The new Taraba state Commissioner of Information, Bar Danjuma Anyeze Adamu, is one of the silver linings in the cloudy stratosphere called Taraba government. He’s like the answer to that proverbial question: Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? I say all these because we from the 80s, literally grew up on him. If you were a lover of good writing and some courageous journalism.., then the defunct Analyst magazine was the place to go and Danjuma Adamu was one of its leading lights alongside stormy petrel Balarabe Musa and Bala Usman.
So I was joyful in 2008 or so when a man I considered a veteran, Barrister Anyeze , hunted little me down to Abuja and asked me to leave my job at leadership newspaper to come edit what he started called Sunrise newspaper in Jalingo. He told me to consider it a sacrifice. He said he knew I was probably earning a good sum as Editor of the Sunday title of leadership. I told him I’ll remain a friend of the paper he was midwifing at the time. I even did a piece on the new paper and assured him of my support. He wasn’t impressed. He just wanted me to be the paper’s first Editor.
Two years later, I became media aide to late Governor Danbaba Suntai who was the brain behind the Sunrise newspaper initiative. At the launch of the paper, Barrister Anyeze who was its Managing Consultant at the time, did not fail to mention that I had turned down the offer to edit the paper. He smiled at the poetic twist in fate that saw me now supervising the paper from my new office. So together, we began the hardwork of making the brand a stable one. I eventually became Commissioner and Uncle Anyeze was still at the paper and we continued to work hard at it.
Fast forward and the Sunrise newspaper suddenly suffered an eclipse. But Anyeze never stopped agonising and hoping the sun will rise again. I think I was among the first few people the great man called, Friday, after he was nominated Commissioner. He called to congratulate me on my own appointment as Adviser Media to the honorable minister of power. I, in turn, congratulated him. He then quoted Shakespeare’s “the boy is the father of the man”! Such humility, such candour and more is what Adamu brings to his new task. A man at home with letters, he was my book reviewer- a job he did with the same incisiveness with which he wrote his own book “Showers of Blessings (a must read, by the way, if anyone was serious about the history of Taraba). The new Commissioner’s main target would be to sell the state to the rest of the world and ensure the overall digitisation project. My prayer is his principal gives him all the supports he needs to deliver. That’s my only worry because as far as capacity is concerned, oga Adamu is the man!
Bello, is former Commissioner of information, Taraba and contributed this piece from Abuja.
