…Lessons life taught me
His story is the stuff fairy tales are made. He was not born with the proverbial silver spoon. As a child, his path was littered with thorns and hurdles. He had to hawk every morning before going to school. This was to help put food on the table and pay his way through school. But he was never deterred. Rather, he resolved very early in life to turn the ‘misfortune’ of his birth to peasant parents to advantage. Today, not only is he a leading authority in his profession, he is Dean, School of Communications, Lagos State University (LASU). His name? Professor Lai Osho.
In this exhilarating interview, he talks about his childhood, the media, what has kept him going as a teacher, his mentors and lessons life has taught him.
Did you actually set out to become a communication expert?
One experience that I think prepared me to become a communicator is that every evening, my dad had certain time that he listened to radio-vision box, which was what was in use then. I didn’t really factor it then but later I realised that he was always listening to the news. Then, later some of our neighbours and his friends would come around and they would be talking about what they heard in the news. It was more of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and all of them. Later, there was a teacher in our house who used to teach in a primary school. The man used to bring newspapers home. From there, one could read. So, the interest grew. Along the line, I picked interest in reading Daily Times. They had some columnist that really inspired me so much that I wanted to be like them.
In my secondary school, I was in the literary and debating society. So, that prepared me to be who I am today. Unfortunately, in most schools, I have found out there is no literary and debating society. I doubt if most secondary schools have library, nowadays. In my own days in St. Paul’s Primary School, Sagamu, our library had a copy of Daily Times, and we were encouraged to read. We had a library stocked with novels and abridged Shakespeare books. We had all that. So, when I got secondary school, it was very easy to follow up from where I stopped in my primary days. These things are not there again. What you have now are schools devoid of playgrounds for the children. Is it a school that cannot afford to have playgrounds for the children to play during short and long breaks that would now have a well-stocked library let alone buy newspapers? Back in those days, you had special children’s belt on radio in the western region. You were encouraged to go into the radio room to listen to the children’s programmes. It was on our timetable. Apart from English Literature classes, we had quiz competitions among secondary schools every week. These were things that we got used to. Above all, the teachers were there to encourage you.
What do you think contributed to the dearth of these things you highlighted?
The teachers are no more encouraged. We cannot run away from it. There was a time in this country when landlords were putting on their houses: “House for rent, but teachers need not apply” because teachers were not well paid. That was a terrible experience for teachers. It made them think that they had to look elsewhere for survival. Teaching became a supplementary profession to other businesses for many teachers. They were teaching but they had other things they were doing by the side. Gradually, it made our educational system to dwindle. So, if we are saying that Nigerians are no longer reading, educational system is going down, we have to go back to the foundation– the primary and secondary schools. We should equip them with what they should have. The media should make their children’s belt more educative. Gone are the days when you found competitive quiz programmes among schools that children will be looking forward to watching. The only thing they watch now are cartoons.
In spite of all the problems faced by teachers, you have stayed on. What has kept you on?
What has kept me is when I see my former students who are doing well. I’ve been at different fora where the speakers were my former students. They speak and even I get so impressed. That encourages me. I’ve seen many of them even better than I am. I am usually overwhelmed with the kind of respect they give me and the testimony they give about me. All these motivate and make me think it is worth staying on after all.
Did your parents object to you choosing to take up lecturing as a career?
No! Well, maybe I have very liberal parents. They didn’t really bother about what anybody wanted to do. The important thing is that you must acquire education. Their concern was that you should not go and waste their money in school. Once you have done that, what you do afterwards, they just pray for you. You are on your own.
What are the challenges of being a lecturer?
The students. There are all kinds of students and you have to relate with all of them at their own level. You cannot take all of them together as one. They are all from different backgrounds and so you need to really understand them and then know how you can influence them. So, it is a challenge.
What has life taught you?
One thing I have learnt in life is that if you give, definitely, you will receive. I think that is one basic principle of life that cannot and would not change. Give service and you will reap it. There will be challenges, there will be obstacles, but if you are giving service, definitely, God will reward you. I’ve seen that in my senior colleagues; some of them who taught me. They may not be rich, but I see in their lives that they are very comfortable and okay.
What was growing up like for you?
I am from a peasant family. But not necessarily from a poor peasant family. My father was a farmer. He was fairly okay. He could afford to send us to school. Though, my mother was a petty trader, maybe because they value education, they invested in us. It was not a case of being born with silver spoon. When I was young, I hawked akara (bean cake) in the morning before going to school. Mummy would make akara for us to hawk.
These days, people are averse to children hawking. What do you make of this?
Well, times have changed. The society has become more complex. I am not one to subscribe to the fact that because you must survive then, children should go and hawk on the expressway and other dangerous zones. However, my own attitude is that if possible, a child could hawk within the neighbourhood, where people know the child and they can keep eyes on him or her. I don’t see hawking as terrible as some advocates make it look. But like I said, the society has change; it is more complex. More terrible things are happening. And this is very scary. You now hear of five-year-old, nine-year-old being raped. That has made the society more complex and I think it is the reason why people say it is bad.
If you were not a teacher, what other profession would you have been into?
I would have been a practising journalist. I started from the newsroom with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
What is the attraction to journalism?
The attraction there is that it gives you some form of freedom. You are not restricted like the person in the civil service. You are allowed to pursue the story you want to pursue provided your editor has some measure of confidence in you. You come into the newsroom, do your story and submit, after which you can go. And I think with the technology these days, a journalist need not get into the newsroom to file his or her stories. So, you can stay away for days from your desk provided you are working and sending materials for publication. There is freedom. This straightjacketed thing that you must resume at 8 a.m. and close at 4p.m. or 5p.m. is not there. That, for me, is a strong attraction. The freedom within the newsroom is also an attraction. And it is the same thing in the academics. Within a whole month, there is nothing that says I must see the vice chancellor. There is nothing that says I must see my dean as long as I am doing my work. In some other places, there is this kind of control that does not really fit into my lifestyle.
What are the banes of communication in Nigeria?
I think the basic thing that people say is that there has been a compromise of ethical standard. For example, this issue of brown envelope that is so obvious. But I think there are more fundamental problems. The brown envelope thing is just a symptom of more fundamental problems. Basically, Nigeria media is not well funded in terms of facilities and remuneration for practitioners. The journalist is not being well paid when compared to other professions. Now, media work is technology-driven. If you don’t have the right technology, you will expend more energy and time doing things. That put a lot of pressure on practitioners. So, they cannot really bring out the best in them. And that is a problem.
Another problem is that the coverage of issues is not comprehensive enough. We tend to pay more attention to people at the top- the president, governors, the politicians and so on. But the people that are feeling the impact of their policies, the ordinary man on the street, we do not really get to hear what they have to say. So, the voices in the media, more often than not, are talking to themselves and sometimes talking for the people. The people must be allowed to speak for themselves. That is when we can really have a comprehensive understanding of the challenges facing this country. So, no wonder you find some people coming together and claiming to be speaking on behalf of the South-South, or North or Ndigbo. And when you count the people speaking for the various groups, they are five or ten persons claiming to be speaking for millions of people.
That is a major problem with the Nigerian media. To me, their coverage is not comprehensive enough. There is not enough diversity in terms of coverage. If you take content analysis of the media in Nigeria, women are not well covered. Youths are not well covered. I have seen some people on TV calling themselves youth council of Nigeria, and if you see the president of the group, he is about 50 years old. So, you start wondering. The media must be a little bit more skeptical of a select few making claims about certain issues on behalf of certain people.
I am sure that as a child, you had mentors; who are they?
A good number of them are dead now, especially those who taught me in Unilag (University of Lagos, Akoka). They include Professor Femi Sonaike, Frank Ugbaja both dead and Prof. Idowu Sobowale. Those are the people I look up to.
If you are asked to name one person that changed your life, who would that person be and what did he or she do?
Somebody whose lifestyle has impacted me and who I will never forget is the late Professor Femi Sonaike. He was a very simple, easygoing man. He taught me to just live my life and apply myself to whatever I am doing. Those are things I learnt from him that has kept me going in life.
By Temitope David-Adegboye.
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