A PhD graduate who
specialised in Dramatic Literature, Theory and Criticism, Reuben
Abati started as a romance fiction writer.
The Presidential spokesman, Reuben Abati, in an article,
referred to young social media enthusiasts who criticise President
Goodluck Jonathan on the social media – twitter, Facebook, etc- as
“collective children of anger.” Besides Abati’s well-known reputation as a
veteran columnist, these are some specks of his eventful career that the
“collective children of anger” should know.
1. Smart Kid –
Reuben Abati graduated from Theatre Arts department of the University of
Calabar with first class honours. He was reportedly the youngest in his
class and he completed his PhD from the University of Ibadan at the age of
24, specialising in Dramatic Literature, Theory and Criticism.
2. Hints Magazine stringer: While at Ibadan, 1989 to 1991, he
was contributing editor to Hints and Channele, Lagos- based
romance magazines. Hints was a soft sell gossip and romance magazine
that titillated its readers with pictures and sketches of nude women
and racy stories.
Up until mid 90s when porn was banned from public consumption,
Hints’ readers enjoyed a mix of porn and stories of sexual escapades
written by Reuben Abati.
Between 1994 and 1995, he was a contributing editor of Hearts,
another racy romance magazine which he assisted in setting up. For
eight months, he maintained two columns under a pseudonym.
Occasionally, Reuben wrote a few stories for the mainstream
media.
3. Fuji and Juju music apostle: Reuben Abati alongside peer,
Dele Momodu, emerged as Ideological and intellectual captains on the
Lagos popular culture scene, especially the Fuji and Juju pop corridors.
Thus, they earned the bragging rights as the abstract thinkers
that conjured the emergence of Fuji musicians like Shina Peters
into national limelight.
While Dele Momodu – Bob Dee – went ahead to float the
spectacular celebrity magazine, Ovation, Reuben Abati moved to Guardian
newspapers to begin a full time journalism career, under the tutelage
of watchful eyes as Olatunji Dare, a grandfather of opinion writing
in Nigeria.
4. A professional foxtrot: Reuben Abati joined Guardian
Newspapers as a member of the editorial board. In 1994, the military
government of Sani Abacha appointed Alex Ibru, the Guardian Newspapers
publisher, as interior minister. Reuben Abati and other members of the
Guardian editorial board openly opposed Ibru’s appointment, but the
publisher went ahead.
Guardian newspaper was eventually shut down by Abacha. The
dictator’s condition for reopening the newspaper was an apology from
the Guardian. All the more principled editors rejected the condition
and subsequently resigned. Reuben Abati stayed back and eventually
became the chairman of Guardian newspaper’s editorial board.
His new position gave him tremendous powers, he could shape
public opinion in relation to any government in power. And he did just
that.
5. The journalist, the lawyer: While he served on the
Guardian newspaper’s editorial board, Reuben Abati won a Hubert H.
Humphrey journalism fellowship to the University of Maryland, United
States where he did a masters program in Journalism. On returning
from America in 1997, he also obtained a law degree from the Lagos
State University, LASU.
Despite the diversions, Reuben Abati brought value to his
job, maintaining two columns, unfailingly, in the Guardian newspaper
for years.
6. Abati the Award winner: As
a first class honours graduate of Theatre Arts from the University of
Calabar, he won the Vice-Chancellor’s prize for the best overall
graduating student. He also won The Cecil King Memorial Prize for Print
Journalism in 1998, The Diamond Award for Media Excellence for Informed
Commentary in 1998, and The Fletcher Challenge Commonwealth Prize for
Opinion Writing in year 2000.
7. Opinion for premiums: In the run up to 1999 and a little
into 2000’s, Reuben Abati thought he saw a chance that could bring him
into the Olusegun Obasanjo government and wrote a series of
sycophantic articles about Obasanjo. His peers say this was a disastrous
deep of his professional trajectory. Once it was clear Obasanjo would
not admit Reuben Abati into his government, he made a 180 degree
flip, lambasting the government till it expired in 2007.
This role gave him his recent fame and is the part most
“collective children of anger” know about him.
8. Abuja land grab: Reuben Abati grew in the business of
government criticisms to the point where governments courted him. In 2008,
Reuben Abati was fingered in an Abuja land grab scandal. He was alleged
to be among the editors the former minister of Federal Capital
Territory, Aliyu Modibo, issued choice land plots in Abuja to, in order to
buy editorial favour for the Umar Musa Yar’Adua administration.
Reuben Abati screamed and kicked at the allegation, insisting
that he, like all Nigerians, was entitled to own a property in the
federal capital territory.
9. The 10 part series on President Jonathan: In the build up to the 2011
presidential elections, the ruling People’s Democratic Party set up a
media subgroup within its presidential committee think tank to coordinate
media favour for the Jonathan 2011 campaign.
The group was led by Mike Omeri, former chief of staff to the
senate president, David Mark. Mr. Omeri is now the Director General of
the National Orientation Agency.
One of the activities the group erected, in its media strategy,
was to select talented media icons with huge advocacy value who
would launder the president’s image. Reuben Abati was one of those
penciled for the job.
He went ahead to deliver a 10 part series on President
Goodluck Jonathan in the run up to the 2011 presidential elections.
The series was the icing on the cake for the fluid critic
whose excellent CV matched the job. His recent opinion, “The Jonathan
they do not know” is seen as the eleventh part of that series.
10. Uniquely modest: Growing up, Reuben Abati was
uniquely modest, never seeing greatness in himself but the other person.
He never could call Shina Peters by name, rather, he would refer to the
Juju musician as “Mega Star” or “Star”.
Culled from Premium Times
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