Meet Abimbola Adelakun, Punch’s Youngest Backpage Columnist

Back page is a very important page for newspapers, second only to the front page in order of importance. Since front pages are hardly for commentaries, it follows that back page commentators are carefully selected. If anyone doubts this, you need to see The Nation and THISDAY, which back page commentariat is the reason some people, at least me and several other people I know, buy them. Newspapers don’t give backpage columns to just anybody. It’s either you’re a veteran or heavily loaded upstairs. I guess it is for the latter reason that Punch hands Abimbola Adunni Adelakun a backpage column. She is the youngest in Punch’s collection. One of Jarushub readers and an ardent follower of Bimbola’s  Punch column specially asked me to seek her out for interview. I have delivered. Enjoy this interview with the beautiful young lady who ‘owns’ a backpage column in Punch, arguably   Nigeria’s most popular newspaper.
JH: Good Morning Abimbola. We are a blog on career and mentoring issues. One of our ardent readers actually asked us to seek you out for interview, as a respected young Nigerian columnist.

AA: Thanks, Jarus. And thanks to your ardent readers for this opportunity.

JH: Can you tell me your background? I know you’re from Ibadan, are you related to the popular Busari Adelakun, the late Ibadan politician?

AA: Yes, I am from Ibadan and people ask me if I am related to the Adelakun ALL the time.

It is funny that the way people ask, you would think there is only one Adelakun in

the whole Ibadan. It is a popular surname actually and no, we are not related. I was

in secondary school when a teacher first asked me. When I got home, I asked my

mother and she told me all about Busari Adelakun, the Eruobodo. As a child, I didn’t

know whether to deliberately associate with a famous man who also appeared to

be a social and cultural antagonist or not so when people ask me if we were related,

would refuse to answer, leaving them to figure it out. Nowadays, I just tell the truth.

Well, my background is interesting now that I view it in retrospect. While I was groing

up, I didn’t think it was a particularly dramatic life. As a child, I just wanted to grow up

and do things adults do. Now, I wish I could just be a child for one day again and not

have to worry about a single thing!

I grew up in Ibadan and had all my schooling there, including two university degrees.

The first time I lived elsewhere was when I moved to Lagos to take up a job. I was

raised by parents who were both teachers, who enforced strict discipline and made

sure that we read books all the time. We were not even allowed to watch TV except

for special occasions. As a result of all those constraints, I developed a love for books.

Oh, I grew up reading all sorts of books. I love reading. It saved my life because it

broadened the scope of my imagination. I started dreaming of a bigger world and to

achieve that, I knew I had to read like mad. So I did. Then I started desiring to write

too, just to clear the demons in my head. I wrote my first novel at 16, months after

I left secondary school. I just had this story in my mind that overwhelmed me and I

knew I had to write it. So I started, in an exercise book. I cannot recall the details of

the story but it had something to do with forgiveness. And it was a Christian story,

influenced, I am sure by all the TV dramas I saw in Ibadan then. I am sure if somebody

stumbled on that script now, I would die of shame.

JH:  “Communications and Language Arts”, unlike disciplines like Medicine, Law and

Mass Communications, is not a popular field you find admission seekers in Nigeria

thronging to. Reflecting on this, what influenced your decision to choose this not so

popular field and going on to bag two degrees in the discipline?

AA: My dream was to study Mass Communication in UniLag and be a TV continuity

announcer. Growing up in Ibadan then, I didn’t get to see much TV beyond the

NTA and BCOS channels until Galaxy opened in Oke-Are. They started broadcasting

and they were so radically different from what I had been used to. And even more

exciting was that they had these beautiful continuity announcers who just turned my

head each time I saw them. So I wanted to be a continuity announcer too and work in

a broadcast media house.

Well, I attended a public school where we did not have school counselors who

actually did the job of a counselor. We were left to counsel ourselves and so I didn’t

know how to go about getting admitted to Unilag. I was in the Arts and when I wrote

the UME, I took arts and social science subjects, and then Commerce. Thankfully, I

passed the exams but I was not admitted. Nobody gave me any reason and I didn’t

even know whom to ask. I took the exam the second time and I had the same

experience. This time my mother took me to the admissions office of the University

where I was told that I could not be admitted because of my subject combination

in the UME, that the Commerce –which, ironically, was the subject I passed most- I

wrote disqualified me because it did not quite fit into their rubric of “social sciences.”

I was so discouraged that I wasted two years of my life, worse because I didn’t have

the right information. The third time I wrote UME, I just settled for UI which was

geographically accessible and where I could get all the information I needed. I didn’t

even try any other school anymore. So, I ended up in Communication and Language

Arts which was actually broader in scope than Mass Communication. Oh, I must add

that the course is a heavily subscribed one. If you are looking for one of the most

popular courses in UI, try CLA. People actually throng to CLA, they just don’t make a

noise about it.

Anyway, I am glad my dream did not work out. Have you noticed that TV stations no

longer use continuity announcers? If I had become one, I would probably be out of

job now.

JH: You are a journalist, columnist, fiction writer, student and activist; how have you

been able to combine all these activities?

I am also a daughter, a sister, a friend, an aunt, a niece, and everything. How do I

combine them? Well, I do by not erecting a demarcating line between all that I have

to be. The point is, I am not in discrete professions like Medicine and Law, all that

I am are in sync with each other. When I am doing one, I am also doing the other.

When I am building myself for writing a column for instance, I am also feeding the

other part of me that writes fictions. But you are right, being many things in one

body can be physically and mentally enervating if not well managed. I have a crazy

schedule and for the past few years, it has not got better. What I do these days is to

make sacrifices. There are some aspects of my schedule that I can cut off so that I can

build other ones. It could be tough but I need to stay sane.

JH:  From my observation, you appear to hold very strong views and fearlessly express

them in your column in The Punch. Diplomacy appears not to be your strength, if I

read you well. What inspires such?

I am always amused when people tell me I am a fearless speaker. Really? What

boldness do I express that other writers don’t? I read a number of Nigerian writers

and I ask myself what ways I display courage that other Nigerians who write on

their Facebook page and Twitter handles don’t? I wouldn’t say diplomacy is not my

strength; I actually work hard at being diplomatic to the subject. When I say subject, I

mean both the issue I am writing about, and the person in the midst of it. You should

know that I do not bait people, not at all. I have strong views, yes, but who doesn’t?

What I don’t do, and will never do, is pander. No, there is no point doing that. People

sometimes say you should try to play up the nice parts of the person to achieve a

“balance” and I respond that I don’t need a pseudo-balance to make anybody feel

good. Most Nigerian politicians I deal with have paid pipers who already sing their

praises so why should I do it?

Also, I write about taboo subjects in a straight no-bullshitting way that turns some

people off. I have no apologies for that. When people send me messages and say,

“why would you write to support gays or a law on abortion?” I tell them that that

is my honest opinion and I have no values that enable me pretend I feel differently.

Some topics need to be put out there if only to demystify them. It might run

contrary to general beliefs but the beauty of an open forum like a column is when it

accommodates all kinds of views. Why should you buy a newspaper to read me when

all I have to say is a rehash of all that you already think? What is the point?

JH: The “new media” has been re-shaping the journalism landscape in Nigeria for the

last few years with upsurge in the number of twitter and facebook accounts, blogs

and several online based media outfits. Several have suggested that the development

is cancerous, basing their judgements on the journalism ethics and standard being

eroded in the anonymous world of the internet. What is your perception on this, do

you see this as a positive development or negative one, and do you see the “new

media” completely upstaging the traditional media in Nigeria anytime soon?

The New Media will not upstage the traditional media by eradicating it like the CD

did to the cassette. In my opinion, both will continue to influence and shape each

other. For instance, on some Nigerian news website, I can read the dailies exactly as

it appears in print. The only difference is that you cannot use your tongue to wet the

top of your finger and turn the pages. Now, what do you call that? Old or New? These

days, the traditional media feeds the New media with reports and the New media

also does the same to the traditional Media. People pick stories from Newspaper

sites and upload it on their blogs. Newspapers go to popular blogs to pick their stories

to further investigate.

See the dynamism?

What we call the traditional media will survive as source of news largely because

of its institutional nature. They are more tangible entities and you can hold them

to certain levels of responsibilities that you cannot hold the blogs for instance. You

know, for instance, that PUNCH has paid reporters that actually go round town

and search for stories to report. I know blogs don’t usually do that; they reproduce

what papers like PUNCH reports. At the same time, because of certain social and

political constraints, there are some stories some newspapers will be afraid to touch.

When that happens, the Facebook and twitter handles come to our rescue. They

are the media where we express ourselves freely, without attempts at what is called

diplomacy.

For me, I have no fear of one form of medium kicking the other out. Rather, I am

more interested in how we can marry the potentials of the two and have a vibrant

system where both are mutually reinforcing and mutually challenging of each other. I

want one to be an ombudsman of sorts to the other. I want to see a situation where

the newspapers will report on something because they know if they don’t, the blogs

would do it anyway.

JH: On a lighter note, a final question I ask my interviewees: how do you relax/unwind?

AA: I read, I write, I cook, I go out to the park or to a nice restaurant, I drive, I chat with

friends and family. Oh, and I watch movies too. I am a movie buff and I see as many

as possible. If you ever need a recommendation to see a movie, ask me, I must have

seen it!!!

Thank you very much, Abimbola

EDITOR’S NOTE: Bimbola’s case, where ignorance of subject combination in UME cost her 2 years at home before gaining admission into university buttresses what I have always said on this blog: lack of right information is the bane of many otherwise brilliant young Nigerians. I have seen this happen to too many people. I have  a friend, a brilliant chap I described as ‘raw gold’, that flunked an opportunity to work with multinational FCMG company, Procter & Gamble, when, as a final year student in his school in the north, he shattered P&G test, only to be saying what he himself described as rubbish, looking back, because he didn’t know what a job interview was about. Until he came to Lagos for NYSC and we inducted him into Corporate Lagos and he realized his fallow potential.

Other exclusive interviews on Jarushub:

Nuhu Ribadu: Former presidential candidate, Federal Republic of Nigeria

Pius Adesanmi – Ace columnist and Professor of English and African Studies, Carleton University, Canada.

Niyi Yusuf – Chief Executive Officer, Accenture Nigeria.

Olusegun Adeniyi – Former Special Adviser to late President Umaru Yar’adua on Media and Communication and currently editorial Board Chairman, Thisday newspaper.

Farooq Kperogi – respected grammar columnist and university don

Opeyemi Agbaje – leading financial expert and former Executive Director, Metropolitan Bank

Nimi Akinkugbe – Former GM & Head, Private Client Services, StanbicIBTC

Taiwo Oyedele, Partner, PwC Nigeria