By Charles Okogene
Mr. Oguwike Nwachuku is not a musician. Neither is he a stakeholder in the creative industry; the nearest he is, is that like anyother rational being, he is a lover of good music. This is where his relationship with music and musicians ended and so he is not qualifoed, in the real sense of the word, to make the list of musicians/stakeholders, I have been profiling on this platform. He only left his footprints on the sands of time of crime reporting!
My relationship with Oguwike dates back to when he was the news editor of the defunct National Interest Newspapers. Then, I visited him in the company of another great pal, Mr. Musa Ebomina, currently the Chief Press Secretary to Edo State Deputy Governor, Mr. Phillip Shauib . The relationship became stronger when we met as ‘oga’ and subordinate at Independent Newspapers Limited (INL) in 2004.
For no reason, he took a liking for me and I made sure I wormed my way into his heart by making sure I discharge, diligently, all assignments he delegated to me. All the poorly written but very important press releases and stories written by my colleagues, he pushed to me to clean up and which I tried as much as possible to do at the best of my ability. Our relationship in the newsroom where he was the the ‘commander in chief of all reporters’ by virtue of his position as the news editor was so smooth that colleagues kept wondering what charm did I use on him.
Two assignments he sent me in 2004 that will remain indelible in my heart are the ones he sent me to represent him at Abeokuta and Port Harcourt. The Abeokuta leg of the assignment was a chat with the then governor of Ogun State, Otunba Gbenga Daniel who at the end of of the day, rewarded us ruboustly through his then Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Wale Adedayo, alias Babalawo, who is now the chairman of a local government in Ogun State. With a smiling face we all returned to Lagos same day and flew to Port Harcourt for the Garden City leg of the assignment, which was the coverage of events marking the fith anniversary of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC); this turned out to be the mother of all assignments in terms of reward from the management of the intervention agency.
It was a bountiful journey. We were handsomely rewarded by NDDC, Mr. Timi Alibe, the then director of administration/accounts of the commission added ice on the cake as he invited us to his personal residence, entertained us and gave us his own personal parting gift; the next day, some of us who drank from the fountain of journalism knowledge of Mr. Onyema Ugochukwu when he was the editor of the Daily Times, were inivited to his house for a breakfast. Then Ugochukwu was the pioneer chairman of NDDC. Like Alibe, he feed us until we ‘fed up’ and he also capped up it with his own parting gift.
On getting to the newsroom the following Monday, a bigger shock from Nwachuku awaited me. As I brought out the more than 500k ‘loot’ and tried to give to Nwachuku, he said ‘ Charles! You went to those assignments, what if some thing untoward had happened to you there, will I have shared in it. The money is yours. Take it and besides your wedding is in weeks time, use the money for the wedding,’ I was shocked beyond words and was litterally walking on the air as I leave his office that fateful day.
While I was on that trip, my friend, Mr. Jude Nwauzor, who was also a colleague then, had called to inform me that I had been promoted to a Life Editor position, a line editor post. We chatted and I promised to wash it when I come back.
It was later that I got to know that apart from God, Akpadem James, Nwachuku made astrong case on my behalf for the elevation and Ted Iwere, the then managing director of the paper could not resist their recommendations. This was severally months after same Nwachuku had recommended me to James the editor of the paper then that I should be the editor of Breaking News, an evening paper on the stable of INL; his reason then was that I was roundly qualified to edit the paper having honed my journalism skills in Evening Times, one of the many publications of Daily Times Mewspapers, under the editorship of Mr. Clement Iloba and Kazie Uko, the news editor of Evening Times then. His recommendation then was, however, rejected on the altar of tribal and regional balancing The management settled for another of my good friend Musubua Rasak, a product of Bayo Onanuga’s PMNews – another evening paper.
Nwachuku has been there for me and is still there even as the Chief Press Secretary/Media Adiviser to the Governor of Imo State, Hope Uzodimma.
To him, Nwachuku, I say in Igbo lingo, ‘e ga adi’, God bless you.
… An excerpt from my book to come
