• Super Admin
• 07 Mar, 2026

The Shehu Musa Yar'Adua International Conference Centre, Abuja, was a beehive of activities last Saturday. The double-barreled occasion was the public presentation of the autobiography and the 80th birthday celebration of one of the journalism avatars ever to stalk the Nigerian media space. The celebrated icon is Chief Simon Shango. The occasion, hosted by this nephew, who is also the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF), Sen. George Akume, (I nearly wrote Acumen), attracted the crème de la crème of well-wishers, among them topflight politicians, government functionaries, captains of industries, business tycoons, traditional rulers, and media chieftains. By the time I sauntered into the venue of the occasion, the security men at the main entrance told me there was no more space to park more cars. Indeed, the ambience glittered with SUVs and all manner of heavy cars. The hall was already swarming with guests by the time I was ushered in. Already seated were the chief host, Senator Akume, the reviewer of the book, entitled, "Thought of a Servant of Humanity", Dr. Haroun Adamu, the reader of the citation of the author and my good friend, Professor Iyorwuese Hagher, who made the audience to know how the celebrant got his the cognomen, Shangoji, but shortened to Shango. Also present was former Benue state Governor, Chief Samuel Ortom, and singing machine and philosopher, Dr. Bongos Ikwue, who later thrilled the audience to some stanzas from his melodious songs. After a successful public presentation of the book, I meandered through the crowd to Mr. Shango's seat and announced my presence because he is having some challenges with his sight. He grabbed my hands and pumped them so hard you would not believe he was 80. He was excited to see me again. I congratulated him on his birthday and the presentation of the book. The occasion was not the right place for any catching-up. But I promised to see him at his residence. I first met Mr. Shango when I joined the New Nigerian Newspapers in the early 70s. Initially, I thought he was a Yoruba man. I was deceived by his surname, Shango - the Yoruba god of thunder. Then, I remembered a Shango drama during my boyhood. I had been accused of cocoyam theft by a woman seller of the commodity in the neighbourhood in Ikirun, Osun state. A few hours before the accusation, I had gone to her to buy the crop but she told me she was yet to go to the farm and that the little she had left was not for sale. I left her place in a foul mood because roasted cocoyam was one of my favourite delicacies when eaten with palm oil dredge. Later in the evening, the woman announced to the neighbourhood that her cocoyams had vanished and that I was the prime suspect. A motley crowd soon gathered. I flatly denied the accusation and told the crowd that I had an alibi, which they mistook for Alibay, the nickname of my close friend, Ali Balogun. Alibay was summoned to the scene. He confirmed my story that we had been out of the neighbourhood to play football immediately after I left the cocoyam seller. In the midst of the accusation and denial, one of my guardian's wives returned from the market and was shocked to hear that I had been accused of cocoyam theft. She pulled me aside to extract the truth from me and warned me of the grave consequences in the event of her intervention because she was going to involve Shango to expose the thief. I maintained my innocence, and you could hear the sound loud and clear as I crushed popcorn and groundnuts in my mouth. Some folks in the crowd looked at me with extreme pity. One of them said to my hearing, "This boy's end is near, and he does not even know it. Instead, he is eating epa and guguru." The way Shango, the retributive god of justice, works is that he would fish out the thieves, knock them down flat, and place the stolen items on their chests. No sooner did the process of involving Shango commence than dark clouds began to gather above our heads! Fear gripped every onlooker. I remained calm. And out of the blue, a young woman stepped forward to confess she had stolen the item. Shango and the likes of Dan Agbese, were my senior colleagues already established with the New Nigerian, and I revered them from afar. They were like gods of the pens. Unknown to me, Mr. Shango was following my trajectory as a young reporter with a bias for sports reporting, having covered the NUGA Games hosted by the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where I was reporting from. One Friday evening, I returned home only to be informed by my uncle that my City Editor, Mr. Francis Talabi, had called him from Kaduna to leave a message that I was wanted in Jos immediately for a job opening with a proposed newspaper, The Nigeria Standard. I was so excited because of my love for Jos and its clement weather. On Sunday, by 7 am, I hit the road for a journey that lasted almost a whole day because of the terrible state of the (dusty) road. We spent 17 hours! When I finally checked into my hotel room in Jos and passed by a standing mirror, I could not recognise myself. I cut the picture of someone rescued from debris. If you beat my dress gently, you would gather two kilogrammes of dust! In fact, I still wonder until this moment why the hotel receptionist did not flee at my sight... you could easily pass me for a lunatic! It was when I got to Jos that I was informed that it was Mr. Shango who penciled down my name to be engaged to set up the sports desk for the new paper. I was so surprised. This was because I never had any close interaction with him before then. He later told me that he was seduced by the way I singlehandedly and admirably covered the NUGA Games despite having no field experience until I joined the New Nigerian two years earlier. He confessed that he was swept off his feet by my writing style, choice of words, and the use of metaphors. I thanked him for the consideration and promised not to fail him. Mr. Shango took charge of all the operational activities at the head office located along Zaria Bypass, adjacent to the OLA Maternity Hospital, Jos. He was designated as the Chief Correspondent. The Editor, Mr. Iliya Audu, operated from Benin City, where the paper was printed off the Nigerian Observer Press every week, while the permanent structure was being constructed under the close watch of the founder of the paper and Military Governor of the defunct Benue-Plateau State, Police Commissioner Joseph Dechi Gomwalk. All news and advertisement materials from across the country were coordinated by Mr. Shango for editing and onward transmission to Benin. Mr. Shango became fond of me as the youngest member of the editorial staff. Despite my specialty in sports, he knew I was an all-rounder. From time to time, he would pass some news stories to me to edit. One day, he called me to his office and told me he was posting me to Makurdi. I narrowed my eyes and asked him what would happen to the sports desk, which he engaged me to handle. He waved my argument aside. All he wanted was a capable hand to cover the old Benue Province where he comes from as a Tiv man. When Mr. Audu came to Jos for a weekend, I told him about the development. He overruled the move. About a year later, I was posted to Ibadan on relief duty for a month. On our way to Ibadan in one of the luxurious buses in the fleet of a transport company owned by Ambassador Yahaya Kwande, we fled into the bush in the dead of the night. The driver must have suffered from road fatigue and dozed off momentarily. I cannot remember the route we took. We had a breakdown in Kaduna, which delayed our journey. As the 50-seater anaconda tore through the thick bush, panic gripped all the passengers. Women and kids were screaming their lungs out. When the machine finally came to a halt, we groped our way to the exit door. We had also seen a flicker of light from a vehicle. One of the passengers had a flashlight. So, he led the way towards the highway. Looking back, I cannot help but thank God that I survived the crash. The bus had covered about 50 metres before ending up in a ditch. It was so eerily dark that I thought we had crossed over to the great beyond. Traumatised, we all limped our way to the highway and waited in pain for the dawn to crack. There was no loss of lives, but some of us suffered minor injuries. I was fit enough to continue with the trip. A week after my stay in Ibadan, there was a change of guards at the headquarters following the overthrow of the Gowon regime. The new editor, Mr. George Baba Hoomkwap, on assuming duties, asked for me. He was shocked to hear that the paper's arrowhead for sports had gone on relief duty. Mr. Hoomkwap had been following my exploits on the sports desk. He immediately ordered my return to Jos. There is another experience I should not forget to recall. During a lunch break, I decided to stay back in the office to treat some sports stories filed in by our reporters from all over the country. My biro ran out of ink. So, I went to look for one in Mr. Shango's office. He had left his door unlocked. I was looking for a biro, but suddenly I became a Prince of Serendip! I stumbled on a huge amount of cash. In one of his drawers were wads of notes. A voice congratulated me for locating the cash. "What if I help myself to some notes, and this Shango gets to know about it?" I asked the voice. I resisted the temptation when I remembered the cocoyam thief whose timely confession saved her from the wrath of Shango. I got the biro I was looking for and continued with my job. But I refused to go on break until Mr. Shango came back. I took that decision because I would be the first to be accused of stealing since I was the only one left in the office at the break time. When Mr. Shango returned from his break, I followed him to his office. He sat down and asked, "Yes, Clem, any problems?" I drew his attention to the temptation he led me into and why I had to stay put in the office until he returned to his desk, so that no one would behave truly like the Prince of Serendip upon sighting the cash. All accusing fingers would point at me as the last man in the office during the break time. He narrowed his eyes in shock. As a reward for my honesty, he pulled out a pound note and asked me to go and enjoy myself. Three years into the life of the paper, Benue State was created out of Benue-Plateau State. All the indigenes of the new state had to disengage from the paper. Mr. Shango was one of them. I felt a sense of loss when he left, and I wish I could join him when he set up The Voice Newspaper for the new state. Mr. Shango and I drifted apart but I followed his trajectory in journalism up to the time he joined the Daily Times as a director, and his stint in politics as the National Publicity Secretary of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in the Second Republic. More than three decades stood between us until we met physically again on Saturday's occasion. Here is wishing him many more years of service to humanity. Source: https://blueprint.ng/80-mighty-pens-for-simon-shango/