From the Exchequer to the Editorial Suite: Dilating the Intra-Professional Mutations of Onyema Ugochukwu, By Tunde OLUSUNLE (Part 2)

Presidential Campaign Publicist
After his retirement from the Daily Times, Ugochukwu established a media consultancy. He reported for Dow Jones and handled a number of special publications, among other media briefs. He was also a Visiting Member of the Editorial Board of The Guardian where he continued to contribute actively to national discourse. Abati (2004, p. xiv) lists Ugochukwu along with eminent scholars and professionals like Chidi Amuta, Kayode Soremekun, Sam Oyovbaire, Hope Eghagha, Felix Adenaike, George Ehusani, Emevwo Biakolo, Godwin Sogolo and Fred Onyeoziri, who put their time, intellectual resources and aggregate experience, at the service of the vocation and country, on the platform of The Guardian.

Ugochukwu subsequently functioned as Director of Publicity of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Campaign Organisation, which began to gather traction in the last quarter of 1998. Babarinsa (2013, p. 238), has suggested that Ugochukwu had a preexisting relationship with Obasanjo which was activated when the latter began consultations with stakeholders and leaders, ahead of the formal commencement of the project. Alluding to Obasanjo’s first coming as military Head of State following the demise of Murtala Ramat Mohammed, February 13, 1976, Babarinsa observes that Obasanjo actually made friends with select top journalists when he came on board. This he noted, was to temper the public perception of high-handedness on the part of his regime, in the aftermath of the forceful acquisition of Daily Times and the Kaduna based New Nigerian. Says Babarinsa:
It was at this period that Obasanjo consolidated his relationship with some of Nigeria’s leading journalists. He made Mallam Adamu Ciroma, former editor of New Nigerian newspaper, Governor of the Central Bank. He forged a lifelong friendship with the likes of Stanley Macebuh, Onyema Ugochukwu, Turi Mohammed, Felix Adenaike, Innocent Oparadike, Saka Fagbo, Tola Adeniyi, Segun Osoba, Henry Odukomaiya and Lade Bonuola.

Ugochukwu (2014, p.54), however, clarifies this contention, noting that it was his friend, Aliyu Mohammed Gusau, who became National Security Adviser (NSA) under the Obasanjo democratic government, who introduced him to the former President. Ugochukwu and Gusau had a longstanding relationship, dating back to the Babangida years. It was part of the goodwill between both men, that crystallised into Mammah’s earlier release from incarceration by the secret police. Explaining how he joined the Obasanjo Presidential Campaign Organisation in 1998, Ugochukwu recounts:

My friend General Aliyu Gusau who is now Minister of Defence, asked me to come and work on the publicity team. I could not say no to him. He and I drove over to see Obasanjo. We had a chat for a while… Throughout the campaign, I worked closely with him. There was a time he asked me to move to Otta Farms. I could not do that because my family was in Lagos. It was a great experience working for Obasanjo.

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Fortuitously, Ugochukwu never burnt the bridges of relationships even after his retirement. He had a core of young journalists with whom he regularly exchanged ideas on media matters and current affairs. In 1995 when Nigeria was planning to host the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA) youth football championship for instance, Ugochukwu’s media outfit was awarded rights to produce the official brochure. He polled his younger friends from within and outside Daily Times, to articulate the editorial content of the brochure. Unfortunately, the tournament was called off. Some of his young friends had also helped out when he conceived of the book project, Power and Governance: The Legacy of Dr Michael Okpara a collection of essays on the erstwhile Premier of Eastern Nigeria. The book was edited by Ugochukwu and published in 1997. Some of these journalists constituted the core of Ugochukwu’s team for the present task of political communication. Olusunle (2006,
p.15) notes:

He didn’t have to look very far therefore, before putting together a crack team to brainstorm on the challenge of repackaging and marketing Obasanjo for the big task ahead. Segun Ayobolu (former Chief Press Secretary and later Special Adviser to Governor Ahmed Bola Tinubu of Lagos State); Emeka Nwosu (former Special Assistant to the first President of the Senate in the Fourth Republic, Senator Evan Enwerem) and Femi Olatunde (Senior Manager in the Office of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN), were in the team. There were also Louis Okoroma (former Personal Assistant to Chief Tony Anenih in the Federal Ministry of Works); Tony Idigo (former Bureau Chief of the Daily Times, Abuja) and my good self, among others.

This is not forgetting Reuben Abati (former Chairman of the Editorial Board of The Guardian) and Chukwuma Nwoko, who was also on the staff of the same organisation. Every evening, the team assembled in Ugochukwu’s home, to discuss the Obasanjo project, to conceive of how best to reposition him in the eyes of a people already very suspicious of the military. This paranoia was aggravated by the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, ostensibly won by the Moshood Kasimawo Olawale Abiola. That election, frequently described as the freest and fairest presidential election in Nigeria, was annulled by Babangida. It was in Ugochukwu’s sitting room that we coined the slogan and pay-off line of that campaign: “Obasanjo, The Leader You Can Trust”. We probed libraries and archives and generated essays, feature stories and commentaries on Obasanjo and his endeavours since he came into limelight as a public servant. Notably, he served as Federal Commissioner for Works (which is now referred to as Minister), under the administration of Yakubu Gowon, and Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, before succeeding Mohammed. Under Ugochukwu’s guidance, we produced flyers, handbills, posters and booklets for mass circulation, to begin some re- conscientization of the citizenry.

Ugochukwu subsequently deployed this writer to Obasanjo’s Otta base, as Campaign Press Attache. A press photographer (Tumo Ojelabi, a former Daily Times staffer and perhaps the first university graduate to be employed in a media house in Nigeria) and Taiwo Akinyemi, a videographer, were also recruited into the press team of the campaign. These three, accompanied Obasanjo on his cross-country shuttles on consultation missions and campaigns. Defying the inadequacies of telecommunications at that time (before the advent of mobile telephony), the team managed to file news stories, backed by images and videos, which kept Obasanjo regularly in the public consciousness. As the campaign progressed, a number of experienced journalists joined or were co-opted, as the case may be. Chris Mammah, who had left The Punch to establish The Week magazine, formally came on board as Ugochukwu’s deputy, while Farouk Omar Ibrahim who was General Manager, Northern Operations of Daily Times, based in Kaduna, was co-opted. Emeka Ihedioha, was named liaison person in Abuja, to help reach out to the media whenever Obasanjo the presidential candidate, had engagements in the federal capital territory. In as many instances as possible, these publicists were accommodated in various government departments and agencies upon the emergence of Obasanjo as president.

Presidential Communicator
Upon Obasanjo’s inauguration as President on May 29, 1999, Ugochukwu was appointed Special Adviser on National Orientation and Public Affairs (NOPA). This entailed the excision of the National Orientation Agency, (NOA) from the Federal Ministry of Information, and its transfer to The Presidency, as an arm of the office of the President. Obasanjo also needed a buffer to his media office, taking advantage of the high quality human resource component of the campaign publicity team headed by Ugochukwu. The National Orientation Agency therefore had a “Public Affairs” brief affixed to it. This culminated in the new creation, NOPA. Ugochukwu conceived of a Campaign For National Rebirth “to bring about genuine renaissance in our country”, (Ugochukwu, 1999, p.1). The Campaign was to “focus on promoting and deepening the virtues of democracy and on mass education to heighten citizens’ awareness of their rights as well as their obligations”.

The campaign, Ugochukwu further said, was to spread the message of the new dawn, to all nooks and corners of the country. In the new order, the new democratic government aimed to dissociate itself from the dictatorship, corruption and the attendant heckling of the people, which characterised the previous administrations. A publication titled The Nigerian Declaration Of Human Responsibilities was also launched at the event. Ugochukwu’s brave effort to prosecute the Campaign For National Rebirth which had an accountability forum subset, was, however, stymied by the establishment. The accountability forum required that public officers, elected and appointed, render to their people, accounts of their stewardship within the period they had been appointed. The Nigerian parliament was specifically opposed to the idea which, they opined, pitted them against their constituents. Representatives of the electorate, feared confronting their constituents at town hall meetings, initiated as part of the Campaign For National Rebirth. Resources needed for the sustained prosecution of the project were asphyxiated at the level of appropriation by the parliament and the concept of rebirth prematurely interred.

Pioneer Chairman, NDDC
In December 2000, Obasanjo appointed Ugochukwu Chairman of the newly created NDDC, which replaced the moribund Oil Minerals Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC). Ugochukwu was the very first person to be appointed to the chairmanship position of the organisation under the new dispensation. The mission statement of the NDDC was: “To facilitate the rapid, even and sustainable development of the Niger Delta into a region that is economically prosperous, socially stable, ecologically regenerative and politically peaceful,” (Usen, 2003, p.5). In other words, the principal responsibility of the NDDC, was to engender the creation of an environment in which all the agencies of development in the Niger Delta area, namely: the NDDC, the Federal Government, the State Governments, the Local Governments, the Oil and Gas companies, will synergise their activities towards the common goal of rapid and sustainable transformation of the Region.

Member states of the NDDC are: Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo and Rivers. Its headquarters is in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.

Despite the challenges of pioneering the all-important agency, Ugochukwu maintained very close contact with his primary constituency, the media. With Lagos retaining its longstanding position as the hub of the media in Nigeria, Ugochukwu was a regular caller in the former Nigerian capital. He visited media houses and hosted press meetings with proprietors, editors, columnists, line editors and so on from time to time. These interactions were not only about the NDDC, but about governance and government at the centre, and to seek the understanding and support of the press, for the administration. From these encounters, he distilled briefs which were documented and brought to the attention of the President. In a way, he sustained his Public Affairs schedule, side by side with his job in NDDC. For the avoidance of doubt, a Rapid Response Team, (RRT), under the auspices of NOPA, continued to meet regularly in Ugochukwu’s absence and to pursue the interpretation of government’s policies and plans in the media. The team comprised of experienced journalists serving in and out of government, who shared the vision of the new democratic ferment.
On the sidelines of a global conference on the development and conservation of wetlands across the world in the United States of America, (USA) in 2002, Ugochukwu hosted a press luncheon with Nigerian journalists in the USA, next door to the Nigerian Consulate in New York. The event was attended by the Consul-General of Nigeria to New York at the time, Ambassador Segun Apata. Others who attended include Nigeria’s incumbent Minister of Sports, Sunday Dare (who worked with the Voice of America, VOA, Hausa Service); Laolu Akande (Media Adviser to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who was the New York correspondent of The Guardian) and Gbenga Ayeni (former Daily Times journalist and professor of communications at the East Connecticut University). The meeting was to enlist the diaspora arm of the Nigerian media, in the positive representation of the new democratic administration in Nigeria, in the eyes of the international community. Democracy in Nigeria was newly born, he noted and should be assisted to grow.

Spokesman for the Obasanjo Re-election Campaign
Against the backdrop of the job Ugochukwu continued to do in the service of democracy and the Obasanjo administration, he was recalled before the commencement of the President’s reelection campaign early 2003. Much as Obasanjo’s PDP was in power, the party was not going to undermine the potential threat of the opposition, especially from the All Nigeria Peoples’ Party (ANPP) which fielded Muhammadu Buhari in what was to be his first attempt at contesting the presidency. Ugochukwu worked with a more broad-based team on this assignment, which included volunteers and government officials selected from government agencies and departments in the media sector. Obasanjo won the election and Ugochukwu returned to his job in the NDDC. His subsisting appointment was for an initial term of four years and billed to end on December 21, 2004. Ugochukwu politely turned down an offer from Obasanjo, for the renewal of his chairmanship of the NDDC, by another four years, at the expiration of his term in office. The President wanted the new agency fully settled, to mitigate the recurrence of failures and stillbirths which characterised similar agencies in the past. Ugochukwu’s argument, however, was that the number of states which were served by the Commission, were nine. The chairmanship of the NDDC was to be rotated in alphabetical order among the member states. If he, Ugochukwu, served a second term, it will take 72 years for someone else from Abia, his home state, to aspire to the leadership of the Commission again. This could be unnerving for some stakeholders and opponents of the administration. It is a measure of the confidence Obasanjo reposed in him that he was asked to continue to lead the NDDC, after the expiration of his teem of office, while government searched for replacements for him and other members of the Board. Ugochukwu stayed on as virtual Sole Administrator of the Commission, for about five months. Ugochukwu (2020), voiced his pain about the absence of leadership continuity in the NDDC, after he left:
… I served my full term as Chairman of the Board. More, I served even beyond my term, because when our tenure ended on December 21, 2004, I was asked to stay on and take charge of the Commission, until a new Board was inaugurated. So I stayed until early May 2005. In the 20 year history of the NDDC, I happen to be the only Chairman who has completed his tenure, which for me, is a matter of real sadness.

The story of the leadership hiccups in the NDDC has not been any better since Ugochukwu made this observation. The organisation has barely had a stable management team since the re- election of Muhammadu Buhari as President in 2019.

Back to the Beat: Director of Public Communication in The Presidency
President Obasanjo appointed Ugochukwu Adviser on Public Communication at the conclusion of his tour of duty in NDDC, in May 2005. The President desired more concordance in the management and coordination of government information by his lieutenants. He wanted the kind of synergy where government officials would not be seen as working at cross purposes in the public eye. To this extent, Obasanjo coined a “Presidential Committee on Public Communication,” (PCPC), with Ugochukwu, his adviser, as anchor person. The membership of the Committee included select ministers and heads of departments and agencies, and a few presidential aides. To underscore the importance President Obasanjo attached to the initiative, the Chief of Staff to the President, Abdullahi Mohammed, made available a meeting room in the Office of the President, for the regular engagements of the Committee. Part of the aims of the Body, was to ensure that government officials knew something about what was happening in every other ministry or agency, so that they could speak authoritatively from a position of information, even in the event of an ambush by the media. Ministers including Eyitayo Lambo (Professor and Minister of Health) and Oby Ezekwesili (Education) were members of the Committee.

Campaign for Abia Rebirth, CARE
In October 2006, Onyema Ugochukwu resigned his appointment in The Presidency, to contest the governorship of Abia State, on the platform of the PDP. With the background of his endeavours as NDDC Chairman which had brought tangible development to Abia where the incumbent administration in the state failed, a broad spectrum of people from his state, brought pressure on him to run. The project was christened Campaign for Abia Rebirth, (CARE). This was against the canvas that the state desired rigorous rejuvenation and regeneration after the incumbent administration exited from office. Ugochukwu won the primaries of his party. He ran a very well received campaign across the 17 local government areas in the state. The campaign was issue-based. Ugochukwu demonstrated pan-Nigerianism, by involving respectable professionals who were not necessarily from Abia State, in the project. He contested against Theodore Ahamaefule, Chief of Staff to outgoing Governor Orji Uzor Kalu, who ran on the platform of the PPA, in the 2007 gubernatorial polls. The election results as released by INEC, however, ran counter to entries on the original result sheets from each polling unit in the state, made available by PDP agents. There began a long-drawn legal tussle which kept Ugochukwu and his legal team in court for two years, beginning from 2007. Reminiscing on that effort, Ugochukwu, (2014, p.54) says:
We had great ideas about what we could do with the state and how we could advance it. We tried to sell the idea. It did not work and I did not become the governor… I would not blame it on the people, but on the system. Ultimately, one felt God did not want it. I tried my best but it didn’t happen.

Not one to cry over spilt milk, he picked up himself and has continued to contribute to the development of his primordial vocation, journalism and the country at large. He is a distinguished Fellow of the NGE and a Member of the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the Guild.

He once said:
… I have refused to be a veteran journalist. I have not written for sometime now but I intend to sit down and maybe write an account of my journey through this life. I don’t think I have the talent for business or trading. I might as well sit somewhere and write things.

Ugochukwu continues to participate in activities organised by the Guild, including conventions and other programmes.

Statesman
Ugochukwu the statesman, was one of the eminent Nigerians nominated to the National Conference of 2014, under the administration of Goodluck Jonathan. He was initially sceptical and didn’t believe the Conference was going to achieve anything tangible. His views changed subsequently and he believes the Conference overshot his expectations:
I am very impressed with what that Conference achieved. There was a belief that we were going to disagree and then some groups would walk out. But we achieved the kind of consensus Nigerians in public never agreed on. We came up with a report that can change this country if implemented. (Ugochukwu,
2014, p.54)

Sadly, despite the very well acknowledged quality of discourse and propositions from the Conference in the quest for equity, justice and fair play, the successor regime to Jonathan’s, has refused to revisit and implement suggestions from the conference.

Public Scholar
As a public intellectual, Ugochukwu has delivered public lectures at various fora. On the occasion of the the twin event of the “Press Freedom Day and Reception for Journalists” organised by the Nigerian Union of Journalists, (NUJ), Rivers State Council, August 9, 2001, Ugochukwu was the keynote speaker. His paper was titled: “Journalists as Guardian Angels of Democracy.” One month later on Sunday 10, 2001, Ugochukwu spoke at the conference on the “Sustainable Development of the Niger Delta,” organised by the World Movement for Africa,” (WEMFA), also in the Rivers State capital. At the fifth Randall L. Gibson Conference on “Comparing Rivers: The Mississipi and the Niger” hosted in New Orleans, November 2002, his paper was titled: “The Development Situation in Nigeria: National Perspectives and the Role of the Niger Delta Development Commission, (NDDC).” His paper titled “The Development Crisis in the Niger Delta Region: Constraints and Prospects” at the University of Lagos, was presented in 2005. Another paper titled “Leadership and Good Governance in Nigeria,” was delivered at the Eighth Edition of the “Emeka Anyaoku Lecture Series,” in Umuahia, in 2018, among many others.

Awards, Honours and Recognitions
In 2006, Ugochukwu was conferred with the highly revered national honour of Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) in recognition of his multifaceted contributions to national development. The same year, he received an award from “Africa Leadership International,” for Africa Leadership Enterprise. He was honoured with a “Doctor of Law,” Honoris Causa, by the University of Uyo, in 2004 and also conferred in 2018 with an honorary doctorate by Gregory University, Uturu, Abia State, where he is Pro-Chancellor. Ugochukwu was a Member of the Council of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) from 1989 to 1994; Member, Nigerian Council for Management Education, (CMD) 1993 to 1994 and Chairman, University of Nigeria Alumni Association (UNAA), Lagos Branch from 1992 to 1994, among others. This is not forgetting the string of traditional honours he has received through his years of service from across the country. These include recognitions from Abia, Bayelsa, Cross River, Edo and Rivers States, among others. On the occasion of his 75th birthday in 2019, President Buhari, sent him a birthday message. Buhari applauded him for his “contributions to the vibrancy and dynamism of the Nigerian media, inspite of his background in Economics and working with the Central Bank of Nigeria”. The President noted that the experiences he aggregated working for home-based and foreign outfits were invaluable to the nation.

Conclusion
Onyema Ugochukwu has had a very successful, multi-pronged career in journalism and communications, over a period of five decades. This has straddled variegated mediums, nations, authorities and generations, in the public and private sectors, over time and space. He has contributed tremendously to the redefinition of a profession hitherto consigned to the unambitious. He has resisted the appellation of “veteran” in the profession, despite being officially retired. It is hoped that this determination will propel him to continue to practice and to mentor and inspire generations to come. This becomes very germane in a milieu lacking salient institutional memory and sense of history.

References

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