April 2, 2018, marks my tenth year as a Zonal Director at the National Broadcasting Commission.
I have served in 3 different zones of the commission during that period in that capacity; 4 years in NBC Kaduna Zone, 2 years and a few months in NBC Sokoto Zone and almost 4 years in NBC Maiduguri Zone. In Maiduguri Zone, I spent 2 years and a few months in Gombe which was made the temporary zonal headquarters at the height of the Boko Haram insurgency. Finally, a year and a few months now in Maiduguri.
In all these years, the biggest challenge I had to deal with and which I'd like to share with you is not the Boko Haram problem as you might have thought. It had to do with a guy who walked into my office and abused the hell out of me because his broadcast station was warned on account of a program he had been producing and presenting, which breached some provisions of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code.
It turned out that the man had been blackmailing the state governor using the program. I didn't know that at the time. All I was concerned about was that the program contravened some sections of the code and which I was determined to stop. So I served the station with a warning letter asking them to stop the breach otherwise an appropriate sanction would follow.
So the man came to my office with the warning letter. He was a veteran journalist who had made a name for himself in that profession. And he was old enough to be my father. He had been in broadcasting since I was in primary school and I had heard a lot about him but I had never met him.
Now the trouble with such veteran journalists is that they are too full of themselves. They think they know it all. And because they had been practising long before NBC was established, they always look down on NBC staff with contempt. They are averse to taking corrections. They feel that nobody in NBC could tell them how to do the job.
So when he entered my office and mentioned his name, I immediately recognised him. I got up and extended a friendly hand, smiled and told him I had heard a lot about him. He shook my hand without smiling. Then with air of importance, he brought out the warning letter and said, "Did you write this?". I said yes. He said, "Is this the way you guys work? Do you know who I am in broadcasting?" "Who are you in broadcasting to send me this warning letter?" At that point, I began to get angry, so I retorted, "Are you here to teach me how to work?". "I couldn't care less if you invented television and radio." He went on as if he hadn't heard me, "I was told that you were given money to write this." I asked him to tell me who gave me the money and he said the Special Adviser (SA) Media to the state governor.
I hadn't expected to hear that, so I was taken aback. I looked at him and said, "Are you a Muslim?". He said he was. And I said, "I swear by Almighty Allah, I don't even know who the SA is." He said, "Gafara can. Matsiyaci kawai!", meaning, get out, you wretched person.
At that point a blind rage took hold of me and so I lost control and said, "Ubanka ne matsiyaci!", meaning it's your father that is a wretched person. "That your father who migrated from North Africa and came to Nigeria as a beggar because of hunger. So you, stupid illegal alien, have the audacity to call me wretched in my own country?", I went on. I had once read somewhere how his father emigrated from another country and settled in Nigeria.
I told him to get out of my office, "Right now you're using too much air around here!", I added. He said it wasn't my office. That it was a public office. I said even if it's a public office it's not your father that was put in charge of the office. I got up and kicked my chair back, just in case he wanted a fight. He got up too. And we continued to exchange abusive words and pointing at each other. I knew if push came to shove, and in a knock-down-drag-out brawl, I could take him. I had the advantage of age on my side; he was an old man and as I exercised everyday I was physically very fit. But I didn't want a fight. Not in the office, anyway. So I called out the security guards who came and escorted him out.
I immediately called the General Manager of the station and told him. He apologised profusely and called the proprietor of the station who called the then DG, NBC. The DG called me and said the proprietor had been given my phone number and was going to call and apologise. He did, a few minutes later.
Other measures they took included yanking the program off their schedule and that was the end of it.
It was months later that I came to know the SA Media. He told me that the governor had given the man contracts about 2 or 3 times. It was because he couldn't get another one that he started damaging the governor's reputation in the program. He said he had told the governor all that transpired between us and they had a good laugh. The governor said, "Ya gamu da Bakatsine!", that the man had met his match in a Katsina man.
That's one encounter I wouldn't forget in a hurry. And it's one of the many hazards of the profession.