Tonnie Iredia: Talking to ‘Mr point-blank’

Professor Tonnie Osa Iredia made his name as a broadcaster. He rose from the post of a news manager in the Midwest Television, to become the director-general of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) in 2003. The professor of Media Studies is the owner of a brand new university of communication. As you will read in this interview, he has done many other things in life.

How would you describe your early life?

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Like every young Nigerian of my generation, early life could have been very rough and difficult, especially for those of us who did not come from buoyant homes. 

Sometimes you may have to step out of school so that your other brother could be in it as your father or mother could not pay for two people together. So those early stages were quite rough

I spent a chunk of it in Benin at the very beginning and went to Ibadan, where I was for so many years. I went to college and university there. It was at the end of university education that I started thinking of going back to Benin. I found myself in the Midwest Television.

What did you read in the University of Ibadan?

It was a combination of Sociology and Mass Communication. But the university didn’t have a Mass Communication department, so those of us who wanted to do that had to be doing combinations here and there. As soon as we finished, we had to start going to places like the Nigeria Institute of Journalism (NIJ) to ensure that nobody said one was not a journalist.

Did you do any professional training apart from what you had in NIJ?

After I finished and was working. I had to go and do a diploma at NIJ and came back. I also did another one in Culture and Communication at Bayero(University). And at that time, the Midwest Television, which became NTA, was very interested in getting people to study, so I went to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). 

Was Midwest Television your first job besides freelancing?

Yes; in the media. Before that, I did some part-time teaching. Even when I was working in Midwest Television, I was doing part-time teaching in the Institute of Continuing Education that was almost directly outside the station.

You were promoted to the position of news manager at an early age – in your late 20s; right?

Yes.

That was under a military government; was it challenging?

It was under Ogbemudia at the very first, but subsequent military governors came. It was tedious, but I don’t think they were that harsh.

 Once or twice, we ran into some difficulties; for example, those coups and countercoups. You would be in your house at 5am and suddenly, soldiers would come and carry you and say you must go and open your station and read news; and things like that until they left.

Did that happen in Benin?

Yeah, when there was a coup, you were called to announce it and asked to legitimise by working. Everybody was brought back to the station to work as if nothing had happened. 

 But it was quite interesting. I was doing more of interviews. And mine was a hot seat.

You were doing an interview session called Point Blank on national television. 

It was interview that took me to the very top. 

What were you doing in Midwest Television?

It was that same programme. 

With the same name?

Not same name. First, it was called Hot Seat, then the government and other people started saying it was too hot and we changed it to Guest of the Week.

More like the NTA then?

But it was still hot. From there, I moved to the headquarters and revived the idea of interviews and gave it the name, Point Blank.

As a government broadcaster, how did you manage to do a hot seat interview of the same officials who were your bosses?

It was very difficult, but I don’t know what prompted me. I had a lot of courage and went on and on. After a while, I became known for it, such that, they would say, “Leave him, Tonnie Iredia is like that, don’t worry. So everybody left me to do what I wanted to do”. But there were one or two cases where it was hard.

I remember the experience of the Black Scorpion, Brigadier Adekunle, who came to the programme and I asked if it was true that he used to kill soldiers so that he could collect their salaries. The man said, “You are very lucky I didn’t come with my gun, I would have shot you here and nothing will happen.”

Was this during the civil war or after?

It was during the war. He was the commander of the 3rd Marine Commando. He came to Benin when I interviewed him and asked that question.

Was there a rumour that he was killing people?

Yes. And I made it clear to him that it was a rumour and we were offering him an opportunity to clear the air, but he was very upset that I asked that kind of question.

Did the interview end at that point?

It didn’t. There were many more riotous ones.

Can you give us one more example of another dramatic one?

Another dramatic one was not with a military personnel but a civilian. It was during the 1979 presidential election and I had the opportunity of interviewing presidential candidates.

At that time, we were already NTA and the headquarters was taking the tapes and transmitting them nationwide. Sometimes I was asked to go to Lagos, which was the headquarters of the NTA, to do interviews.

We had presidential interviews and it came to the turn of Zik of Africa( Nmandi Azikwe). He was very upset because I asked: “You want to become the president of Nigeria, but I recall that during the civil war you were on the Biafran side. If Biafra had won, where would you have been aspiring to lead now?” He didn’t take that question kindly.

He said he was convinced that I was planted there as an agent of his opponent with the intention to destabilise him. He went on and on with his very superfluous language.

Unfortunately for me, because I had learnt that art, I never changed. In the middle of that anger, I said, “Well, I am asking you this question because there’s this story that you wrote the Biafran national anthem.” It was like pouring fuel on burning fire, so he just stood up and said, “I would rather we stop, I cannot continue.”

But after the anger, he sat down again and I started explaining to him that as a matter of fact, this is the best type of interview he could get because it was an opportunity to clear the misgivings of the public. Eventually, we managed to finish the programme.

Are those tapes still available?

I doubt very much. You are even going too far; I doubt if Point Blank tapes, which are not too far away, are available and you are talking about the ones that are almost decades. It is because of the nature and structure of the system. A lot of people just assume that a television station requires just camera etc; they don’t recognise that you need a good library.

But there are places where you keep these old tapes?

They are not there. I have tried to get some but I have not been able to get any. But you see, during those first times, the tapes were rather bulky; they were not like these small ones now. And they were also not durable. They almost immediately spoiled when subjected to heat. And you could hardly find a station that could put on generator or air conditioner for 24 hours, just to make sure that tapes didn’t spoil. That has taken a toll on such very significant materials.

At what point did you move from Benin to the NTA headquarters?

First of all, I moved to the electoral commission in 1987. I first of all moved to the Law School on study leave.

You also wanted to be a lawyer?

Yes. I had finished reading Law and wanted to go to the Nigerian Law School so that I could be called to the Bar.

So you read Law while still working as a journalist?

Yes; while I was in Benin. It was not like now when you have law schools here and there. Everybody had to go to Lagos where the law school was.

I went to law school in 1986 and left in 1987. As I went back to Benin, I had just been promoted to the position of general manager. I went back and was trying to settle in. Just before I could resume, I was told that the federal government wanted to see me in Lagos and I was wondering what happened.

Who was the federal government that wanted to see you? 

When I got there, the Chief of General Staff, Augustus Aikhomu was asked to speak to me. He said they didn’t want me to hear it on radio that the federal government had decided that I should go to the electoral commission.

Anyway, I got to find out what the details were – the government was trying to insulate the electoral commission from public attacks and thought that if they had a formidable journalist in the system, he would take all the heat and the system would go on.

So I was appointed the director of public affairs at the electoral commission. As at the time I got there, I hadn’t even voted before because things like that didn’t really interest me. So I just couldn’t understand how the government came to the conclusion that it had to be me that would take up the appointment.

Maybe your interviews?

Well, I don’t know. Maybe you are right; it is most likely. So I settled down, got to the business and found it exciting. We had a chairman, Prof Eme Awa, who was quite a strong man. I think the government was trying to dictate a few things to him, which he didn’t support. He was obstinate and all of that and they changed him and brought(Professor) Humphrey Nwosu.

It was with Humphrey Nwosu that we conducted those series of elections that climaxed in the June 12 presidential election of 1993. I was there. So that took me away from Benin to Lagos.

There’s a lot of stories about Humphrey Nwosu and the June 12 presidential election – some blamed him while some said he did the right thing. As a witness, what’s your take on June 12?

Maybe what someone like me should do is to throw light on what really happened so that those who are blaming people should stop doing so and those who are not blaming people should look for who to blame.

To start with, I doubt very strongly whether Babangida was part of those who didn’t want June 12. He did many of the things he did while we were working. He provided many of the things we lacked in a jiffy. It was like somebody was anxious that this thing should succeed. I saw that. The second thing I saw was that, to my mind, there was an internal coup that was not announced. I believe that at the tail end of the Babangida administration, he was no longer in control. That’s why you could see that the so-called annulment was a piece of paper that nobody really knew the author. 

Babangida didn’t operate like that – when he wanted to do something, he did it. For example, if he wanted to ban people, he would just announce on television that the following people were banned. And he never cared.

So, what they were doing towards the tail end of the Babangida regime was not his style. I think it was a group of military guys who wanted military rule to continue that didn’t want the transition, so they brought pressure on the sitting president to annul June 12. However, we cannot take the blame away from him on the basis that he was the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, so he had to take control. He has to take the blame for whatever his people did, but I don’t think they are picking the real enemies of June 12.

There were enemies who were not even in the military, such as traditional rulers and top government officials who thought that if the military government continued, they would retain their positions. They were all working for the annulment of June 12.

Being in INEC was actually sidestepping your main profession, which is broadcasting. At what point did you go back to the NTA?

 They dissolved the commission and asked everybody to go away. But someone like me didn’t have any problem because I was deployed from the NTA. So I got a letter stating that I should go back to the NTA.

So, one day, I was just there and I saw an announcement saying that I had been deployed to the National Orientation Agency (NOA). So I went there and worked for a while. 

Then Obasanjo came and said that all those who had been taken away from government institutions should return. So, if you were a professional surveyor you would go back to what you were doing, etc. It was a generous statement. I didn’t know how to go back, so I didn’t do anything until I got a letter transferring me from the NOA back to NTA as the executive director( News). I was in charge of news.

The position of the executive director of news was at the heart of the business of the NTA. That’s the position where the Villa and everybody would want your attention?

It was not treated like a political position; you had to be qualified. And you had to have the respect of those who were working there, unlike now when your junior can become the executive director and you will just be there.

 At the time I was the executive director of news, there was no news person that was senior to me. So it was a position I earned. The government was actually saying I should go and rescue the place. So I returned to the NTA.

But these were politicians. Obasanjo was a politician.  Were there no calls during the news to ask why you didn’t put this and that?

Oh yes, it was just like the military days. The only thing is that you needed courage and professionalism. They called me several times. They quarreled with me several times. At a point, as you will recall, I was even removed.

Back to the NOA?

Yes; then brought back later. The truth is that I insisted that I was a professional; therefore, no politician could come and dictate the news angle or what made news to me. If you had an event, just apply and we would cover it, but nobody could dictate to me how to use it. So they were not too happy with me. That was why I was redeployed at a point.

There were clashes with Obasanjo?

Oh yes; very many. You see, in fairness, I think Obasanjo was also quite difficult with his party when it came to appointment of people. He didn’t just believe that you had to belong to the party to be appointed, you had to be good. That was clear. 

And you could see the kind of people he was appointing.People who were not in the party were appointed, such as Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala. He had some respect for technocracy, and some of us enjoyed that.

 Politicians were all over the whole place trying to do whatever they liked and I was telling them that I was not a politician. Therefore, you could not tell me that your party wanted certain things.

 I said I wasn’t appointed by their party but the government. And they would go to the president and say that this man talked anyhow, so the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) could not appoint him. So, I had a tough time with them.

But the interview programmes saved me because everybody was afraid of the series. In one occasion, I was told that the chairman of the PDP was on Point Blank, and by their own definition, I asked a very nasty question. He had gone to the president to say that I should be removed.

Was that Ahmadu Ali?

Yes. He said I had insulted him. But I don’t know whether he did it; I am just telling the story of what I heard. At the end of the day, Obasanjo was angry, asking why somebody would abuse the chairman of their party etc.

I was called and asked what transpired. He asked, “What do you have against the chairman of the PDP?” I said I didn’t have anything against him. He also asked why I was hostile to him and where I saw him. That was the solution when I said he came on Point Blank. Obasanjo said, “What; he came on Point Blank? I said yes and he said, “You mean he came to that your programme and you people are disturbing me here. Have you ever seen me on that programme?”

Did you invite him?

No.

You didn’t try?

I didn’t see the need because I knew it would not be good. There was one occasion they said I must come and meet the president.

For media chat?

The president said I should be on it, but I told them that it was not good. They asked what I meant and I told them that if I went there I would ask questions they won’t like and they would start quarreling. They said I could ask any question as the president was up to detail. I said there was no problem.

So I went. When the programme started, I asked, “Mr President, how come you and your deputy have been fighting? And we heard that the thing has gone to voodoo and African medicine.” He was looking at me.

I continued, “In fact, they said that you and Atiku are out to undo one another the African way.” Obasanjo just said, “Look, they are talking nonsense; Atiku is the one who is doing it. He killed seven cows and said I would die after seven days. But I didn’t die.”

He said it on NTA?

On NTA. The entire system was completely disorganised. They said they advised against bringing this guy but he didn’t listen. But the president was not perturbed. He just said what he was saying and carried on. That was the last they ever invited me.

Why did you stop the programme?

I didn’t stop the programme. I took it to be an NTA programme, so my departure should not stop it.  It was now left for the NTA to put somebody else to do the programme.

So why did the NTA stop the programme?

You have to ask them.

You left the NTA in 2008; was it voluntary or they finally asked you to go?

Well, it is not straightforward. The government suddenly appointed a new director-general while I was still in office. So I took it that I was sacked.

That (was) during the Yar’adua’s government?

Yes. I was told that my tenure had expired, but I don’t know where they got that from because I wasn’t a politician. I was a civil servant and wasn’t 60. And I had not done 35 years on the job. 

So I raised that and found out that the government appeared to have been misled. From the mails, I read that I was even quoted to have said that I wanted to go. Nobody asked me.

You didn’t sit down with the president?

No. Nobody said anything.

He wasn’t accessible to you like Obasanjo?

He wasn’t. It was just like that.

You had plans after work; so what were you doing?

While I was the director-general of the NTA, one of my favourite pet jobs was to elevate the TV College in Jos to a degree awarding institution. So it immediately tells you where I swayed to.

So, when I left office, I started doing those things I thought ought to be. I started doing training and trying to go to the academics, and all of that.

So you went and did a PhD?

No; I already had a PhD. In fact, I have two PhDs. I already had all of that before I retired, so it was easy for me to get a job. At that time, if you had a PhD, it was very simple. You would not only get a job, you would probably start with a senior lecturer position. So I went to do that.

When I got there, I discovered that there was really a big gap between theory and practice. What we teach students in the class is not what they meet when they go out. For example, when you want to teach students what is news, you start telling them that it has to be something odd, something strange, all those kinds of funny adjectives used to define news in those days. And then you would say it had to be fresh etc.

But students would come out of school and find that news is hardly ever fresh because when it breaks, a reporter wants to go and catch it. So why would you be saying that news is fresh?

People like us who came with that practical background started challenging those theoretical foundations. And that made it quite easy for me. I enjoyed it.

And at that point, I started thinking of the need for more institutions that could synergise the theory and practice of media, especially the broadcast media.

 You can see that I have gone ahead to try to get a university of communication, where we would do this idea of merging theory and practice and ensure that people who come out of there are experts, not just people holding degrees that need induction and all of that before they can operate.

That’s really the reason I am pursuing a specialised university – not to replicate what is on ground but to create a new thinking on how to make a journalist.

How much trouble did you take to get the licence? It has to be signed by the president and taken to the Federal Executive Council.

Well, I started in 2021 and I got it in 2025. That’s how long it took. Some people got it 11 years later. Some people got it maybe a year or so.

So you got a licence to set up a university of communication; what are you going to do with it now?

I am going to start a university that is on communication. Before the licence was given, you ought to have reached some percentage; so we have already set up the system.

Does it take a lot of money?

Quite a lot.

Where will you get it?

I am hoping that people who are my friends like you would come forward and do one thing or another. You can build a studio and call it Kabiru Studio.

I am wondering where a former civil servant and now professor would get the money from. The idea is great but where would the money come from?

I also think there’s an exaggeration of the capital nature of universities because there’s so much you  really don’t need. If you go outside this country you will see a simple building like this operating as a university. Why is it that in our own case, a whole town is the equivalent of a university?

Because we like buildings.

We like bogus things; that’s why we have a stadium inside a university. Do you want to be a football entrepreneur or a university? Why do you need a stadium? Those are the kinds of things I think contributed to raising the amount of money that one needs.

I think that anybody who is not running a university for the purpose of profit may not spend as much as people are saying. If you are like me trying to create a legacy and ensure that people really come to understand the profession they want to join and your only worry is not to make a loss, the university will be possible.

Is it not a lot of trouble at your stage of life to start a big project like this?

Ordinarily, the answer would be yes, but I also think it depends on the volume of work you do. If you are just a promoter and proprietor and you are going to allow professionals to do the job, I don’t think the weight would be on you.

I assume you would be the pro-chancellor of the university?

Yes; that’s not a big job that is ceremonial. You go there once a while whenever there’s a ceremony. 

But not the vice chancellor?

Certainly not. However, I am qualified, but at my age, it won’t make sense. I think a lot of people would support what we are trying to do, especially governments; and there are so much novel sides to each. For example, a man wants to be a public relations officer and goes to a university, reads Mass Communication and comes out and gets a job as a public relations officer, but if you come to my university, you won’t read Mass Communication, you will read Public Relations and come out with a B.Sc and become an expert in that field.

You spent a lot of your time in the NTA, but private broadcasting channels are also struggling to come up. Are you encouraged with what you see?

Well, in terms of human activity, I doubt whether any progress has been made, but in terms of technicality, the facilities have improved. As a young reporter, I remember very well that in those days, we had a studio camera, and every morning when we got to work, we had to go to the camera and hit it three times before it would work, but that no longer exists. Secondly, you would go to cover an event and needed to look for a vehicle that would bring you back, but today, you can submit your story from the spot; so there is a lot of ease arising from improved technology, which can make today’s media better than our days. But in terms of human capacity and the opportunity for individuals in the media to maximise their potentials, the situation is not too good. I see a lot of things that show that people really do things without thinking.

You can watch television in Nigeria, whether it is private or public, big or small and all of them will be saying the same news. If ( someone) held a press conference, that would be the report in every medium.

So there is no professionalism, no courage?

There’s nothing to show that some people have the news they have made. However, a few of them try through their interviews. Somebody comes for a programme and they take an extract of it and make it news; and therefore, maintain some level of originality and exclusivity. There will be no other person picking that. But those scheduled reports that everybody is present don’t tell well of the profession.

What do you think is responsible for this stagnation in the human aspect of the profession?

I think it is the turn of events in the country. So much has gone down in the industry. People are no longer industrious. A lot of people in some sectors of the country are being paid highly for doing nothing, so other people want to just be paid.

I am sure that if you have a child who is 20 or 30, he will be telling you that he wants a car. That’s something you couldn’t say in your time at his age. People want to have an aircraft when they have not even finished school. So there’s too much of permissiveness in our system today; and except so much is done to stop it, we are going to have problems. 

And people know that it is a reality, so nobody is working. So there’s lethargy, there’s laxity. For the country to be up and doing, we need to play down on politics. Everything in Nigeria is politics and we need to play it down. It is not only politicians that can make a nation. Today, if you are a politician, there’s nothing you can’t do and if you are not a politician, there’s very little you can do. So we are all playing it.

Tell us a little bit about the private Tonnie Iredia. Are you a Benin High Chief? 

No. I think it is you or somebody that called me Chief Tonnie Iredia and I said no because I come from a culture where chieftaincy is very high. It is not purchased, it is not given to people because of their capacity to have money; it is more of integrity, dignity and personal interest. You don’t just say you are a chief. That kind of impersonation is an abomination.

So you are not a chief?

No.

And you don’t want to be a chief?

Well, you cannot say you don’t want to be a chief because if the Oba says you are, you can’t say you are not. But I am not.

What of family life for you?

Oh, great. I think I have been blessed. I have every reason to thank God. I don’t have any minus. All my kids are fantastic. The least qualified of them has a master’s degree, so we don’t have a problem. And I have reached a level now where I don’t really need anybody to give me anything. They are all grown up. 

I have had a wonderful wife who doesn’t care about whether you are making noise about your position and all of that. In spite of all the visibility attached to me, my wife is very simple. In fact, people hardly know her. So it has been great for me.

Do you have hobbies – things you do for fun?

The best of them actually are reading and writing. That’s why you see that I am still a columnist at this age. And Vanguard will tell you that I have never missed any week without writing a column.

What of physical exercise? Reading is a very passive activity.

It depends on how you see anything that is regulated. For example, if you read in the morning every day, it is like somebody who is doing another exercise, especially if it is the same time and regularly.

I have not been doing the kind of exercise you are thinking; more of walking around the compound, making some little exercises here and there. Many years back when I was in the NTA, I used to play table tennis at the back of my neighbour’s house, but my neighbour is no longer alive. The table tennis is no longer there and I no longer live in that area.