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Nigeria’s 24-Karat Diamond
(Tell Magazine)

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By Dare BABARINSA
For anyone who has followed his career, it would not come as a surprise that Dele Olojede won the Pulitzer Prize for journalism. Olojede was the foreign editor and chief of correspondents of the New York Newsday. He won his prize for his story on Rwanda, the tiny Southern African country that was visited by evil when the Hutu slaughtered 800,000 of their Tutsi neighbours and those they considered their collaborators. Olojede has again brought the attention of the world to Rwanda, its inexplicable tragedy and why we need to embrace our humanity whatever the temptations. His triumph is the flip side of Hotel Rwanda, the great contemporary film on the same tragedy.

Olojede represents one of the best of our exports. We were together at the University of Lagos where we read Mass Communication. He later became my colleague at the Concord Group of Newspapers, established by that incomparable businessman and philanthropist, Chief Moshood Abiola. It was in Concord that Olojede revealed his promise. Even so early, the editors recognised his great talent and included him among members of the “Concord Forum”, a special interview panel for the movers of society. And that was at a time he was just doing his national service. It was in Newswatch, where Olojede was the second editorial employee (after Rolake Omonubi of the Nigerian Tribune), that his great talent would experience a sublime explosion.

He wrote the first cover story of the magazine and, from there, mounted up with wings like an eagle. He dazzled his editors. In 1985, he wrote three cover stories back-to-back on the sudden imprisonment of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti who had been jailed for attempting to export his own money. Such was the absurdity of the General Muhammadu Buhari dictatorship. Disturbed by what he had wrought, the judge visited Fela in prison to apologise to the great musician. This was the kennel of Olojede’s story and the judge was fired by the military junta.

I still remember that Sunday on October 19, 1986, when Dele Giwa, our editor-in-chief, was killed with a parcel bomb. Olojede, disturbingly calm, was sitting in Giwa’s office, working the phones, calling different media houses and prominent Nigerians, and telling them the unbelievable and terrifying news. The event of that day was to define our lives. Olojede, like most of us, never fully recovered from that horror. Six months later, after Giwa had been buried, the dictatorship of General Ibrahim Babangida, still battling with the heavy suspicion that it ordered the execution of Giwa, proscribed Newswatch “for an initial period of six months.” Olojede and his friend, Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo, who was later to become managing director of the Daily Times, wrote a moving biography of Dele Giwa, called Born to Run.

By 1987, Olojede left for the United States, having secured a scholarship from the Ford Foundation to enable him read for a master’s in Journalism from the famous Columbia University. In 1988, we met in New York. One evening, he took me from The Hilton, where I lodged, round the city. We visited the United Nations, the World Trade Center and other places. It was an unforgettable evening. I was surprised that Olojede, who had barely spent a year in America, was already familiar with New York roads. He is a fast learner.

Now Olojede has won the Pulitzer Prize, the highest professional recognition for journalists in the United States. This is his crowning glory, the reward of almost two decades of labour as a great reporter and editor of Newsday. I have read the report, Rwanda Genocide Child, a moving story of the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, one of Africa’s most tragic killings. He uses the personal tragedy of Alphoncina Mutuze and her son, Gervais Tuyishime, to tell the story of the Rwandan calamity. In haunting prose and disturbing cadence, Olojede brings to life the heart-rending saga of Mutuze, whose terrifying dilemma is whether to love her son, because he is her son, or to hate him because he is the product of a gang rape.
For Olojede, journalism is not just an occupation but a calling. He embraces it with a deep passion and a profound love for truth and humanity. He is a missionary of the new era, one of those universal men and women who find fulfilment in serving the cause of God and humanity. As far as he is concerned, humanity is one. His old employers, New York Newsday, realised his vast interests and accordingly posted him to different parts of the world, as far a field as Beijing in China or Johannesburg in South Africa. He was, until he left last year, the foreign editor of the paper.

Olojede’s achievement would serve as an inspiration to younger generations of Nigerians. After all, he is a product of this great country. He and his contemporaries at the Department of Mass Communication of the University of Lagos had the best in education and they could justly rub shoulders with their colleagues anywhere in the world. That was the era when the department was dominated by teachers like Olatunji Dare, Alfred Opubor, Ralph Akinfeleye, Idowu Sobowale and Femi Sonaike. Lucky for him, too, that at that time, he was able to get under the tutelage of some of the best editors Nigeria ever produced. Now he is shining for the world to see. Dele Giwa was right. Olojede is truly a 24-karat diamond. Giwa would have been so proud of him.

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