⬆️Chief Dare Babarinsa, CON.
IN NIGERIA, IT IS TURN-BY-TURN FOR NOW!
Public lecture to mark the 60th Anniversary of the Oyo State Council of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, at the Press Centre, Iyaganku, Ibadan, on Monday November 2, 2026.
DARE BABARINSA, CON
Chairman, Gaskia Media Ltd.
I thank our leaders in the Nigerian Union of Journalists, Ibadan, who have given me the honour of standing before you. Ibadan is an important city. Though it looks old, when you go to Beere, Isale Ofa, Agbokojo and Agbeni, you will understand why John Pepper Clarke described it as “a running splash of rust and gold, flung and scattered among seven hills like a broken china in the sun.”
This was also a city of power where our ancestors created an ingenious response to the challenges of the18th and the 19th Centuries. When the British came at the closing years of the 19th Century, Ibadan had become the most powerful state in the Yoruba country. The British colonialists, who wanted to implement the Lurgadian system of Indirect Rule, put Ibadan under Oyo because the Alaafin, the great Oba Siyanbola Oladigbolu I, told them that “awa la n’Ibadan titi to fi d’Ogbomoso!” (We are the owners of Ibadan up to Ogbomoso). The British agreed with Kabiyesi!
When Abbas Alesinloye became the Baale of Ibadan in 1930, he insisted that he would prefer to be called Olubadan and formally assumed the title in 1936, becoming the first Olubadan of Ibadan. He wanted to be recognized as an independent traditional ruler in his own right. Therefore, Ibadan is young in age, compared to other Yoruba states, but no one can deny its centrality to the idea of the old West. Indeed, when regionalism was introduced in the 1950s, it was not surprising that Ibadan was picked as the capital.
As far as I know, there was no objection from any quarters.
Therefore, we journalists have been plying our trade in this city for generations. We salute the leaders of this great city who have evolved a unique system that has served the Yoruba people and all Nigerians for generations. That has made it a fertile ground for the practice of journalism. It is appropriate for us, as we are remembering the heroes who helped generations of journalists, to also remember two of our leaders who passed recently. One is Papa Reuben Famuyide Fasoranti, the leader of Afenifere and Asiwaju of the Yoruba people. The other is Oloye Lekan Alabi, an outstanding flagbearer of our profession. If Chief Alabi had not gone to the back of beyond, he would have been with us at this gathering. Please let us rise and observe a moment of silence in their honour.
What was journalism like in Ibadan in 1966? Only in 1964, Chief Ladoke Akintola, the second and last Premier of the defunct Western Region, established the Sketch group of newspapers to counter the roaring Nigerian Tribune group. Akintola, a journalist and lawyer, was a former editor of the Daily Service. This was also the city where Professor Wole Soyinka, Africa’s most celebrated playwright and Nobel laureate, was arrested for allegedly holding up a radio station. This was the city of Labanji Bolaji of the Sketch, Ayo Adedun of the Sketch also and Ayo Ojewumi of the Nigerian Tribune who was editor from 1964 to 1966. Tribune was also the paper of Alhaji Lateef Jakande, perhaps Nigeria’s greatest editorialist. Established in 1949 by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Tribune has produced many towering figures in journalism, including Yemi Akinyemi, Banji Kuroloja, Folu Olamiti, and Tola Adeniyi (Aba Saheed). Today, it is still parading some of the most capable men and women in the profession.
Ibadan newspapers have attracted great columnists like Chief Bola Ige, Chief Olabisi Onabanjo, Aare Afe Babalola and Dr Tai Solarin. Ibadan, as a bastion of national media power, reached its zenith during the era of the Three Musketeers. This was during the Second Republic when Mr Felix Adenaike (alias GOC) was in charge of the Tribune titles, Segun Osoba was in charge at the Sketch, and Peter Ajayi was also the General Manager at the Sketch. When Osoba was appointed the Managing Director of the Daily Times in 1984, Ajayi became the MD of the Sketch. It was then that the three musketeers became the most powerful and influential triumvirate in the Nigerian media.
If the truth must be told, the media has seen a lot of ups and downs in the last sixty years. Now in 2026, the media is struggling to adapt to the assault of the New Age when the internet has short-circuited the process of news reporting. The Internet Age has opened up new frontiers that we have not fully prepared for, and it has allowed the incursion of media pirates who have won a lot of loot on the Internet High Seas. We have to confront this challenge. There is nowhere to run.
It is encouraging that many traditional media houses like the Guardian, ThisDay, Vanguard, Tribune and the Punch now have full online presence. One of our colleagues, Dapo Olorunyomi, former director of TheNews magazine, is now running an influential online newspaper, The Premium Times. We at Gaskia Media have also decided to join the league by publishing a full online magazine, starting with an online news blog.
Despite all these efforts by media houses, the attempt to have an internet presence has not translated to bigger revenue. Indeed, there is no traditional media house in Nigeria today that could be described as buoyant. Yet there was a time when the Daily Times of Nigeria was so big that it became one of the most dominant business giants in the country. Today, the greatness of the Daily Times is in the history books. Even in this city of Ibadan, Sketch, the regional newspaper, had a daily circulation of 60,000 copies in the 1970s and 1980s. Today, it is dead, and its premises have been turned into a shopping mall. Today in Nigeria, our youths have lost the appetite to read newspapers. In many African countries of today, ignorance has become a fashionable disease. This should worry us because an ignorant citizenry cannot fully appreciate nor be ready to defend democracy.
As we know, in January and February next year, our country would again embrace the ritual of a general election where the health of our democracy would be tested. We know that this democracy has been won by valiant men and women who rose up to oppose the continuation of military rule in our country. In the vanguard were brave men and women of the Nigerian Press. Many of our colleagues suffered unjust imprisonment and exile. Some even paid the supreme price. The democracy we have won is imperfect, but it is a democracy nonetheless because it allows us to regularly elect our leaders through the universally acknowledged process of regular elections. The system would again be tested in a few weeks’ time. We as journalists have a stake in the process because, as a class of Nigerians, we paid a huge price to put it in place.
The Ibadan press has been a leading part of the crew that installed democracy. One of the phenomena of our system is what is called the turn-by-turn democracy. After General Sani Abacha died suddenly in 1998, General Abdulsalami Abubakar replaced him. A month after the death of Abacha, Chief Moshood Abiola, the winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, also died in military custody. Abiola was the publisher of the Concord Group of Newspapers where I cut my journalism teeth. One thing General Abubakar did was to institute a new Transition to Civil Rule Programme that would terminate military rule by May 29, 1999. How he arrived at that date was not clear. We were apprehensive but also happy. After the sudden death of Chief Moshood Abiola, the President-presumptive, it was clear that the game had to change. Many of our leaders in Afenifere, the mainstream Yoruba political and cultural movement under the leadership of Senator Abraham Adesanya, believed that Abiola may have been killed to prevent him from ascending the presidency. I and my colleagues in Idile Oodua, the resistance movement we formed in 1994 to oppose military rule, believed that with the death of Abiola, the Yoruba people must be allowed to produce the first President after the military.
This was our demand in recognition of the reality of our country. In an ideal situation, a turn-by-turn arrangement may not bring the best candidate forward. But it was the best thing to do in our circumstances. Therefore, I was mandated by my colleagues in Idile Oodua to discuss the matter with our father, His Imperial Majesty, Oba Okunade Sijuwade, Olubuse II, the Ooni of Ife, who confirmed that traditional rulers were also making consultations among themselves. Kabiyesi said he hosted a meeting in London which was attended by top traditional rulers across the country, especially from the North.
He said the traditional rulers in the North have agreed that politicians in the North would be persuaded not to contest for the Presidency in 1999. At the end of the day, the two presidential candidates fielded in the 1999 elections were Yoruba. These were Chief Olusegun Obasanjo of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and then Chief Olu Falae (now His Majesty, Oba Olu Falae, the Olu of Ilu-Abo) of the Alliance for Democracy and All Peoples Party coalition.
Not everyone agreed with that arrangement. Indeed, Dr Alex Ekwueme said the South-East cannot be bound by an arrangement that was basically between the North and the South-West.
Therefore, he contested the presidential ticket of the PDP against Obasanjo. His interpretation was that power should rotate between the North and the South and not to the six geo-political zones. I agree with him. This would allow power to move from the North to the South and vice versa at predictable intervals. After President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan from the South came into office by the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua, the presidency returned to the North for another eight years with the coming of President Muhammadu Buhari. It is now the turn of the South, and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is poised to begin another term by next May all things being equal.
This turn-by-turn arrangement is being criticized by idealists who believe that our country could get a better arrangement. They want anyone qualified and capable to have access to the Presidency. This ideal situation is not going to happen soon. In the pre-colonial traditional Yoruba states, every prince was entitled to contest to become an oba. If you lose, you go into exile. With the advent of time, it was realized that it was better to have ruling houses so that the obaship can rotate. This has brought a measure of stability to the Yoruba states. Imagine what we would be experiencing without this arrangement?
This kind of arrangement has been made in other polities with remarkable results. In 1943, leaders of Lebanon agreed that power must be shared among the various groups to ensure stability and prosperity. Under this arrangement, the President would be a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister would be a Sunni Muslim, the Speaker of Parliament would be a Shiite Muslim, and both the Deputy Prime Minister and the Deputy Speaker would be Greek Orthodox Christians.
The arrangement worked until the 1980s, when some fundamentalist Muslims tried to seize full power, triggering the Lebanese Civil War. The crisis in Lebanon is still ongoing to this day, and the land once described as the Switzerland of the Middle East has lost almost everything.
Therefore, the Presidency of Nigeria would go back to the North by 2031 according to our turn-by-turn arrangement. Then power would come back to the South in 2039. If we intend to keep Nigeria, then we need to make this special arrangement work until future generations are able to make a better arrangement. We know that politicians cannot be trusted, but at least they have ensured that the unwritten arrangement of 1999 stays in place.
We journalists are the keepers of national memories. We should not forget that we have had our part in this arrangement. In the past, the press in Ibadan, including radio and television, has participated in debates that have defined who we are. I remember those debates on the IMF loan, Diarchy, Rotational Presidency, and other hot topics. The Press must remain the marketplace of ideas. We should promote ideas that would help our country. We should not shy away from taking the side that would help to sustain stability, peace and progress of Nigeria. We journalists, have paid the price for the Nigerian project, and we should ensure its continuing good health and progress.
What does the future hold for us? The future is uncertain unless we rise to the challenges confronting us. We must reinvent the media, especially the newspapers and magazines. If our readers have gone to cyberspace, then we must follow them there and make ourselves relevant. For us in the Oyo State NUJ, we must not forget the legacy that we inherited from the ancestors, some of whom are still with us in flesh and blood. We must be guided by the primary dictate of good journalism: facts are sacred; opinion is free. Therefore, while we ensure good and accurate reporting of the facts, we must not run away from good and necessary advocacy. We must advocate for the good of the nation, not necessarily what is convenient.
That was what made the press formidable during the crisis of the 1960s, the Civil War, and the protracted struggle against military rule.
We could see that despite the poor pay, the poorer circulation figures and the daunting challenge from the unregulated online media, the traditional media remains formidable. It is heartwarming that many young and brilliant people are still attracted to our profession. This shows that the profession has a great future. As Professor Ladipo Adamolekun used to say about our country, Nigeria, I would also say about our profession: Adapt or Die! We cannot remain the same while we expect changes in the market or the public perception of the media.
In the late 1970s, the Nigerian Tribune, despite having a devoted readership, was poorly printed in the old style of the letterpress. Despite this, students at the then University of Ife would gather to read copies at the foyers of Awolowo Hall. This was a time when the Daily Times, the New Nigerian, the Nigerian Observer and other newspapers had changed and were now using the more modern lithopress. Everyone was happy when the Tribune changed to the modern press, and it could compete in visual quality with the best newspaper in the world.
Therefore, we should not relax in our journey to the future. That journey should begin here in Ibadan, the home of the Three Musketeers. We have a formidable army of young people who are attracted to our profession. It is the youth who are always driving journalism. That is the tradition. Peter Enahoro became editor of the Daily Times in 1958 at the age of 23. Olusegun Osoba became editor of the same paper in 1975 at 36. Yemi Ogunbiyi became the Managing Director of the Daily Times in 1989 at only 42. Yakubu Mohammed became editor of the National Concord in 1982 at only 32. Ray Ekpu was appointed the editor of the Nigerian Chronicle in 1977 at the age of 29. Adamu Ciroma, who graduated from the University of Ibadan in 1961, was appointed the first editor of the New Nigerian newspaper in 1966 at 32.
We should listen to the young people who are coming into our profession. They belonged to the Gen-Z and it is their duty to build the future. The time has passed when the profession was dominated by only men. We need to consciously bring in the women and help them to become formidable. With the continuous infusion of the new generation of well-educated men and women, our profession would be renewed, and the future will be great.
I appreciate all of you and thank you for listening.