By Femi Kusa
As for Mr Alex Ibru, considered by some persons to be a MISNOMER on the 12 June 2025 DEMOCRACY HONOURS ROLL, I will take a broad minded view.. I doubt if our colleagues such as Dr Edwin Madunagu, Mr Sully Abu, both Editorial Board members, and Dr. Olatunji Dare, Chairman of the Editorial Board and Editorial page Editor, would agree with me. The Editorial pages are those center pages on which are published everyday the OPINION of the newspaper, LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, the opinion articles of an editorial Board member on a specific day of the week and one or two opinion articles of outside contributors.
On the day before General Sanni Abacha shovelled aside Chief Ernest Shonekan and his Interim National Government planted by Gen. Ibrahim Babangida before he stepped aside as Military President, Mr Ibru called four of us into his office. We were Lade Bonuola, Managing Director;Femi Kusa, Director of publications/Editor-in-chief; Dr Olatunji Dare, Chairman of the Editorial Board/ Editorial Page Editor and Andy Akporugo, Consultant in Mr Ibru’s office and his cousin. Mr Ibru said he got wind that Abacha would push Shonekan aside next day. So, we should write an EDITORIAL to be published in the next edition to advise Gen. Abacha to not do so. It was TOP SECRET. Dr. Dare wrote the Editorial and Lade Bonuola approved it. Dr Dare sent a dummy editorial to the printers, to keep security agents and staff working for them off our scent. In the dead of the night, he sneaked in the original editorial. We were risking our lives. When the emergency editorial was been read by many readers nation-wide next day, praising us, Mr Alex Ibru was been sworn in by Gen. Abacha as Internal Affairs Minister. It was all the more shocking to some of us when Mr Alex Ibru came to the Editorial Board Meeting next day to explain whatever happened. I advised him to resign his chairmanship of the company, to not let the government believe the Guardian was in partnership with it. A humble man, he agreed. Mr Godie Ibru, his elder brother and Chairman of Ikeja Hotels and Sheraton Hotels Lagos, at that time, took over.
I suspected that Gen. Aliyu Gusau,as he was then called, recruited Mr Alex Ibru. for Gen. Abacha. Gen. Gusau, National Security Adviser,( NSA), was a friend of Gen. Abacha and Chief Shonekan. He often went to Chief Shonekan’s house to play squash. Sometimes,riding with him in his decoy car from his guest house, I accompanied him to Chief Shonekan house whenever, as Editor of the Guardian, I had any strategic information to clear with him. We got connected when the Guardian towered above other newspapers by being the only newspaper that did not falsely report that Dr Nnamdi Azikwe had died, when he did not. General Gusau applauded this outstanding feat of meticulous, responsible Journalism in the midst of screaming headlines to the contrary. One of the benefit to me and to the Guardian newspaper of our connection was information flow on Nigeria’s intelligent activities in Libya, collaboration with MOBUTU SESE SEKO of DR CONGO to harbour for Nigeria some Libyan dissidents Moamar Gaddafi which to pick up in this country.
We are back to Gen Abacha and Mr Alex Ibru and to the 12 June 2025 Democracy Honours Roll.
It was possible that Abacha thought The Guardian would back him because Mr Alex Ibru was in his cabinet. Once or twice, Mr Ibru wanted to resign from the cabinet, but Lade Bonuola informed him he would not get away with it in a government such as Abacha’s. Then, the Great Ogboru case came up. He was accused of plotting a coup against Abacha. A court freed him. As Internal Affairs Minister, Mr Ibru was to let him out of prison custody. Until then, Northern leaders hardly entrusted the Internal Affairs portfolio to Southerners. This was a powerful office which governed customs, police, emigration, prisons, national identification e.t.c. It was possible Mr Alex Ibru took the job because he thought is being in that office could make a positive influence on democratic practices. He referred Great Ogboru’s matter to the stubborn and radical Dr Olu Onagoruwa, Minister of Justice and Attorney -General of the Federation. Dr Onagoruwa said Mr Ibru should obey the court. So, he freed Great Ogboru. Abacha was enraged. Later, an assassin tried to kill Dr Onagoruwa in his Lagos home, but his mistook his look-alike son, his eldest child and a barrister, for him and assassinated the young man. Dr Onagoruwa hardly recovered from the shock.
There were unclarified reports that, after surreptitiously purchasing EKO HOTELS and TOWERS, but failed to get Chief Nathaniel Idowu to sell to him EPE PLYWOOD INDUSTRIES, property of ODUA- INVESTMENT of which he was chairman, Abacha made a go for FEDERAL PALACE HOTELS which, probably unknown to him, the international Finance Corporation ( IFC) had supported Mr Alex Ibru to acquire. I will digress to say Chief Idowu did not see danger coming until someone telephoned to warn him to flee from home immediately because a bus load of assassins was on the way to his home. Sighting the bus, Chief Idowu jumped over the fence to the compound next to his backyard and fleed abroad. He never discovered his health from Parkinson’s and other challenges. By now, the relationship of Abacha and Mr Alex Ibru had become frosted. Before Abacha had Mr Ibru shot on Eko Bridge, Mr Ibru had began to justify why he and Yoruba Politicians were in his cabinet. He had said it was important for moderates like him to be in the government to humanise Abacha. In his view, these moderates also included Alhaji Lateef Jakande, respected former governor of Lagos State and Ebenezer Babatope, who, like Jakande, was an associate of chief Obafemi Awolowo, a unifying influence among Yorubas, and Dr Onagoruwa. Mr Ibru invited me to meetings in Abuja with them every weekend for reports on how the moderates were working underground for the release of Chief M.K.O Abiola, even if Abacha would not let him become President. He said Abiola was their problem, that he refused to renounce the mandate. I REFUSED to attend any meeting. ONCE BITTEN, is TWICE SHY. Andy Akporugo was attending, but he couldn’t influence me to publish anything. In exasperation, Mr Ibru and Akporugo turned to Kingsley Osadolor of the Guardian- On- Sunday, in successor to Emeka Izeze who, meanwhile, had succeeded me as the Editor of the daily titles. I signed the papers for Kingsley Osadolor to go to Abuja and waited for his report as his Editor -in-chief. I waited all evening on the Saturday Kingsley Osadolor was to take the paper to bed. He said the report was not ready. I was to read it, approve it or disapprove of it. If I disapproved of it and Mr Alex Ibru did not like my decision, he could through the back door ask the Board to fire me. I was prepared for that. I was, because I understood Mr Alex Ibru well in such delicate matters. If he put you under pressure and you succumbed and problems arouse from his back room decision, he would tell you that you were the professional and you should have known better. If you resisted him and he found your decision was better than his, he would say the same to you. I had that experience with him, for example, when I had to publish a very delicate report which humiliated President Ibrahim Gbadamosi Babangida(IBB). A life-long friend and multi-lateral confidant of Babangida told us that the Military President would allow only two political parties, one slightly socialist and the other slightly conservative out of the twenty-three or more political Associations which were seeking recognition by him to become political parties. Mr Ibru and I agreed he and the informant would not be mention if Gen. Babangida got me. I knew I was running a risk. I planted the report for publication after all government spies would have left us alone. Gen. Babangida, who always thought he was the smartest Nigerian, got the shocker of his life in the morning. That morning, he was to fly to Lagos from Abuja and and broadcast to the nation in the evening that he had permitted registration of only two political parties, one to the left, and one to the right, as the Guardian correctly speculated in the morning. The Guardian reputation grew. So did that of Mr Alex Ibru, his Chairman and Publisher. Kingsley Osadolor saved my job because he did not show me the report by the time I left the office at about 2 a.m on the Sunday that the edition was to be published, whereas the printers were to have taken the paper to bed four hours earlier at 11p.m on Saturday. In the morning, I went for an Hour of Worship. I hoped to return to the office to write a query on why the Editor failed to submit the report for vetting. I was shocked when a friend of mine told me our front page story of that day was out of character. I couldn’t say I didn’t see it before publication. On the way home, I bought a copy from a vendor. I knew immediately there was going to be trouble. The major headline was… INSIDE ASO ROCK.There was a photograph beside it which was illustrating another story and should, therefore, have been cordoned off with an AGATE LINE rule. The Editor was probably inexperienced about management of such a delicate presentation, if he was not deliberate in leaving the flanks open. Even if he was professional, would Abacha not have read his intent upside down?
However, the photograph was left unprofessionally to illustrate a dangerous lead story. The photograph showed two Cockerels squared up beak to beak, their combs standing on end, suggesting readiness for a dastardly fight of their lives. Was this what was going on INSIDE ASO ROCK between the Yoruba moderates and Abacha?
When I got home and had a meal, my gateman came to hand me a note. Some persons from the office had come to inform me that The Guardian had been shut and security personnel had taken over the premises. I rushed to the house of the Kingsley Osadolor in the staff quarters about 50 metres from my resident. His wife said he left home early that morning. I learned from other staff there that he had gone into hiding. I hurried back home. Luckily,my school father, Dr Ayo Ojo, younger brother of Chief Ade Ojo of ELIZADE MOTORS, had come around and taken my family into hiding. I drove to the office but parked about 200 meters away. Some staff who were taking away but were later released because they were not journalists, told me to escape. That was how I found my way first to Dr Ojo’s clinic as a patient and, later, to his home.
Alex Ibru And The Closure Of The Guardian
I have tried above to explain why Mr Alex Ibru may deserve a place on the 12 June 2025 Democracy Honours Roll ..If, indeed, he and moderates politicians from the South West Region were in Gen. Abacha’s cabinet to buy freedom for M.K.O Abiola and Mr Alex Ibru could employe his office to save Great Ogboru from Abacha’s hangman or firing squad, there may be something to say of their potential positive impact on Abacha’s decisions and actions. On the other hand, they have been many persons who have accused The Guardian of compromising the battle for democracy by going to Abuja to lie prostate before Abacha and beg for bread and butter. Afterall, they say, The Guardian was not the only newspaper which Abacha shut for opposing him. Editors of the Punch newspaper, shut like The Guardian newspaper for opposing Abacha’s tyranny, vociferously rejected suggestions that they meet with Abacha in Abuja and apologise to him for whatever they may have done to upset him and his government.
The closure of The Guardian strains relations between publisher ALEX Ibru and some of the Editors. Kingsley Osadolor may very well deserve a Democracy Award for opening up going-on inside ASO ROCK. I cannot blame him for throwing away the knife, as an innocent or ignorant child would do when it plays with the knife as a toy and its bears its fangs by cutting his finger and spilling some blood. Any Editor who survived many military regimes in Nigeria know how to play the game. Babafemi Ojudu and Bayo Onanuga were more or less radical Editors who operated in the dark. Their home and office addresses were unknown to outsiders. They could write their reports inside carcases of discarded “Molue and Danfo” buses. They could typeset them on the go inside the bush. The could print their journals in the least expected places. They could distributes them through faceless vendors. Their cars did not roam well known streets, so they had no fear of security Agent wiring them underneath with time bombs at public parks. Dele Giwa fell victim because his house address was public secret. Mr Alex Ibru, like us the Editors of The Guardian, had known home addresses. The association for better Nigeria( ABN), used by the government for terrible things, had an office right opposite my resident. l knew I was being watched. After the closure, my resident was under surveillance. I sneaked in one night on foot into the empty house for some cash, tired off living exclusively on Dr Ayo Ojo. I jumped one floor down into the next compound when I began to hear my gate shaken and strange voices shouting my name. The previous week, a young man named Femi, my name sake, who.lived next door in the resident of Madam Grace Ibru, Mr Alex Ibru’s elder sister, had been held when he came out of their house and put into awaiting jeep nearby after he identify himself by his first name. He was released only after identifying himself as a worker at Sheraton Hotel Lagos. Crashing through the air about 50fts to the landing at close to 50 years of age, without prior training in such matters is another story for another day.
Meanwhile, the business relations between Mr Alex Ibru and some of the Editors of The Guardian seriously deteriorated. Mr Ibru thought Yoruba Editors at The Guardian ( Lade Bonuola, Femi Kusa and Dr Tunji Dare) were too supportive of NADECO in the struggle to make Chief M.K.O Abiola President from which other nationalities in Nigeria, except the Yorubas, had withdrawn. He thought, also, that THE GUARDIAN’S anti- Abacha position could impact Abacha on business profile of the Ibru family. Accordingly, he sought to make the Editors meet with Abacha and apologise to him. Kingsley Osadolor supported Mr Ibru’s plan. So did Emeka Izeze. Dr Tunji Dare, Chairman of Editorial Board and Editorial page Editor, declined to see Abacha. He vaccated the company’s flat and travelled to the United States to teach journalism in a university. Sully Abu and Dr Edwin Madunagu, both also staff members of the Editorial Board,resigned their appointment as well. When Lade Bonuola, Managing Director, rejected Mr Ibru’s plan, the publisher summoned an Executive Board meeting attended by lade Bonuola ( Managing Director), Femi Kusa( Director of Publications/Editor-in-Chief, Nickolas Iduwe ( Managing Director of Express Printing and packing Limited, in-house printers of Guardian newspapers) Andy Akporugo (consultant in Mr Ibru’s office), Mr Osasomi, Mr Ibru’s school mate at Ibadan Grammar School. I do not remember if Olu Oke( Managing Director, Guardian services Limited, in-house Accountant/Administration Company of The Guardian was present.
Lade Bonuola rejected for the upteenth time Mr Ibru’s plan. Exasperated, Mr Ibru turned to Lade Bonuola that, if he was a man,he knew what to do in that circumstance. Lade Bonuola offered his resignation. Mr Ibru turned to me, Femi Kusa, and offered me the office of the Managing Director. I rejected it outright. Mr Ibru launched verbal assaults on me, saying he made me Editor, against the wish of the former Managing Director, Dr Stanley Macebuh, who proposed an academic for the job.For the first time, I looked Mr IBRU right in the eye and told him “I DIDN’T BEG TO BE EDITOR”.. IN ANY CASE HADN’T I PROVEN HIS DECISION BETTER THAN DR MACEBUH’S? In my first year as Editor, The Guardian began to make profits for the first time in its existence of six years. I wish to digress a little and say that Lade Bonuola kept secrets to a fault. He would be traveling abroad by 11p.m tonight and the notice, including my appointment to act for him in Editorial matters would be on the notice board as late as 9 p.m, two hours from boarding. In the matter of the battle for his successor, I knew nothing except for grapevine publications in newswatch magazine which I disregarded as the handiwork of jobless person. When Mr Alex Ibru began to capitalise on the fact that he throw his weight behind me, I understood where he was coming from and heading, that I should pay him back in good coin. Unknown to him, however, my existence on earth, and I pray elsewhere, had been based purely on serious principles which do not permit that I bow before the Darkness or serve It.
To be concluded next week
