Oyinlade Bonuola, universally known as Ladbone, resides in a unique journalistic dominance yet unequalled in this isle.
Sprung from the fertile hills of Kishi in the northernmost rim of Oyo state, Ladbone vaulted from that Yoruba outpost into a national reckoning as a journalist, editor, philosopher and a signpost of emblematic excellence in that rarefied orbit called the Republic of Letters.
It is impossible to contextualize Ladbone without being first detained by his instinctive intellectual powers, his effortless animated cheerfulness, his natural, unforced cultivation of the best and the brightest.
Of average height and build , he is yet woven in a striking totality of immense eruditional depth and muster that steer towards eclipsed giantism.
His intellect does not shout in noisy abrasive presence. His distinction does not inhere in loud , intemperate racket of the ancient Athenian Agora .
No. Ladbone’s strength is in the quiet unobtrusive energy, the solemn, principled resolve, the immovable fixity challenging untruths, stripping falsehoods with the clarity of enlightenment, pitting himself in declarative attentiveness, defiant of pervasive aberration, no matter how contagious , no matter how stricken in numerous contamination.
Ladbone can choose to stand alone . Not in that rigidity of the unthoughtful contumacy .
But in the profound inner strength of one borne upon the pellucid brightness of a larger light. He once told this writer in a moment of resurgent epiphany : “Prince, do you know that a tree can make a forest ?”
It was more than an enquiry . It was an affirmation plumbed from the arcana of the soul. I knew his import. I never quibbled . I was in accord. For in this pithy statement one can surmise the essentiality of Ladbone’s persona.
Here he is telling us that one could stand firm and unwavering against the ravages of the prevailing moment once one holds the supportive shield of the righteous ramparts.
Ladbone could confront the storm, steadfast before the whirlwind, unyielding before the bruising furnace, insistent on the righteous path as he perceived it. This absolute assertion of the self does not necessarily imply some reckless obduracy. No. He can yield to superior light once he beholds it. But he is often at the shore of enlightenment long before others glimpse the enfolding beacon.
I had first witnessed Ladbone’s impregnable administrative solidity and his solitary cultivation and sourcing of talent deliberately without any recourse to those who may distract his fixity.
It was around middle of 1994 when Abacha’s tyrannical sway held the nation in dark, murderous serfdom. Guardian had earlier been shut down and later re-opened. The nation still strayed in totalitarian ferment where goon squad rioted in despicable largeness on behalf of an indifferent tyrant.
I was then at the Daily Times, editing the Saturday Times where I wrote a weekly essay published at the back of the newspaper with my picture inserted prominently.
In the ruckus of the Daily Times partisan maneuver wherein I was asked to write a proposal for a new newspaper, I became a victim of military power play when I was asked to deputize on the same newspaper I had birthed while I was still a substantive editor of a subsisting publication. It was a blatant injustice, a crude but failed attempt to diminish me .
Such were the aberrations of that bewildering autocracy.
I absolutely rejected the derogatory offer and I simply stopped writing, maneuvering my option to return to the University of California in Los Angeles . It was a Mexican Cliffhanger. Innocent Okparadike who was unfortunately carrying out a distatesful order chose not to sack me but promoted me to a sinecure.
This is where Ladbone who I never met before came in as a force of nature ; the de· us ex ma· chi· na .
Three times he sent an errand to me with a sealed envelope with the instruction that it was only to be delivered to Uthman Shodipe. Three times the errand failed to reach me. It was on the fourth attempt that he was lucky as he hurried after me as I was driving out of Agidingbi Daily Times office.
Ladbone had asked that I should see him. Two days later I was at the Rutam House. But, alas, Ladbone could not be found. I was directed by his Secretary Patience Aginah to see Mr Femi Kusa, his protege and deputy.
Kusa, who is a man I now hold in high esteem , gave me a disappointing response when I told him about Ladbone’s letter. He said cheerfully that “ We want you as our Features Editor.” While Kusa was cheerful I wasn’t. I brusquely rejected the offer and walked out.
I was barely at the car park when the same Secretary raced after me that the Managing Director had returned.
My immediate impression of Ladbone when I was in first physical contact with him was of a man with bouncing , incredible energy whose humanity radiated an enormous warmth of friendship, kindness and genuine brotherhood. He spoke as if I was a younger blood brother he had long yearned to see again after a long absence. I was first disarmed, smitten by his unpretentious gregarious accommodation. But before he could put in a word despite the luminosity of his large heartedness, I plunged in recklessly “Kusa told me that you want me as head of your Features desk. I have rejected it. “
Ladbone frowned briefly, almost un-noticed and then spoke in that soft , quiet authority that I invariably perceived consistently in almost four decades of continuous interaction with him. He was straitlaced, terse, authoritative without anger: “Kusa does not even know why you are.”
That was the first attribute I saw in him . He does not share all information even with his closest colleagues. Apparently certain things he kept to himself in extraordinary mastery of corporate governance. Never show all your cards .
I relaxed with a lingering, unabated anxiety, ruminating what does he want to offer me.
Ladbone, perhaps suspecting my muffled uncertainty, now interrogated in quick successive animation: “Are you Uthman Shodipe ? “ This he asked three times with the buoyant allure of youthful expressiveness. Three times I answered in the affirmative; though unperturbed but realizing that it was not necessarily an interrogation but more of some appreciative expressive candor that “the man I seek is finally here !”
Then he said to me in an accolade that still rings loud and long almost forty years after. Said he :” Do you know that the only thing of value in the Daily Times is your weekly Essay?”
I kept quiet, unresponsive. I could then not fathom whether it was an enquiry , a postulation or an affirmed confirmative from the wisdom height.
But this much was obvious. Ladbone did not only manage the Guardian, he was equally monitoring the competition with keen observant passion, weighing their strengths and weaknesses , absorbing what could enhance his own publication, distancing from the ailing frailties of others.
Then , Ladbone erupted his coup de main as I rumbled in silent unknown: “We want you to join our Editorial Board.”
That softened the whirling tumult of anxiety. I accepted and joined formally barely three days later.
I have illustrated this much as a testimony of the administrative astuteness, the accuracy of his intuitive judgement of people and his uncanny reading of the media barometer. He was evidently reading me while I was at the Times. He probably knew I wouldn’t accept his offer while I held the reins at Agidingbi. And immediately I stopped writing , he knew that there was a rupture and I was therefore vulnerable to try my fortune somewhere else.
The Guardian Editorial Board under the leadership of Ladbone was designed like a Collegiate aggregation of scholars with variegated ideological positions raging from Socialism, Libertarianism Capitalism, Welfarism, Marxism, Communism, Democratic Vanguardism and many hodgepodge of creative ideaological fancies any scholar could fling out as his basis of expressiveness. The scholars at various points were Professor Olatunji Dare, Professor Onwuchekwa Jemie, Professor Femi Ọṣọfisan, Professor Femi Otubanjo, Dr Edwin Madunagu, Professor Onyezeori, John Femi Kusa, Dr Patrick Dele Cole, Andy Akporugo , Professor Amadu Tijani, Dr Okey Ikechukwu, Dr Reuben Abati, Alhaji Shehu Musa , Prince Dasuki, Ambassador Ahmadu, Emeka Izeze, Professor Sam Oyovaibre, Odia Ofeimu, Dr GG Darah, Nkem Ossai, Uthman Shodipe and of course Lade Bonuola himself who would come in dutifully with a file laden with jotted notes.
We met in the Boadroom on the first floor every Monday with the visiting members joining us on Wednesday.
While I served on the Board there was no designated Chairman. GG Darah presided as the Editorial Page Editor who prepared about 5 or 6 topics to be thrashed out. Ladbone sometimes added his own when he showed up, which was unfailingly. He enjoyed the tussle and the pitting of intellectual tableau.
Each member was furnished with a clean brown off-cut listed with neatly typed itemized topics by our Secretary Grace Mbanugo.
The sitting arrangement was never random. It was somehow affixed without official stamp. Somehow, members would choose a seat around the ovally shaped conference table and it eventually became permanent by choice.
While the Editorial Page Editor steered the discussion, he promptly flung the floor open to a diverse whirlpool of polemical discourse often rich in dialectical argumentation. Ladbone, who often sat at the right side of Darah, like everyone else, would raise his hand for an intervention.
He would lay out his points in thoughtful brevity, uninterested in long winding peroration which some enjoyed, establishing the framework of his position with precedents, logic and matured articulation .
The Collegiate atmosphere rarely degenerated into intemperate raucous theater. But there was one incident I still remember where Ladbone’s inherent concealed authority was forced to assert itself when he was roused by Akporugo. I do not remember the topic now which started in the usual academic engagement. Then something ruffled . Perhaps a brusque unparliamentary incursion from one side and then the tumult. Angry words were exchanged between Ladbone and Akporugo. None let up as emotion heated up in dangerous Fahrenheit. Then others intervened, cooling the suffocating air, while the once truculent duo shook hands, smiled and even laughed. And voila the Board whirled to another topic.
The beauty of Ladbone’s Editorial Board was the free willing democratic platform which spurred columnists with incredible latitude of thought , hurling out ideas without prescriptive boundaries.
Apart from the matured appreciation of what constitutes libel or malicious incitement which I never saw in any publication, I never heard any columnist complained about a punctuation removed from his prose or a sentence mangled in some process of managerial interference. It never happened. Whereas we lived in dangerous moments; we all maneuvered within the constrictive expanse without negating our humanity.
Ladbone’s managerial style is a knowing perception that columnists, regardless of variegated ideological positions, were well hewn professionals in different spheres that could not be shackled with hovering editorial censorship or needless guidance.
Once editorials, which after the thorough thrashing of the debating platforms were threaded to a majority acknowledgement and were adopted, they became sancrosant , untouched; the collective voice of the Board even if there was a narrow dissent.
But whenever the authorities felt a sting , it was Ladbone that was ultimately dragged to the Ṣangisha office of the State Security Service. He would come back, jovial about his encounter with the secret police, unperturbed about the intrusive straying of the goon squad. He would reduce what might have been a grave encounter to a thoughtful reflective coda: “ We will continue to do our job without bias and defend the integrity of our profession.”
The seeming democratic largeness in the un-censorship of columns and editorials did not imply a loose , unguarded gateway where some monstrosities might crawl in without adequate and effective sentry.
Ladbone was that key sentry ; ever alert at the gate, cautious and wary as he swept over the grand concourse of the acclaimed Flagship with the practiced dutifulness of the ancient Mariner.
I saw this much at a close observatory on several occasions when I would saunter to the ground floor and hurry , unstopped to his large office which intimated a huge rectangular hall that could easily absorb forty people without hindrance. Ladbone held eminence at the north west end of the office with a huge brown polished hue table laden with the accoutrements of his work. The first time I walked into his office unannounced, his Secretary Patience Agina and his PA Mrs Nse Okunola having jointly waved me in , he looked up nodding at me as I inched through about twenty meters before I reached his table. He was still unspoken as he gestured me to sit down. Before him was the first edition of the Guardian virtually ripped apart with huge red markings and sometimes cut with scissors, indicating errors, omissions, untidy sub-editing, a straying towards libel or a thousand other issues that escaped the sub-editors or the titled editors grasp. When I asked him in my usual informal intimacy with the great man why the huge red markings and the various cuttings, he said it was an habit he cultivated from Alhaji Babatunde Jose , another great man who built the Daily Times empire. He said the cuttings and the red markings were meant for various gatekeepers to keep them alert and more diligent in their duties.
As an editor and a skillful cultivator of the best and the brightest, Ladbone will be proportioned in greater signification far beyond the limiting confines of the newsroom. He is a man of the limitless universe, stripped of restriction to tribe , to nation, to creed, to the halting template of a singular philosophy.
He is more. His vast, sweeping template is the endless tableau of humanity where his excellence shown in magnificent illumination , radiating from shore to shore, touching everyone privileged to cross his path.
He is a testimony of un-hidden humility and simplicity ; expressing joy , laughter and appreciation with that unique largeness of heart that is unfailingly infectious.
He touches everyone with hope, inspires the trampled with rousing possibilities, spreading a constant cadence of renewal; of a better dawn once there is patience, of a greater tomorrow only if we are disciplined enough to rectify the observable wrongs.
- Prince Uthman Ademilade Shodipe-Dosunmu is the Oloriekun of Olowogbowo and the Apesinọla of Ẹyọ Ọba Alakẹtẹ Pupa, Ọkọlaba Ẹkun.
- A Chapter from the book : Ladbone: A life in Print
