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Her Media Diary Episode 24: "Honing the Craft" with Eugenia Abu
22 Plays5 months ago
Her Media Diary Episode 24: "Honing the Craft" with Eugenia Abu
Eugenia Abu is a distinguished broadcaster, author, media consultant, and one of Nigeria’s finest broadcasters and compères renowned for anchoring the 9:00 pm news on the Nigerian Television Authority for seventeen years.
Eugenia’s advice to aspiring broadcasters is clear: focus on the craft, be patient, and always be prepared. These principles have guided her own career and will continue to inspire the next generation of media professionals.
Subscribe to Her Media Diary now on your favourite podcasting platform https://linktr.ee/hermediadiary
Learn about African Women in Media at https://africanwomeninmedia.com
List of Resources to Support Women in Media
· International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF)
· African Women in Media (AWiM)
· Public Media Women in Leadership
· International Journalists’ network (IJNet)
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Transcript
Proposal for TV Program at Information Ministry
00:00:02
Speaker
When I arrived at the information ministry and we were writing newsletters which were ending up under the staircase and in the rain and that upset me because we were putting a lot of work and then one day I said to the director of information, sorry sir, can we not have a TV program?
00:00:18
Speaker
that would encapsulate these things and attract more attention. I don't know whether anybody is reading this newsletter though. He said he thinks it's a good idea. So where do I want to get a studio? Then they want many studios. I said well we can use NTA. Why will we use NTA? I said well the federal government institution they should partner with us. He said then go and ask them. So I went to NTA
Eugenia Abu's Entry into Television
00:00:39
Speaker
They accepted. And my boss said, now what will we be doing every week? I said, sir, you should speak to your principal officers. He said, no, I want you to go and write out something. So I wrote what the first three editions will be. Then one day he said, so we're going to have a TV program. We don't have a presenter. I said, yes, sir. You know, we must get a presenter. He said, so who would that be? I said, sir, I don't know. He said, you know, you have done with you before. You want duty presenters. I said, sir, I've never done anything on TV. He said, go and try. And that's my journey on television.
00:01:13
Speaker
Imagine a world where we have gender equality and equity in and through the media. That is our mission here at African Women in Media.
Eugenia Abu's Journalism Journey and Influence
00:01:44
Speaker
contributions to journalism and media in Nigeria. Eugenie Abu shares with me her remarkable journey from being an intern in a local radio station to becoming an iconic, internationally recognized broadcaster, producer, author, and many, many hats that she wears. Now throughout this series, we will be in conversation with African women who have become media legends by virtue of their long years of experience and invaluable contributions to the growth
00:02:13
Speaker
and actualization of gender equality in the media. By inviting these voices into the conversation, we hope to provide solutions to break down barriers faced by African women in media industry.
00:02:28
Speaker
All right, so I am beyond excited to have you on the podcast, Miss Eugenia Abu. I am often the researcher asking people who they saw on TV when they were younger that inspired them to the profession. Now, I didn't live in Nigeria for too long, but there are two things that I remember on TV in Nigeria back then. One was Indian films, and the second was Eugenia Abu on MTA. It could be iconic. Indian films, I mean, Eugenia Abu. Unbelievable.
00:02:59
Speaker
Yeah, those are the two things I remember very clearly, vividly, sitting around, um, watching the TV and I joined back in those days. And, um, but you've done so much more than that, right? Uh, you, you're a very intelligent and well-read woman.
00:03:15
Speaker
You've got an English degree from ABU Zarya, you've got two master's degrees, one in Communication Policy Studies from City University of London, a second in Creative Writing from Kuehl University, and you're an alumni of Shevnan Scholarship and a USIS Fellow, right? And I'm not done yet. In 2007, you published your book in the blink of an eye.
00:03:37
Speaker
which won the ANA NDDC Flora Moapa Prize for Best Female Writing. And then you later also published a collection of poetry called Don't Look at Me Like That. And again, doesn't end there. In 2018, you set up the Eugene Album Media Centre, which is a regional mentorship hub for young Nigerian creatives. And obviously, for your contributions in journalism, you've won a whole load of prizes, including the prestigious Nigerian Media Merit Award for Best
00:04:04
Speaker
And all of that listeners is just the tip of the iceberg because we simply won't have enough time to list everything that you've achieved on this podcast. So I am more than honored to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for doing it. I'm truly delighted to be here. Thank you for having me.
00:04:26
Speaker
Great.
Eugenia Abu's Early Life and Education
00:04:27
Speaker
So now I've been researching you and I know that you were born in Kaduna in the sixties, right? And you started writing very early on back then. So what was life like for you growing up in Kaduna back then? Or did you grow up in Kaduna? I actually was born in Kaduna and then I grew up in Zarya, which is an hour away from each other, right? So I did ABU Zarya, so
00:04:52
Speaker
I basically was in the university, but somewhere along the line, my father moved to Makudi to become a permanent secretary in the state, a new state, a newly created state. So I basically went through Zarya. As a young girl, I did my primary school in staff school at BU Zarya, and then went on to do my secondary school in Kaduna, although I was born in Kaduna, so there it is. Okay, okay, okay. So what was life like in those 80 years, you know, for you?
00:05:21
Speaker
It was simple. My parents both worked. My mum was a nurse.
00:05:26
Speaker
later becoming a matron and the owner of a hospital in her later years. My dad was a civil servant. So it was pretty quiet and we had quite a big family. There were eight of us. Eight kids. Yes, we were not yet eight when we were in Zarya, but it was a big house of fun. And I had my elder sister who's still my favorite and closest. Her name is Eukarya. My twins are named after both of us. Right. So my twins are named Eukarya and Eugenia.
00:05:52
Speaker
after both of us by my husband, because we're so close. And there are many people who didn't even know that we were, one was older than the other. We tended to be together all the time. I cried a lot when she was going to secondary school. So I jumped into secondary school at nine, because I wasn't letting the sister go. She was 11. And then we arrived in secondary school together. After she left without me, I made such a storm that I was then sent alone to join her. And so she took her seniority back
00:06:20
Speaker
in a Navy use area when she got into a one-year A-level class, and I couldn't. For reasons that I cannot even explain, they wanted more science and I was art, so they took her. I then went to Macaulay to do my two-year A-level, by which time she now went ahead of me by a year. Okay, okay.
Eugenia's Early Writing and Family Influence
00:06:39
Speaker
Wow, okay. So let's talk back, tell me about this closeness with your system. What was it like growing up in that household? Yes, in that household, we had my grandmother come from time to time,
00:06:49
Speaker
I say it now. I never could be able to say it in the past. I was easily her favorite. And my storytelling was hanging around my grandfather and my grandmother. My mom was an only child of her mother. So that meant every time she had a child, my grandmother was with us. We cooked a lot. We laughed a lot. I climbed a lot of trees. I still go back to our old house in Zara. The tree is still there, which is exciting.
00:07:14
Speaker
I love to cook because my mom, you know, cooked a lot as did my grandmother. And I'm writing a cookbook. Wow. Hopefully in a couple of years it should be, it should make its way out there. I love to cook very much. I love to entertain. So if you are coming, I'll probably ask you to bring two friends so you can have something to eat in my house. My joy is watching people eat. So the house was full of joy, great aroma of food, friendships, visitors from my parents.
00:07:41
Speaker
Lots of books. My father had a huge library. I literally lived in it, which has made me that person who loves books today. I couldn't walk past a bookshop. It's like an addiction. I stay in the bookshop. I then have to be truly pulled out of the bookshop eventually after about an hour or two in order for me to get along. I may not afford the books, but I make notes of the books I want to buy. And my excess luggage is always books. Always.
00:08:09
Speaker
So it was a fun house, great food, great adventure. There was a lot of grounds in the house, so we could run around and climb trees and have picnics around it. I truly loved that house. Different people live in there now. Every once in a while I go around it. One of these days I'm going to turn up at the door and say, I used to live here. There you go.
00:08:30
Speaker
This is my house. Yeah. So you had a love for books very early on. I can hear so many influences, your dad, your mom, your sister, your grandma. But let's start with the books. I also read someone that you said writing from the age of seven. Is that true? That is true. Indeed. Yeah. Tell me more. Yes. My dad would go to work and I kind of like scribbled a lot
00:08:58
Speaker
I was a child that stood on his tool and brought down Encyclopedia Britannica, which there was a lot of on his shelf. I encountered it quite early in my life. They were big. And when I was young, I couldn't really bring them down myself. So he would. And I was reading things above my age grade. But my dad was a sort of person who paid attention. So he would give me lots of sheets of paper because he found that this was the child that was scribbling away in his house. So I always had paper.
00:09:24
Speaker
And then I had all the stories I would write. And then when he comes back from work, he encouraged me by saying, I used to draw all this insect, you know, stick men and women, you know, and put words around them. Because I also read a lot of cartoons. Asterix, which I loved. Charlie Brown, Snoopy. I read all of those things. So I'm kind of like that character who watched TV, read books and, you know, loved cartoons. And so
00:09:51
Speaker
those tick men would have come from my cartoon life. And my dad would go, oh, who are these? I'm like, oh, this is Joe. And this is his friend, Ann. And they're quarreling. And he's going to go, what's the problem? And then I'm going to write little words. I'm like, well, she took his pen, and he's not happy about it. Then he comes back some days, and I'm like, Ann had an accident. She broke her knee. My father is going to go, he's so sorry. I'll be showing him the pictures. Is Ann in hospital? I'm like, yes. But she's getting better.
00:10:21
Speaker
By the third day, Anne is out of hospital and I have all manners of stories and my father was patient. He would listen, he would refill my paper, he would buy me pens of different colors and made it easier for me to be so inspired by him. So I would write a lot of things and he paid attention. Today, parents really don't look at what their children are writing. I think my dad could tell in his spirit that I would be a writer one day.
00:10:46
Speaker
And so he encouraged me by all these pieces of papers around the house. He never shredded them. He never let anyone throw them away. He put them together in a file for me. And then when he came back from work sometimes, he asked my advisor about what to do about unerring stuff. My father was an administrator. He goes,
00:11:02
Speaker
This guy hasn't been coming to work. What do you think we should do to him? I'm thinking, I think we should give him one more chance. I'll probably be eight or nine, something like that. So it was really fun. My mom was really the policewoman of the house. My father couldn't raise his voice. It was my mom who whipped in the discipline. So you knew she was coming. If you hadn't cooked, you hadn't cleaned your room.
00:11:23
Speaker
Mrs. Amudu would be standing, she was very tall, standing over you and asking you, who do you think you are? So you have to go back to your room and fix it. So she was the one who was the disciplinarian. My father was a quiet disciplinarian, was excited whenever he saw us do some work. And I guess was the proudest man on the planet when I began to encore the network news many years later. And we're going to talk so much about that, about
00:11:49
Speaker
you know, anchoring the, oh God, I'm having goosebumps already just thinking about it. But your sister, tell me more about that relationship and how you became so close. There were eight of us. There were six daughters and two sons.
Discovery of Passion for Broadcasting
00:12:05
Speaker
My brother was right behind me, a senior son.
00:12:08
Speaker
And my elder sister was the one whom, as you already know, I accompanied to secondary school. Even though my father taught at the time that I was too young at nine, he literally didn't want me to start. He thought I was too young and that I needed to grow up a little more to make secondary school. He was an educationist, you see, so he felt that I wasn't mature enough. But at some point, my mom drove me all the way from Zarya to Kaduna. You know, the distance was only one hour, and I did the exam.
00:12:37
Speaker
and I resolved to pass it. And so the late Mrs. Germa, who was then our principal, a set of twins, one of them becoming the first commissioner in the North, female commissioner in the North, she just passed. But Mrs. Germa was my principal of the secondary school at the time and said to my father, don't worry, she would not pass. If she does not pass, then you can come and take her.
00:13:03
Speaker
She's very young. She's not likely to pass the exams. That was for me. When you say I can't do something, then I resolve that I will conquer it. And I did conquer it. And so my life in the secondary school began. My sister was my confidant, was the one I could run to when a senior was bullying me, would take punishment for me.
00:13:25
Speaker
If I was a little too chatty and got on the wrong side of the law amongst the prefects, she would say, oh, she has nosebleeds. Oh, please forgive her. I'm going to kneel down for her. And we bonded harder. You know, at this age, of course, you didn't have a period. And so when the period came, it was with her that we bonded, talked about it, found out what was going on with my life.
00:13:48
Speaker
She would assure me that I would be fine because she had been there before and all our lives she has remained the exact same. And it's because of that closeness that my husband decided that he would name the children, the twins after myself and herself. And like I said, not many people know that we're not twins even today.
00:14:06
Speaker
Eukarya Eugenia people thought were born together because I look older than her. People tend to also think that, oh, they have to be twins. There's no difference. But my sister looks much younger. I can't tell. I think I'm more out and about more adventurous than she is. She's an architect. I'm a writer. I'm a broadcaster. So I'm more well known. She's very quiet. I'm chattier than she is. But really, honestly, I miss her very much when she's not around. We share a lot of things.
00:14:34
Speaker
She's really my twin, as it were. And talking about broadcast, I read somewhere that you initially wanted to be a lawyer but got into broadcasting accidentally. Tell me about that. What inspired you to want to become a lawyer? I'm that person who wants to stop, come down from a car and try to ensure that somebody who is being wasted by a taxi driver
00:15:01
Speaker
And the taxi driver doesn't get away with murder if the other person is right. I don't like to see injustice. So from very young, I felt that the best way to be able to contribute to that side of things in life was literally to become a lawyer and defend people. And, you know, for a long time, I was so sure that that was what I would do. And every time, and if I were in me or Fermi Falam or those big names went to jail,
00:15:28
Speaker
or for something they wanted to correct, or for something that they were not happy with, or they were having issues with the law, my mom would say, look at, I know you, this is what you are going to be like. Then what would you do with your children? And then I go, but those people have children too. We'll just pack it back. And when it's time, I'll be going until we resolve it. Then I will come back home. And she would laugh. But as Providence would have it, they didn't give me law at ABU Zaire. There was absolutely nothing I didn't do. I tried. I applied.
00:15:58
Speaker
I passed, but they kept in the cutoff from my state. There were too many people wanting to read law. They couldn't take all of us. And so my mom said, you know, you're a young lady. I don't want you to be waiting forever to get this admission. Take your second best, which at the time was English. But I think that God understood that it was best for me to do that. I may never have become a broadcaster if I read law. So God must have his plans for me, I believe. And I've enjoyed the right so far.
00:16:27
Speaker
So tell us about that journey into broadcasting and how did you start that journey? It was an interesting journey because I was sitting at home having finished school in 1976 and then gone on to do my A levels for two years. So by 78, literally.
00:16:43
Speaker
I had applied to Zarya and I had like a three month wait into 79 to get into school. You know, those periods of layover. And I was at home bored to death when I heard a radio station doing the chest transmission. That was Radio Benway-Maccordi, which was my first presence in a broadcast institution, pretty much. And so I went over to the station.
00:17:08
Speaker
I first asked my dad that I'm listening to radio and every time this radio station comes up, they're having test transmission. I want to go find out what that is about. He said, well, just go. And I went and I met this gentleman who said to me, have you ever done any kind of broadcasting before? And I said, no, I don't remember his name now, because the radio stations in the past set up by the states, they usually would take a general manager from the Federal Radio Corporation, which was like the mother of all stations, like NTA is to broadcasters on TV.
00:17:36
Speaker
And so they would enter contract with the person will stay and train and run the station for a year or two before he leaves. So this gentleman had just come in for my thinking battle and he was in the station when I arrived, new general manager for a new station. And I said, I just wanted to know if I could get an opportunity to be on air. He said, have you been auditioned before? I didn't know what audition meant.
00:17:59
Speaker
which is a professional word for, have you been tested? Is your voice good? Do you know what to say? Do you know how to go about this? So I said, I have no idea what audition is. He said, have you ever gone to a radio TV station and they tested you to see about, I said, no, I've never done any, in fact, I've never been in any one of them except when I was young and I would go to radio stations and do stuff. He goes, well, I have to audition you.
00:18:22
Speaker
At the time he said it, I had great fear because I had no idea what this is. What kind of exercise is audition? And I went into the studio. He ran the tape, run my voice and said, well, I think you can start tomorrow. It was incredible. And so, yes. And so I went home and I said to my dad, well, I've got a job now. It's a vacation job, but I'm very excited. And then I went on to do request programs. I ran continuity.
00:18:48
Speaker
So I was waking up in my home at 4 a.m. It was my test for being a good broadcaster. They would come to fetch me at 5, so I could open the station at 6 a.m. A lot of the times, I would set the alarm, which would not go off. So I would be dragging myself out of bed, trying to freshen up and running into the car. It introduced the discipline of the craft to me. You have to be there. It was live. You have to open the station at 6 a.m. Otherwise, what kind of continuity announcer are you?
00:19:16
Speaker
So I ran continuity announcing further. And this lasted another four, five months, then I got admission into Zarya and left. But every vacation job, I returned to Radio Benway for the whole of three years while I was in the university. They took me with open arms. Unlike today, where young people think it's all about the money. For me, it was the craft. Nobody paid me anything. And believe me, the reward was just being able to practice, to learn under bigger names or bigger broadcasters or senior broadcasters.
00:19:46
Speaker
to manage equipment, to write the words, and just to be available to do the job. So by the time I did the continuity announcing, they were now giving me programs to do. So beyond doing the continuity announcing, especially in the morning bell.
00:20:01
Speaker
I now had programs I was recording. I now had live programs I was presenting, for example, the request program where letters will be written at the time, not internet. You read the letter of someone and you make a request of a certain type of music. It was also there that I learned NTDB, not to be broadcast. So there were certain songs that Fela had that were not very pleasant to the general public. And so we basically would have music that was
00:20:28
Speaker
not write for broadcast and will not use. So we have big, bold writings on them saying NTBB. And continuity announced her welfare souls will never play that music. You can go and find out why, but then your management had already said this was not good for Erin. And you would never play it. You never crossed that line. So that's the journey. And so when I finished from the university, the radio wanted to hire me. At the time, of course, you have three, four, five people wanting to hire you.
00:20:58
Speaker
My father said to me, I think you should choose between the radio and proper civil service, and you might want to go and learn some new things in the civil service. So I joined the Directorate of Information in my state, and that was where NCA headhunter me from that ministry. Yeah, we're getting to the territory of NCA now, which is, you know, going very exciting.
00:21:22
Speaker
take a few steps back to your time at Radio Benray and studying at the same time. If you were to reflect on that whole period, you said it was a three year period, right? Right. And I spent every two months, yeah, my long vacation with them. Yeah.
00:21:36
Speaker
And if you have to pick one thing from that period that you want to pass on as an important insight and knowledge to those listening right now, right? What would that be in terms of your experiences and your reflections of that time? Allow me to pick two. One is that sometimes you are in school and you didn't pay any tuition. Radio Bay Area was a school for me. And I think it's important that those who are listening understand that you can be in a mentoring space
00:22:04
Speaker
or you can be in a school space, a learning space professionally.
00:22:09
Speaker
where you didn't pay and you should take it seriously and not look at the money. I learned quite a lot from people, my four peers, in that space at the time. In the United States today, people who want to be mentored by big architects have to pay a certain amount of dollars these days just so they can have their names there. So for me, it was a learning curve. The second thing was, there was discipline. It was about the craft.
00:22:37
Speaker
Your words, every word was important. Your supervisor ensured that they saw a script until they could trust you. So it's about also the discipline and the craft that you knew you had to be early to open the station for your listeners. You understood also the discipline of not playing NTBB. You also understand the discipline of your interviewing skills, which you had already learned. So it was discipline and it was craft.
00:23:06
Speaker
So all of that put together would be for me the learning curves that I think people can take away from this conversation.
Start of Television Career at NTA Makodi
00:23:12
Speaker
And in many ways, by the time then, NTO was headhunting you, you were ready. Were you ready? By the time NTO was headhunting me, I would say I was one third ready.
00:23:23
Speaker
And I'll tell you why, one third or halfway ready. I'll tell you why, because I was coming for every vacation job and I was doing this vacation job with the radio venue. But there was an interregnum of one year where I did national youth service.
00:23:38
Speaker
with Ogle State Radio. So I went from radio to radio. After that first radio experience, I would say perhaps I was one quarter ready. I was familiar with the terrain. By the time I went to OGBC and they knew that I had this experience, they gave me more responsibility as a copper and they gave me a children's program.
00:23:58
Speaker
and they gave me a women's program called Homemakers. So I was producing two programs a week. I don't think there was any other kappa that had that responsibility. So I was learning quickly how to interview, who to interview for what. I was learning quickly how to run a children's program quite early on in my life. By the time I arrived NTA, I was halfway ready, I would say. It was an interesting dynamic that when I arrived at the
00:24:24
Speaker
information ministry and we were writing newsletters which were ending up under the staircase and in the rain and that upsets me because we were putting a lot of work in the newsletter so we had the Benway State Government newsletter which I contributed to and then one day I said to
00:24:41
Speaker
the director of information. Sorry sir, can we not have a TV program that would encapsulate these things and attract more attention? I don't know whether anybody is reading this newsletter though and I think it's important that we have what we're saying and what government is doing thrust to the people in a pleasant way and I think TV will do it better than a newsletter. Macaulay is a very provincial town but a very warm community
00:25:07
Speaker
And I'm like, TV will attract the attention of everyone. He said, he thinks it's a good idea. So where do I want to get a studio? Then they want many studios. I said, well, we can use NTA. Why will we use NTA? I said, well, the federal government institution, they should partner with us. He said, then go and ask them. I was a brand new grade level eight officer. I had senior officers. So I said, so why are you sending me there? He said, because I think you might be able to get the attention. So I went to NTA, booked an apartment with the GM.
00:25:34
Speaker
said my director sends me, could we have a slot on television and could we use your equipment? We don't have any to do a TV program. And I explained what the TV program was about. He then said, okay, you should write him. We wrote, they wrote and accepted. And my boss said, now what will we be doing every week? I said, sir, you should speak to your principal officers. He said, no, I want you to go and write out something. So I wrote what the first three editions will be. Could we talk to the commissioner about Greek about, you know,
00:26:03
Speaker
equity and Benway is an agricultural state. Could we talk to the Commissioner of Industries? Could we talk to agencies? First, six, addition, done. If I go and do the script for the first, I don't know why he was speaking on me because I brought the idea.
00:26:16
Speaker
Then one day he said, so we're going to have a TV program. We don't have a presenter. I said, yes, sir. You know, we must get a presenter. He said, so who would that be? I said, I don't know. He said, you know, you have done with you before. You go and do the presenter. I said, sir, I've never done anything on TV. He said, go and try. And that's my journey on television began with that program. First four editions. I had no clue. I had to learn how to look at the camera. I had to learn how to wear the right clothes all on my own.
00:26:44
Speaker
had to look at other TV broadcasters and see what they were doing. I mean, this was 1982, for goodness sake. I had no clue. So I then found that everyone was tying a scarf for television and I thought, okay, let me try. I didn't know how to tie a good scarf then.
00:27:02
Speaker
But that was the house style of NTA. And I thought, let me try and see. And then after four or six weeks, I said to him, everybody's asking if the governor is going to run, whether we run for a second term. He says, how is that our business? I said, well, we're a government program. We should ask the governor whether he's running or not. Then he said to somebody beside him, this girl is truly crazy. She's young and crazy. She wants to ask the governor if he's running.
00:27:29
Speaker
Well, we can't access the governor. If you can access him, you can interview him. And I got my first big interview because I then got the governor's attention. He agreed for us to interview him and I asked him the question everybody was asking on the street. Are you running, sir? Your Excellency, would you be running for a second turn? You know, I was 22, 23. And he said to me, if my people ask me to run Eugenia, I will run.
00:27:55
Speaker
As a result of that interview, I have an uncle-in-law who calls me Oya Appe. The governor was Mr. Appe Raghu. So he calls me Oya Appe, the wife of Appe, because the interview was well received. It was statewide.
00:28:09
Speaker
you know, and my director couldn't believe that I pulled it off. That's my first big interview among several others, but that was the journey. It was, I think, from that program that NTA decided that this young lady has something, and the general manager whom I went to see then decided to ask me if I wanted to work for NTA.
00:28:26
Speaker
And I said, I don't know. I'm not sure that I want to do it. So there's so many lessons in there. And I really want to bring out again, all of you are saying about Radio Benway. You may have been quotibly ready, but it gave you a foundation. And you also had that kind of an act of going for something, seeing the story in something.
00:28:47
Speaker
and just going and hitting the ground running. I think a combination of your personality and your determination with those opportunities that you took wholeheartedly kind of made you ready, which is what I meant by were you ready, right? And so imagine that was your first interview with the governor of the state. What did that lay down for you going now into NTA? I suspect that that perhaps got the attention of the general manager.
00:29:12
Speaker
And when he asked me if I wanted to join NT and I said no, I wasn't interested. I was quite happy with it. Okay. You said no. I did say no.
00:29:22
Speaker
I didn't get what it meant. I just said, oh, I'm quite happy where I am. Why do I want to join NTA? And then again, Mr. Amodu to the rescue, my father. I said to him, can you believe what I'm about today? The general manager asked me of NTA if I wanted to join them. I don't know why he's asking me that question. And he said to me, there's a young man coming around the house now. I think I was 22. He has shown a lot of interest. You seem to be very happy.
00:29:49
Speaker
You tell me all the time that if he asks you to marry him, you would. If you marry him and you work with the government information service, if he decides that he wants to work in Yubi, you can't join him. A federal institution is such that you can move from place to place, and NTA has stations everywhere. You might want to take that opportunity. And once my dad said so, I took it and joined NTA as an editor. So I was on the desk.
00:30:17
Speaker
writing. If all the stories came from outside, we edited them. I wasn't a reporter, but I liked words. So I liked to be able to play with words, readjust paragraphs. I was an editor, a news editor on the desk. So when stories came back, we corrected them, we recalibrated them, we asked the right questions. So I was on the desk.
00:30:37
Speaker
And one day, I can't remember the exact circumstance, one newscaster didn't come to work. I didn't join NTA as a newscaster. And this general manager then ordered that I go and read the news. I panicked at first, like, me? No. Just to clarify, this is NTA where? Which of the NTA stations? Makodi.
00:30:57
Speaker
There was a radio station I learned from, was. And I was like, oh, no, no, no, no. To read the news, he says, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not asking you. It's a directive. You can speak well. When you came to ask me if you will do a program for government, you presented it at the time. What stops you from reading the news? I'm like, because I've never done it before, sir. There's always a first time. Wow.
00:31:22
Speaker
And that was the story of how I began to read the news. So the following week I said to him, so I see myself on the roaster. I'm an editor. So no, I'm not a newscaster. I just did it to rescue the station. He said, well, you're a newscaster in addition now. That's it. That's it. And that, wow. I mean, again, showing examples of where doing things, like if you had not done the ministry work where you presented that
00:31:49
Speaker
program would this manager have actually seen the opportunity or the potential in you for this program, right? He said, no, but you did it. And that's a key thing. You did it anyway. Yeah, I did it. I had to find the courage from somewhere. And having done radio for a while, again, the craft is more with radio if you're a broadcaster. Nobody can see you. It's the inflection of your voice, your tone,
00:32:13
Speaker
and the general ambience of how you present the program that makes the radio program exciting. You have to call out the words for people to believe. When Nelson Mandela was released, I was listening to the radio.
00:32:25
Speaker
the presenter at the time, I was already a broadcaster, was phenomenal. I could literally see Nelson coming out of jail with his hands up in the air because of the way in which the radio presents. So if you are going to be a good TV presenter, if you've done radio, you've done the job three-quarter way. It was the courage you bring, the ambience you break. You're a little different from those who arrived at TV before.
00:32:51
Speaker
without having done radio. Radio prepared me for the ability to step up a little higher because I've already done the ambience, the tone, you know, and color the word. So my writing, my ability to present, inflect my voice, assisted me to become the TV presenter that I've become today. And I keep emphasizing this point of the things you've done before you go to TV because oftentimes, I mean, academic, we have media students and they'll tell you,
00:33:21
Speaker
I want to be a presenter. I want to be on camera. But actually what you're telling us is that there's so much more that happens before you get that point, that you need to have before you get to that. Absolutely. It's a training ground, all the opportunities you get behind the scene. I was writing for the Guardian newspapers at this time. So writing contributes to you being a good producer, a better presenter, ability to immediately see the errors.
00:33:47
Speaker
today because I've sat on the desk as an editor for many years, both local and on the network service, I sat on the desk as well because it was a requirement to sit on the desk on the network service and edit stories that came along as a newscaster.
00:34:02
Speaker
Whether you were reading it on that day or not, it trained you to be able to pick up the errors when you were rehearsing your script. Because here you are, you've seen some of the script's information, you've corrected them. Therefore, if there was one that didn't go through the mail, you would recognize to call the producer's attention. All of this is part of the training ground. Yeah. So how did you go from NTA Makodi?
00:34:25
Speaker
to NTA, to being a national recognized anchor.
Rise to National News Broadcasting
00:34:30
Speaker
That's a really important question at this juncture. My husband then moved to Lagos. Okay, what your dad said would happen. Yes, he then moved to Lagos. I mean, we were young, the opportunity is more in Lagos. Makudi, like I told you, was a small city. Lagos was a bigger space and he was pursuing his dreams. He himself was a radio journalist.
00:34:55
Speaker
and head of current affairs of Radio Benway.
00:34:59
Speaker
Which is where I met him, by the way, while I was interning. He was a current affairs producer before he became head of current affairs. That was where I met him. One of the days I went to do my internship business. And so he moved to Lagos, not to broadcast him, but to business. He moved a little bit before I got admission to City University. Yes, because I got admission to City University because I had always wanted to do a master's.
00:35:26
Speaker
And once I finished my education and I had started working with television, and I was now married to my husband, I kept on talking about this master's degree, which my dad had encouraged me to do. And I got an admission at the University of Stirling. I gave that up. My father said, is that what you want to do? You want to get married and leave Stirling? I'm ready to pay your way. My husband was quite adamant about marrying me and ensuring that I got this education, which I was giving up.
00:35:56
Speaker
I'm not quite sure how he wanted to afford it. We both were not going to be able to afford it at this time. But he was determined. And that determination was what, 10 years, two children later, I then went on to do my master's. Now, at the cusp of the master's at City University, my husband had moved into Lagos. I moved with him within a month or two, I think I took
00:36:22
Speaker
time off to have my baby and took a year off from the university. So within a year of living in Lagos with him and being at MTA, I then went on to do my master's at City University. Once that happened, I was away from the screen in Makodi. I had not fully joined Lagos and I came back from my master's and then of course fully joined Lagos on a transfer
00:36:45
Speaker
And then these were the people ruling the airwaves, John Mormo, Siena Owe Brown, Ruth Benamesia Opea, Hawa Baba Ahmed, Chukumba Ajayi, I think Sarah Stover, yes. We had those numbers of people who were reading the news and a couple others more. And during this period, I had arrived Lagos and I had never done the big league.
00:37:10
Speaker
What year are we talking about now? I had returned from my master's in 1992. Yes, this is 1992. So there was Donald or Very Joe. These are the newscasters at the time. And when I arrived, I was immediately placed on the desk, as you know, all newscasters. So you are roasted to be on the desk. You had a slew of newscasters, so I could be on the desk on my shift with Ruth. Yeah.
00:37:36
Speaker
with Cyril and a couple other people who may not have been roasted to read the news on the date. So we were the team, along with other editorial team members, that looked through the news, prepared the scripts, recalibrated what the reporters had brought, asked questions, and delivered this bulletin as a collective. So the production editor, who then, in turn, gave a costly look and passed it on to the producer. So it was a collective responsibility, even though the producer took the final
00:38:05
Speaker
you know and then the newscaster of course now retrieves the script from the producer and heads for the studio it had been checked and double checked which doesn't go on that much with internet you know there are no gatekeepers but this was the gatekeeping process so nothing fell off the plate and so I arrived there and I wasn't reading the news for like three four months and this is because to be in big league required quite a number of
00:38:30
Speaker
things. One of them being that you watch to those who were doing it before. It's a two person bullet. In maccotti it was one person. Today NTN Network News is one person. It used to be two persons. So it was Cyril and I, Donald and I, John and I. Usually it was male and female if you remember.
00:38:47
Speaker
And so I was watched while I did my editorial work. I'm very good at editing. Even now, I see the mistakes first if you give me a script. So that prepared me for what I have become today, a really good editor. And so after three or four months, the late Ms. Koldo was, I think, at the time assistant director of news, deputy director of news responsibility for deploying newscasters. And so she didn't pay me any heed. I didn't feel any pressure.
00:39:15
Speaker
I didn't put anyone under any pressure. An adopted uncle who was in admin then said, well, did you ever know that Eugenia was a good news castor in her state? You should put her on the bulletin. I don't think anybody paid attention at first. Then one day they decided to try me on 7pm because you really begin to prepare yourself for the big league by reading the smaller bulletin. The four o'clock news, the 7pm news, before you finally get onto the 9pm news, you have proven you're a metal in makeup.
00:39:44
Speaker
in headscarf time, which is the house style, in dressing properly, decently, which was the house style as well. So you were watched on these smaller bulletins. And one day I was suddenly put on for the nine o'clock news. My husband, who is my confidant, wasn't around. I didn't know who to tell him about to read this big thing. My heart was throbbing. And then I finally read it. And that, again, was the journey to network news.
00:40:12
Speaker
And what did all of that teach you in that journey to Network News? It taught me that there's a process. And today that process is vacated by a lot of young people. They want to read it now. They've not been prepared. They've not watched anybody do it before. They've not been mentored. You need a lot of patience to make the big league. And you have to be prepared. Yeah. And when you think about that first time on Network News,
00:40:37
Speaker
Just take us through your mind, throughout the old process, throughout the time you were on air, what was going through your mind? At first, I didn't think much about it, especially because I had done this over and over in Macawdee for several years. However, I was conscious of the fact that I was not now being watched by small Gumpup people, that I was being watched by an entire nation.
00:41:01
Speaker
I felt, for me at the time, it was the weight and the responsibility on my shoulders that I now represent a bigger thing. I now represented the entire nation. I now have responsibility to pronouncing people's names properly, no matter where they came from. I may be familiar with names in my state. It's time now to pronounce Yoruba names as close to the original speakers as possible. It's time now to pronounce Hausa names
00:41:29
Speaker
ask the requisite questions, you now knew that it was important that you know the various heads of states, the various prime ministers and how their names are pronounced, because we also had foreign news. You now know that you cannot say AC Milan instead of AC Milan. Those things became weighty issues, because if you got it wrong, you had your bosses standing by the door.
00:41:52
Speaker
So you have to basically learn as much as you can. You are also the person who became a current affairs officer in many institutions in current affairs because you now have to read all the papers a day before, a day you are reading the news, so you are current. So a script doesn't arrive in front of you and there was no internet then. You must have read the papers in the morning. You knew what was good. So when they brought a script and there was an error in it,
00:42:22
Speaker
or there are factual issues, you can actually then discuss it with your producer. If you didn't have that broad knowledge, you're going to be in trouble as a newscaster because you're the one everybody sees. You make the mistake, they hold you responsible. So it meant that I had a lot of weight on my shoulder. In my head, I was thinking, will I measure to the CNS, to my colleagues I found on ground who have been on this
00:42:45
Speaker
trajectory longer than I've been. Will I measure up or will I after two weeks be told that I didn't measure up therefore I could no longer read it, which would have been quite a disappointment and an embarrassment. But this is it.
00:42:59
Speaker
So today, as we speak in 2024, with the work that we at African Women in Media and so many organisations to earn women's rights and media, the environment is that women working in many industries have seen a significant shift, right, over the last decade or so. But working in the industry since the late 70s, right, from right from radio record to NTN network news in the 90s, etc.
Navigating Gender Bias in Broadcasting
00:43:25
Speaker
What was it like for you as a woman? It was tough. I can tell you for free. There was this general impression that women are just, they just had a really nice face and therefore served as props on TV for a very long time. At my time, a little less, but still there was that discrimination and I would use a story to illustrate it. And that story is even much closer home than when I was in Lagos.
00:43:54
Speaker
So I arrived Abuja many years later on transfer from Lagos when NT moved to Abuja. By that time I hadn't become producer of network news because I also produced the network news. You know, when you're good at writing and editing after a while, they elevate you to that position where you now produce the entire bulletin. And so I had a producer who was male. And at that time, the lead anchor, which then began to change over time. So CNN would lead John, for example, because
00:44:21
Speaker
It wasn't about being senior. It was about who had read network news for the longest. So it was about experience. So it doesn't matter what your grade level was. If you had a right network news a year before the other person, if they were senior to you, it wouldn't matter. They would lead. I don't know whether you get the point. I understand, yeah. Because they have experience of this. It became a professional space rather than a hierarchical space. And so this gentleman who was junior to me,
00:44:51
Speaker
I was leading him for the network news for the day. And the tradition is that the lead newscaster takes the most important interview, and it usually would be one live interview. And this interview was about Ken Sarawewa. I remember it clearly. He had died.
00:45:10
Speaker
and the Commonwealth had expelled Nigeria as a result of his passing. You know the story. Very pivotal moment in Nigeria's history, yeah. Yes, absolutely. And I was reading the news that day, and an ambassador from South Africa, I think, the Nigerian ambassador, who was visiting, had been mandated, I think, by government to express government's displeasure with being expelled and explain their position about how Ken Saroora
00:45:36
Speaker
was found this, was found that, and therefore this was what was meted out. And so this ambassador was visiting and I was told that there was going to be a live interview. It flies to reason that I was the one going to interview the gentleman, isn't it? And so I read everything I could possibly find, because you would already know this by 10 in the morning when the editorial meeting took place. And so I read everything I could in order for me to interview him.
00:46:03
Speaker
When was Nigeria expelled? What were the dates? What was the story before Ken Sarui was passing? All of that. And I was ready for this interview. I spent the whole day pouring over different papers, different international magazines, and I was ready. And then I showed up and found that in the scripting and numbering, my male colleague had been given the interview and he was my junior.
00:46:30
Speaker
Not only my junior hierarchically, but he was my junior professionally. He had only joined network service years after I had joined.
00:46:37
Speaker
And so I went to do the newscasting. I led the news and I left him to the interview. I said to the producer, is this fellow going to do the interview? Knowing what the tradition is, he said to me, yes, when he was my senior and I just ignored it. In order not to sour my mood, I went on and delivered the bulletin at the top level, that premium that I usually would try to do.
00:47:00
Speaker
and allowed my colleague to do the interview. And the interview was a downright mess. And you can guess why. He's younger, he's greener, and therefore he couldn't handle this interview. But that was who my producer had picked.
00:47:14
Speaker
So I allowed them stew in that. And once the interview was over, he was told he was overrunning. Could he stop so that I can continue the bulletin? And then because interviewing somebody requires you're knowing the window, the timing, how many minutes do you have, knowing what questions to ask, knowing when to stop, knowing when not to ask a follow up question because you don't have time. You see this all the time on international broadcast channels where they say that's about the time we have. It doesn't matter if you have other things you want to ask. You need to stop now. You can engage online now and ask the questions.
00:47:45
Speaker
And so I remember at the time, the president of Association of Women Journalists National, Mojumah Konjola, I was pretty angry. And she came to me and said, how would you allow that to happen? Why did you fight it? I said, I'm not very good at two fighting in the office space. Don't worry to take care of itself as we go along. And one day, two months later, the same producer said to me, could you pronounce this name, please? I know you travel a lot, so you must know how to pronounce this name from France.
00:48:10
Speaker
This was my say. And he said, so could you help us pronounce this and teach the newscaster? So I said, I'm sorry. I think you've forgotten that I'm not that bright. How could you be asking me this question? I don't know much.
00:48:25
Speaker
He goes, how could you say that, Mrs. Sabo? I said, because you remember a month, two months ago when you allowed my junior to lead. And so I got my revenge like that. So I don't think women should do the physical fight. I don't think you should raise your voice in the office space. If you're a good writer, you can fight whatever discrimination by writing.
00:48:45
Speaker
and I went through a lot of it over time, where if a male colleague would put ahead of you, or a less-endowed colleague, I had two masters while I was working in enthusiasm, I had a less-endowed colleague, so pretend you be promoted ahead of you. You have your pen and your paper, and you have your voice at a meeting. Don't raise it. Stay calm and fight it for all other women coming behind you. That's the job. Absolutely.
00:49:12
Speaker
Absolutely. Thank you so much. And I remember when you spoke at the African Women in Media 2018 conference in University of Ibadon and you mentioned that when you were having your, I don't know which number child it was, but you were having a baby and nobody advised you on the options for maternity leave. Tell me more about that story. Right. So over the years, I've been blessed with a number of children while I was working. When people ask me, when I give talks to women,
00:49:40
Speaker
What's your work-life balance like? How did you manage? Even I can't tell. I think God was just kind to me, apart from which you have to be intentional. You cannot have children and be at every party and then work so hard. So my social life pretty much suffered so that the window I have, which I would have spent doing my social life, I spent it with my children. But I had no idea. This would be, in fact, my last child. Ridiculous. But I'd spent all my life in NTA.
00:50:09
Speaker
Coming back to work after having a baby at the end of my three months' maternity leave, I was still closing with everybody else at the same time. And nobody, not a soul, said to me, you know, because you're a nursing mother, you should be closing. Because they give nursing mothers up to six months a year to breastfeed. And therefore, you expected to close earlier than most. I had no idea. Closing time was two. I was still closing at five. And I had no idea. Nobody told me.
00:50:36
Speaker
So for all my children, I literally did the work of a non-losing mother without knowing that this existed. I think I was young when I joined, so I had no idea that these things existed. Women should take time to see the extant rules, should ask questions in admin.
00:50:51
Speaker
and to find out. And most establishments didn't have a crush at this time, so there was no crush to put my children. So I was having to juggle between going back home, checking them, trying my best to go back and breastfeed and come back. In Lagos, it would have been impossible because of the traffic. Makuri was quiet. We could go home and come back. In Lagos, it was tougher. So yeah, I have one child in Lagos, and I know what it took. But my house was not far from where NTA was.
00:51:21
Speaker
I mean, you have six children and I've got only three. Well, I said only three, but I know what it means. I know what it means day to day.
00:51:32
Speaker
Very hard work. In fact, when I look back, I'm like, how did I do this? Because there were moments when I'm sitting in the car bawling because my housegirl has just sacked me. You know what it's like? You just have someone who helps you look after the child. You have a meeting at two o'clock and she turns up and says, I have to go now. My uncle is calling me at one o'clock. You're like, they warned you at this meeting that you're always coming late because of the children. You send what they are going to be late. You come in 20 minutes or five minutes, but you've sent word.
00:52:00
Speaker
And then on this day, after all of this, you don't even want to not turn up. And your housegirl sucks you. So I make friends with my neighbors. I'm friendly with my cousins and my sisters who live in the same town. And in a snap, I can drop the children off at any of these homes. It was good then, not anymore. There were housegirls you could trust even then, but then they sucked you still. So you have to prepare your mind that this can happen when you have babies. You have a meeting. The baby is bawling.
00:52:29
Speaker
The maid has sucked you. It's crazy. But we can't cut it. We're here. And when I was preparing for this interview, I often read several interviews that you've given. And I noticed that a few of them asked pretty much the same question about how you maintain your beauty. Now, that's not a question I'm going to be asking. What I noticed was that on those occasions, and there were a few of those interviews where they asked exactly the same question, what I noticed is that you also gave exactly the same answer. You said,
00:52:58
Speaker
I don't know if I am that beautiful to be able to answer the question. Now, my question is not about that. My question is that because it dawned on me as I was reading, I was thinking, why is she answering that question over and over again with the same answer?
00:53:11
Speaker
But don't do me, actually, you've been somebody in the public eye, you've been in the media for so long. And I suppose you're very much used to setting things that maybe was most political word to use rattles you up in interviews, right? Things that is quite offensive, like that kind of question, right? And being thrust into this kind of very public eye. So over the years, I imagine you build a lot of resilience, right? You've built a lot of approaches of tackling
00:53:38
Speaker
Like you said, these kind of gendered experiences. So what has it been like for you being so recognizable and have that level of media attention and having to be in such environments where, you know, they ask those kinds of questions. How have you built that resilience?
00:53:56
Speaker
I've had a reporter, an interviewer who had asked me before what it was like to be pursued when I was younger and whether broadcasters were more given to going out with soldiers. That was an incredible question. Yes.
00:54:13
Speaker
Yes, and I said to him, well, I wouldn't know. I was never pursued by a soldier, so I can't answer that question. That's number one. Number two, I don't know what you mean by pursued. I had a life. I got married fairly young. Television broadcasters get attention a lot. You just understand that this is where you are at this time and you deflect it the best you can. It took him a long time to get the interview because I don't like interviews. I hardly give them.
00:54:41
Speaker
And there was another one who asked me, he used a very scientific word and he said, he didn't ask me the question, but when he wrote the interview out, he did say that it was clear that I had something, something, something acid that I was using to stay the way I was. I had to call him when the interview played in the papers and everybody was calling to say, what's this acid? Can we buy it? And I said to him, what's this?
00:55:10
Speaker
But before I called him, I actually checked it out. It's an acid that is inborn in your DNA that keeps you looking young. And so I called him and I said, why didn't you just say you thought that Mrs. Abul looked ever young or ever green?
00:55:26
Speaker
We're using this ad seat that is making the whole world call me. Keep it simple. Kiss. That's the journalist's mantra. You put it in the papers that there's an ad seat that I'm involved in. People think I'm using, I don't use, I literally use Vaseline, you know, for my body and for my face. I've stayed with one serum for a very long time. That's it.
00:55:47
Speaker
I don't use anything to alter my skin complexion. I try to stay with the same kind of makeup and keep it simple. I answer yes, I get all these incredible questions, some questions that are private.
00:55:59
Speaker
about my family. I try not to talk about my family as well. You see a lot of my interviews. They ask me about my husband. He's my friend. He married me. We were very young and all of those things. But I think the best advice for anybody who is so public is to keep away from the public as much as possible, except it's absolutely necessary. These days people try to interview me at various functions I attend. And I'm like, can you find someone else? I've been on TV for so long. Want me to talk to you about the bride and groom.
00:56:29
Speaker
They have uncles here. I'm just a friend. Could you go find somebody else to talk to? They don't get it. But, you know, overexposure, if you're a public person, it's not good for you because that is where people begin to create stories about you. So I try not to be overexposed. So I'm not talking about myself a lot. I try to avoid interviews that are not going to improve somebody else.
00:56:51
Speaker
And I give interviews when I have a project, a book coming up, I'll give an interview. If I have a new project, I'll be quite happy to give you so that I can have the opportunity. But if we're just in follow ground or in idle, what do I want to talk about that people don't already know? So yeah, you have to build the resilience. You have to be tactful about your answers.
00:57:11
Speaker
You have to be sure that this journalist is not trying to throw you in the deep end. You have to understand what the question means at different levels. He might be asking one question, he really means another question, or she really means another question. I learnt it over the years, so I manage it quite well. Yeah, and that's the thing about the politics of visibility for women, especially African women, isn't it?
00:57:31
Speaker
is that on the one hand we want to be visible to be representative, right? So if you remember at the beginning of this interview I said actually you and Indian Fields were the things I remember from your interview growing up, right? But that's important, being visible and being able to see somebody like you, it's so important. And I find myself also saying yes to a lot of speaking engagements for that very reason.
00:57:54
Speaker
because I know that in that panel or in that table, I'll probably be either the only woman or the only woman speaking for women. But you juggle that with the kind of experiences that you're sharing and then you have the reactions that is either to just not be visible or to force yourself to be visible. So for me, each time I have this speaking engagement and I have to
00:58:15
Speaker
do stuff publicly, I overthink everything, you know, I overthink everything. And it is quite tasking to always have to be so conscious about how you're presenting yourself and those things because of these kind of framing
00:58:31
Speaker
of women and who you expect it to be. So there's that juggling, that politics, isn't it, of, yes, being visible to be representative, but then this, I mean, I guess the onus is not on the women, perhaps, perhaps it's on the people whose platforms are representing these women and their
Advocacy for Women's Representation in Media
00:58:47
Speaker
approaches. What do you think?
00:58:48
Speaker
Yes, I agree with you totally. I do quite a lot of sitting on panels, delivering keynotes, moderating panels to be representative. I would give an interview, the issue is such that it is critical that my voice is heard. I teach branding for women and
00:59:07
Speaker
media management for women, especially because the National Democratic Institute had hired me as a consultant at some point during the 2019 elections and asked me to speak to women running, women who were running in local government elections.
00:59:22
Speaker
so that they manage their media better. And one of the things I say all the time is that a man knows how to use those platforms more than women do. I'm constantly in the presence of presidents. I don't have many pictures with them because I just think it's an intrusion of the president's space and privacy to constantly be bumping into him. And also it wrote your integrity if you're all over the place. So I carry myself pretty well in those spaces. If there are opportunities for photographs, good photographs,
00:59:49
Speaker
I'm not going to try and flock to a president with security all over the place, just so I can get a photograph. But there are men who do.
00:59:57
Speaker
and it wouldn't matter to them whether they lose their integrity or not, they still will do. So a woman needs to understand if she's running for politics, that she needs to be representative, she needs to have a voice, she needs to talk about herself and not leave it to somebody else talking about her. She needs to put herself out there. And a lot of women don't get it, even in the general space. Every time I try to explain to women that you need to put yourself out there, the statistics shows that in terms of feedback, in terms of Vox Pop,
01:00:25
Speaker
there is a high percentage of men against the number of women who are on TV. It's a very low percentage of women speaking about anything at all, right? It's not enough that within the newsroom our percentages are lower. In terms of even being representative, our percentages are lower because this is what happens. You tell a woman that she should give an interview or you're doing a voxel. I had difficulty when I was executive director of programs. They come back with all men on a matter that concerns women.
01:00:54
Speaker
And I said to my reporter, who usually would be a man or even a woman, did the women on the street die? Why didn't you talk to any woman? Oh, we tried. They didn't want to. So a lot of women holding even positions of authority kind of shift away. And I would recommend when I'm teaching women, go and read Sharon Sandberg's, your Facebook's lean in.
01:01:18
Speaker
women tend to lean out. So you say, would you like to speak with the media on behalf of the establishment? You go, what about Mr. Lagvaja? Ah, please, I'm running for an appointment because they don't want to do it. And the reason why they don't want to do it a lot of the times is when they don't have the confidence to do it.
01:01:33
Speaker
Number two, they can't put the contents together in their heads about what am I going to talk about? Number three, they don't want to make a fool of themselves. So what a woman must do when you are running is be ready all the time, leverage on the various media that is available and a lot of them at that workshop.
01:01:50
Speaker
where I trained them for National Democratic Institute. They felt that media costs a lot of money. I said in the age of internet, it's less expensive. You just need to have a social media handler. You have to determine, I want to be on traditional media. Put yourself out there to be the person who is a public analyst. Don't make it only men who are there all the time. Public analyst on democracy. Three men.
01:02:14
Speaker
public analyst on gas cooking. Why is the head of the gas cylinder not sitting down? All men.
01:02:22
Speaker
And you ask yourself, the moderator is a man. All three of them are wasting women in all of this. It would seem like a woman does not exist. She does not have a perspective. You're talking about rape. Nobody understands it better than women. And all you have on the panel are those who are conceived to be the perpetrators. The agenda is the one involved in this business. Why don't you get a woman's perspective and get to listen to them? So I think it's important that we groom our women to understand
01:02:50
Speaker
Both media women that when you go out there, you will seek out a woman. You know, I watch the BBC all the time and the BBC World Service, which I've come to understand is under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
01:03:00
Speaker
while I was doing my Masters in England. The BBC itself is under the Ministry of Information, Media and all of that. But BBC World Service is under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and deliberately so. And so what they are projecting is really about more about Britain and Britain's interest. And in doing so, every time there's a tsunami somewhere in Asia,
01:03:22
Speaker
They've got to look for British people to speak with. And so women must be ready, must always constantly seek out a radio person, a TV person to say, listen, I'm available if you want to talk about agriculture. This is what I studied. Find a woman in there. Say, can you invite me to some of your shows?
01:03:37
Speaker
It doesn't make you small, it just makes you more powerful. Absolutely. Thank you so much Missy Ginaire before doing this interview. I always end with a question, what next? What I think, I mean, I'm almost scared to ask you that question because you've done so, so, so much. But what next for you?
01:03:56
Speaker
Okay, well, at the moment, I teach at Bingham University, I teach international broadcasting as a visiting consultant, and I'm a judge on quite a number of things, including the Offered Media Awards, Africa-wide, Multina Teachers Award for the best teacher in Nigeria that earns 5 million Naira. It's the highlight of my year. I'm a judge on that.
01:04:17
Speaker
Professor Pate Tomé is our chair, and so we sit down, we go through a lot of entries, and one person wins a best teacher. We then meet them, top 10, and we pick this best teacher who ends up winning five millionaire, getting trained in the UK, getting six blocks of classrooms built in their school. As part of the win, I enjoy seeing teachers who have come from the hinterland, from the cities, walking around the hotel in Lagos, feeling very special,
01:04:47
Speaker
And I'm the judge, one of seven that has to pick the winner. I love it. It's a great job. A teacher gets rewarded. I'm on the board of a couple of institutions, a council member of Veritas University. So here's what I want to do.
Pursuit of PhD and Continued Contribution to Education
01:05:02
Speaker
I'm currently doing my PhD in Canada, which is crazy.
01:05:05
Speaker
My husband says, if you paid me, I won't go back to school, but I love going to school. And I'm sure you know why. I sat in the library for, since I was nine, and so books are my friends. I love to be able to get a challenge. So I'm in school doing the PhD. I'm not away in England or anywhere else doing it because I believe that at this age now it's time to hang around the family and the grandchildren rather than running off somewhere where you'd be away for so long. So I might have snatches if I'm lucky of being a visiting scholar somewhere.
01:05:35
Speaker
so I can run away from my busy and just focus on that. But I'm currently writing two books to add to the two already in the market. One of it is on persons I've met across the world, from cobblers to presidents,
01:05:50
Speaker
It's an interesting book. A second one is, be better. How do we make the world a better place? How can you be a better person? It's pretty inspirational. And I'm writing a cookbook, of course. But guess what? I want to have a podcast and I can't wait to learn from you. I can't wait to listen to it.
01:06:09
Speaker
I can't wait to learn the process of having a podcast. I've listened in, gone and tested the waters, but I want to be able to do this podcast that would be so many levels of excitement. So for me, those are the things. I still train. We have the executive masterclass on public speaking in Abuja. Lagos is calling us. Serial is on my faculty.
01:06:32
Speaker
Dr. King Oke, who is a leadership coach, is on it. We teach using technology for public speaking, how to be a good moderator keynote speaker, how to be a panelist and just how to be able to speak better and warm the room. We teach that. I teach customer service because it drives me insane.
01:06:51
Speaker
When somebody is chewing gum and not paying attention to you at a reception in a hotel or when a waiter doesn't know what food is available in his restaurant, those things drive me insane. So I teach customer service. I teach protocol because I've seen a lot of protocol mishaps as an anchor to events and integrations that have involved three to six presidents of the country. I want to be able to interview more people. I get great joy in interviewing people.
01:07:20
Speaker
I've done you're wearing 70, present Saliff Johnson over the years, or Basandro Severly. I've enjoyed those, but I want to also be able to interview older persons. What do they bring to the table? And younger persons. My daughters are singers, songwriters, performers. I've told them I'm going to interview them amongst the first sets of people. They're looking at me thinking, mom, what are you doing? I'm going to interview you. That's what's going down.
01:07:45
Speaker
So I have a lot on my plate. I'm looking forward to tomorrow. That will be symbolic for the next couple of years. I'm very excited that I'm still healthy at 62 in October.
01:07:58
Speaker
I'm very excited that God has been kind to me and I can do quite a lot of things. I've become a first time grandmother about seven months ago and he's the joy of my life. It's amazing how your life changes when you have another generation come up. And I'm very grateful for my children who have been very good, very kind.
01:08:18
Speaker
very well behaved and they still look out for me and I still think they're two years old, it's crazy. But we keep going and we enjoy each other's company so I love that. Thank you so much. What an inspiration and I was scared of asking the question and I'm even scared of the answer because you're still going on.
01:08:37
Speaker
and you're still doing so many amazing things, having the impact that you've had on all of us over these past how many years. And thank you so much. I think what I've learned from your story is not being afraid in taking that journey to be prepared so that when you get there, when the opportunity arises, you're able to hit the ground running, but also always learning.
01:08:56
Speaker
and not stopping to learn. Thank you so much. One sentence, Dr. Emsi. I think it's important that women should look after themselves and love themselves. I have a massage every six weeks. It's not cheap. I have somebody coming sometimes, but I go to the spa and spoil myself every six to eight weeks. When I fly, I have a massage if I fly long haul, because it's so important to be centered. And we have so much. We juggle so much. We need to have our head and our peace. I go window shopping.
01:09:26
Speaker
That's therapeutic. I love to travel. And so massages are just important. Every woman should get one every eight weeks. Save for it. There you go. There you go. From Miss Eugenia Abu, everyone should have a massage every six weeks. Thank you so much for doing this interview. It's been an absolute pleasure. It's been a great pleasure. Thank you for having me. Stay well.
01:09:51
Speaker
Hearing Eugenia Abu share her invaluable insights into the world of broadcasting really gave me goosebumps. She emphasised the importance of mentorship, discipline and continuous learning. Notice how she talked about the skills that she gained as an intern, building up those skills and being ready for the moment the opportunity to excel arrived.
01:10:13
Speaker
Her rise to aspiring broadcasters is clear. Focus on the craft, be patient and always be prepared. These principles have guided our own career and will continue to inspire the next generation of media practitioners. Drop me an email at dmscatafricamoleonmedia.com with your thoughts on this episode and please do also let me know if you'd like to appear on an episode of a Media Diary.
01:10:39
Speaker
To find out more about African Women in Media and our work, visit our main website at AfricanWomenInMedia.com. And in the show notes, there's a list of organizations and resources to support you if you have experienced any of the topics we've discussed today. Don't forget, join the conversation using the hashtag HerMediaDiary.
01:11:00
Speaker
Hemi The Diary is a product of African women in media, an NGO advocating for gender equality in the media industry. And this episode was hosted by Dr. E.M.D.C. I.K. in Babbala, produced and edited by Bless Luthi Obasi as part of a four-episode series on media legends. All music featured in this podcast is by Nana Kwabena. Thanks for listening, and join us again next week.