THOUGHTS FROM DA SAGE

…ME AND MY CROPHONE

If you describe the radio producer or presenter as the fellow in the business of minding other people’s business, you may not be far from the truth. A close observation of human nature is the fountain of our creativity. All sorts of things happen behind the scene before the award-winning reports and programmes are burnished in the studio for the listening pleasure (as we always say) of the listener. One day, this “MY CROPHONE” will put me in trouble.

The comprehension passage of my IGBO junior WAEC Paper had this story of the Lion and the Lamb that were drinking from the same stream. As expected, the king of the jungle was upstream lapping from the less turbulent, clear and near potable fresh water whereas the meek one was quaffing with relish the already murky waters of down stream. Yet the royal cat still had the audacity…the intrepidity…the sauciness and the…, (that should do for now) to ask the innocent lamb, “Why are you stirring this stream so badly that my portion has become muddy?” My brother, is it not common knowledge that streams run in the direction of the valley? So if the stream is to be muddied, it should come from upstream downwards abi?

That is a prefect analogy of the story of my boss and me. Let’s refer to him as Uncle Finicky for national peace.  Of course he was the predator and I, the prey. But I managed to learn the tricks of the trade alongside the trade itself. Adaptation therefore is not just an exclusivity of the chameleon vis a vis his environment. This boss of mine is no more in service but even before he left, we had become best of friends.
He was down to earth when it came to work. Just share a table with him moments ago and go on air and bungle the job, you are dead. Give wrong time check, you are doomed; Cut a song before it gets to its CADENCE and you are done for. Fastidious is the word for his idiosyncrasies on the job. Tolu Fatoyinbo remains unforgettable.

On this sunny Tuesday morning, we (my crophone and I) arrived at one of the 5-STAR Hotels in Abuja where a workshop was already in progress. Lo and behold, the chairman of the opening session…guess who? Uncle Finicky now! At first I was panicky but the ye-ye tin just bone…my crophone of course.
He was talking and giving me that if-I-ever-catch-you-kind of look. This is a man that would issue queries to about 50 members of staff simultaneously the same day. Immediately I started concocting the ensemble of words that would form my response to the imminent office love letter.

Have you ever listened to Gamaliel Onosode, Ikenna Ndaguba, Emeka Anyaoku or Pete Edochie?  Thank you! That was the same manner in which the speech of Uncle Fin was delivered. His pair of eyes permeating his bottle thick spectacles and boring holes in my bowed head as he spoke. Bowed because I could’nt stare back at him having broken a major rule…wrong place, wrong time. Even if you were blind folded in the meeting room, you could feel the swagger in his strides.

A deliberate elbow nudged me a little when he arrived behind my seat as if to say, WE SHALL SEE at home. But my mind was made up to stay, since there was no middle ground between the worlds of valiance and villainy. I chose to stay. Besides, his exit gave me a good draught of oxygen as I heaved a sigh of respite. Little did I know it was going to be short-lived. It happened during my favourite segment-lunch. He ambled behind me and bellowed into my ears, “How did you get here?” Immediately, the bucal cavity that was gearing for a massive mastication ended up in an agape position; the well curved hands got stuck midway between the lower mandible and the clavicle (collar bone) I mean mid air; the pupils dilated to maximum aperture, leaving yours sincerely in a ludicrous position of “FREEEEZE!”It was as if the PAUSE button of my metabolism was depressed ad infinitum.

Believe me, I thought that this clownish display would appease him and water down the immediate ‘wahala’, but guess what? It didn’t work –he was still waiting for my response to his query.

So, to avoid a traffic jam on the highway of my alimentary canal, I slowly dropped my heavily loaded cutlery; gulped a hard swallow; and with an expressionless countenance I said, “I took a bike from old Karmo to Wuse market and then took a drop from there to this hotel sir…”  “Omokomo” (meaning stubborn child), he said under his breath as he strolled to his table. And in my head I replied, “baba omokomo.”

For your ears only: During the days of military rule, this same uncle Fin had been recording a military head of state when the battery of HIS CROPHONE went flat and he started sweating profusely in an air-conditioned room. Sweating like a white man with a mouth full of alligator pepper. He is most powerful when I am involved. Na God save am dat day. The General was in a good mood. How can you point YOUR dysfunctional CROPHONE at a no –nonsense military head of state?

I know I am not the best, but it is a pleasure having such a side kick that tilts everyone’s tympanic membrane towards that radio where I reside. This MY CROPHONE has made even septuagenarians dress me in borrowed robes as “THE SAGE”. In order not to offend those who truly should be greeted after that manner, l funkified mine to read, “DA SAGE”

All l need to do is speak intelligence (or better still, sagacity) into the live side of the one I always carry on me (MY CROPHONE) or into the one in the studio (OUR  CROPHONE) and things happen. Sometimes I feel like a divorce, especially when it makes me act erratic in response to those deadlines. I would feel like handing over to the listener so it becomes THEIR CROPHONE or to you and it becomes “YOUR CROPHONE.”Another red letter day with MY CROPHONE was the day that a former DG of FRCN- Mr. Ben Ndubuisi Egbuna- was to be sent off. I was the master of ceremony at the mini reception organized by his friends at TRANSCORP HOTEL and in its usual electromagnetic intoxication, I heard myself pronouncing the name of the then DG of NTA the unit measurement of electricity. Since that day, I have been so sorry I ever went near THEIR CROPHONE.

 ……………………ndubuisi IKPEAGHA (DA SAGE)

A DAY TO REMEMBER

It was Friday, February 13, 1976 and as a Studio Manager trainee, I was on duty for the morning shift at the Broadcasting House (BH), Ikoyi, as early as 05.15 hrs.
I was manning the Conty studio while Mr. J.E. Okorie was taking care of the playback tape machines.
 
At exactly 08.25hrs, six stern looking soldiers barged into the studio. Two of them in mufti gladly toted their riffles. The station, Radio Nigeria, Lagos, was dishing out good music when the soldiers struck. Their leader, who turned out to be Lt-Col. Buka Suka Dimka, shouted, "Stop the music. We want to broadcast to the nation. Your Head of State has been overthrown". He dashed into the inner cubicle where the DCA operated from. The fact that a coup was playing out in my very presence sent shivers down my spine.
 
As a trainee SM, I remembered that it is unprofessional to stop a music program abruptly. On a second thought, I lifted the telephone to call the Head of my unit, Mr. Vincent Nwokolo, when one of the soldiers immediately ordered me to drop the phone, with his gun menacingly pointing at my head. He apparently thought I was trying to make an outside BH call. I quickly faded the music and switched over to the inner studio where Lt-Col Dimka had already taken a seat to announce the coup.
 
As soon as he blabbed off the message, the Director-General of Radio Nigeria, Dr. Christopher Kolade, rushed down from his office to the Continuity studio on the first floor. When he saw the soldiers manning the entrance of the Conty, he needed no other signs. All this while, activities at the B H became paralyzed. The coup announcement with martial music was relayed every fifteen minutes on the station. Neither vehicle nor pedestrian was allowed to enter or leave the station. I was more scared than confused at the turn of events.
 
As Col. Dimka solicited our assistance to enable him record a follow-up message on the reasons for the coup, we noticed the arrival of another army officer downstairs. Col. Dimka quickly dashed to the studio balcony while the new comer, a young, smiling gap-toothed officer passed a message to him from below. After the two men had briefly conversed in Hausa language, it became obvious from Col. Dimka's countenance that matters were about to take a rough turn.
 
I watched the coup leader quickly remove the eagle pips denoting his rank and opted to disguise as a mere Second Lieutenant. With his pistol tucked inside his pocket, Dimka hurried downstairs, hurled himself across the fence and disappeared from sight. Meanwhile, some of his accomplices manning different points in BH did not know that their leader had vamoosed.
 
About twenty minutes later, two armoured tanks rolled into BH with heavily armed battle-ready troop. The leader of the new loyal troop, ordered everyone out of the studios. This new leader was the same gap-toothed army officer who had come to BH earlier to tell Col. Dimka that the game was up. He advised all members of staff who were in the premises to take cover by lying flat on the ground outside the building. Col. Ibrahim Babangida, warned all of us to obey all instructions from the troops in order to remain alive.
 
Heavy shooting followed the counter-move as the remnants of Dimka's group tried to resist. It was indeed a deadly drama for those of us who were trapped in the melee that fateful Friday morning. It is hard to imagine that a young man like myself, about to begin life as a broadcaster, had to be marooned for hours with my big bosses such as the D-G, Dr. Chris Kolade; Mr. Emeka Okeke, Head of Nigerian Languages Unit; Mr. Bisi Lawrence, Head of Sports; Mr. J.O. Ajaguna, Director of Admin; Isola Folorunsho, Controller Programs; Mr. Vincent Nwokolo, Head of Studio Management, and many others.
 
We however took solace in the fact that no life was lost in the crisis. Only one member of staff, Mr. Olaiya, a gardener, sustained bullet wounds. However, the screens of some cars parked in the premises were shattered. Some of Dimka's men fell to superior firepower. At the end of the shooting, we were shocked to learn that the directive from Dodan Barracks was that the entire BH should be brought down if the coupists proved difficult to flush out. We continued to thank God that the matter did not get to that stage. There was no way I could have imagined then that in signing up to work in Radio Nigeria, I was gleefully signing off my life.
 
When the gate was eventually opened for staff to go home in the evening, I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. It was indeed a day in the life of the broadcaster! 

BY Chris  Chikeluba

(CD & C)