I had personally with Igwa’s group when I used the photograph of Chief Asaju to illustrate a page I planned in the Herald newspaper. At the editorial conference, the editor, Alhaji Yakubu Abdulazeez, had to put his feet down to overrule views of the likes of Dan Ikunaye and Alfred Ilenre, who were in Sidi Ali Sijaro’s camp. They insisted we must not use Asaju’s photograph. While on a facility tour in Cuba, Ali Sirajo was in charge of his group, mostly Northern Journalists who were sympathetic to his course except Plateau, Borno, and Kwara States. There was no active NUJ unionism in the northern states. This was the period that Jola Ogunlusi’s NUJ Secretariat succeeded in dragging the union to a full-fledged professional and trade union body, fighting for oppressed journalists. Many decrees and draconian laws, like Albatross, were hanging on the necks of media practitioners in Nigeria. Despite the fact that the crisis that started in Jos was not solved at the Akure delegates conference, which led to the emergence of Alhaji Bola Adedoja excutive the offshoot of Michael Asaju’s recognised camp, Jola Ogunlusi and his new boss, Adeoja, continued to forge ahead, fighting in all fronts to stabilise journalism practice, which was in serious battles with the government and media owners. At the same time, many journalists lacked the professional background, and there was the need to look for avenues to train them within and outside the country. Having been influenced by Comrade Tunji Otegbeye and Wahab Goodluck, hardliners in trade unionism, NUJ National Secretary Jola Ogunlusi succeeded in getting training facilities, especially in the socialist Eastern Europe. At a go, 33 journalists proceeded in three-month courses at the International Ogranization of Journalists (IOJ), in Bulgaria. It is on record that during Jola Ogunlusi’s headship of NUJ secretariat sp… from Michael Asaju, Bola Adedoja, Geoge Izobor, to Sanni Zoro, 101 journalists were sponsored for various courses in Bulgaria, Cuba, Chezolovakia, Russia, and the United States of America, as well as other facility tours outside Africa, apart from local trainings. One of the beneficiaries was Prince Mola Olaniyan, who was NUJ Chairman in Kwara State, of which I was Vice Chairman while late Chief Jide Adebayo was secretary. I took over the running of the Kwara NUJ as acting chairman when he travelled until I relocated to Oyo State, where I served consecutively as two-term secretary. Apart from foreign courses, NUJ, during his tenure as National Secretary, contributed a lot to sustain and project the Nigeria Institute of Journalism (NIJ) as well as laying the foundation for the establishment of the International Institute of Journalism (IIJ). When some females who were not journalists in electronic media were parading themselves as journalists,  George Izobor and Jola Ogunlusi executives cut them to size by creating the Nigeria Association of Female Journalists (NAWOJ). NUJ is an affiliate of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). The NUJ secretariat under Comrade Ogunlusi became highly respected as an affiliate  of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to the extent that the NLC would not go for negotiations without one NUJ member in its teams. The Jola Ogunlusi secretariat, on its own, also, frought relentlessly injustice met to its members. The sack of Vera Ifudu by the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) for reporting the missing 2.1 billion oil fund was a good example. NUJ declared a trade dispute against the NTA management and got the reporter reinstated. Many journalists would have lost their jobs unceremonially if the Jola Ogunlusi National Secretariat of the NUJ had not taken up their cases. They included journalists in Tide, Chronicle, Standard Newspapers, and Federal Radio Cooperation (FRCN), among others, the Nigeria Tribune, Nigeria Television, MTV, and Sketch Press Limited. Whose employers were either not friendly or refused to give good welfare packages to the poor reporters. For example, when Dr. Omololu Olunloyo became Governor of Oyo State, many journalists were sacked or punitively redeployed to the Cultural Centre and Ministry of Information. The NUJ has to fight relentlessly for their reinstatement. Many journalists that were laid off in the Herald in Kwara State were reabsorbed by the Tribune, Sketch, and Oyo State Ministry of Information due to lobbies from NUJ. Many draconian military decrees, like Decree 31, prohibiting media organisations, were too much for journalists. The NUJ secretariat under Jola Ogunlusi formed an alliance with the Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), headed by Alhaji Lateef Jakande, and the Nigerian Guild of Editors to form the Nigeria Press Organisation (NPO), to prepare a common front to fight the government and media employers who wanted to kill newspaper industries and electronic media. Jola Ogunlusi was a rigid, conservative scribe whose loyalty to his boss on many occasions was his undoing. When a reformation group moved to unseat Alhaji Bola Adedoja with a view to creating a more NUJ with a broad outlook, Jola Ogunlusi, with some of us from the Western Zone military, opposed the move, which eventually dethroned Adedoja and paved the way for George IZobor. This was the beginning of his pending existence from the secretariat. Though George Izobor and his deputy Nasir Zaharadeen meticulously accommodated Ogunlusi to run the affairs of the NUJ, after broadening the NUJ secretary with the creation of zones, those who came after them succeeded in retiring him without making proper arrangements to offset his entitlement, which unfortunately are still pending till today. A cat with many lives, Jola Ogunlusi almost lost his life in a ghastly motor accident along Ijebu Ode road. Unconscious Jola, when he regained his memory at the General Hospital, asked for a pen and piece of paper, where he scribbled, “Please tell Governor Segun Osoba that his brother is here and could die any moment as a result of a  motor accident. The hospital workers were disturbed by the write-up. A brother to a serving governor? Was this man insane? They were ruminating until the hospital management took the badly written message to Governor Osoba, who in a convoy with a blasing siren rushed down. Sighting the NUJ secretary on the bed with tears rolling down his cheeks, sobbing Governor Osoba instructed the hospital management to do everything in its power to bring him (Ogunlusi) back to life. Thank God who answered Chief Osoba’s prayer and the cooperation of Ogun State Hospital Management. Perhaps this (90) year anniversary might not have been possible after all. May God bless his new age.

Bolaji Kareem,
Veteran Journalist and Former Commissioner for Works and Transport in Oyo State, written from Ibadan.

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