Apart from being the seat of power, the Presidential Villa-also known as Aso Rock- in Abuja is a historical site in many ways. In words and pictures, the Villa tells the Nigerian story in Nigerian colours. The Green-White-Green is aptly captured in the architectural designs of offices, residences and banquet halls, complimented with luscious trees, well-manicured lawns and flowers. The detailing, orderliness, warmth and candour of the Villa are every visitor’s delight. And traditionally, most offices have pictures of some of their past heads on the walls.
In the Office of the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, there are many faces on the wall, mostly of veteran journalists. However, among the pictures of past spokespersons, there is only one female face, Dame Felicia Oluwaremilekun (Remi) Oyo. Oyo is the first and only female to have served as a spokesperson to a president in Nigeria’s history. Before Oyo’s appointment in 2003, there were eleven spokesmen, and after her the conclusion of her assignment in 2007, there have been four since the hoisting of pictures of past spokespersons started in 1976. The picture on the wall projects the warmth Oyo, who passed on last year on Nigeria’s 54th Independence Anniversary; just eleven days to her 62nd birthday.
Oyo was a loving wife, mother, grandmother, philanthropist and a passionately religious person. In Nigeria’s robust, vibrant and rigorous media industry, Oyo scored many historical firsts in her career as a journalist. Starting out as a reporter with the National Broadcasting Commission in 1973, later renamed Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), Oyo, as she loved to recall, was the ‘‘dark complexioned, skinny and shrilled-voiced journalist, who loved wearing a school-girl low haircut.” Oyo loved telling the story of her little beginnings. She gleefully recollected, many times over, how she was posted to cover the First Lady then, Mrs. Victoria Gowon, in 1973 and how the First Lady never stopped laughing at her small statue, shrill voice and her quintessential kneeling position before greeting her elders. Oyo’s homeliness caught Mrs. Gowon’s attention, and they turned out very good friends. That good relationship earned her scholarship to graduate school at the University of Kent in Canterbury.
Through hard work, devotion to study and humility, Oyo was moved to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in 1981 as a desk editor, just three years after the agency started operations in 1978. She rose to become the first female principal editor in 1985 before leaving for the Rome-based Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS) as a reporter, and later as the West Africa bureau chief. Working at the IPS, Oyo was elected the secretary of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, vice president, and later the first female president of the Guild. Oyo served the Guild for two terms of four years, and since remained the only female to be so honoured.
After serving as spokesperson for four years under former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007, Oyo was appointed the managing director of NAN. Her appointment came 22 years after leaving the same agency as a member of staff. Oyo was the first female managing director of the news agency since it started operations in 1978. As a managing director, the newsroom was Oyo’s turf. She loved the daily analysis of topical issues. And when there was a breaking news, she was right at the centre of follow-ups. Oyo served two terms of six years in NAN, and she preferred being called a ‘‘reporter’’. Once a reporter, she used to say, always a reporter. Oyo combined her role as chief executive with reporting and editing when it was necessary.
The former managing director was credited with ushering the agency into a technologically converged environment of telecoms, television and radio. Under her supervision, the local and foreign subscriber base rose from less than 100 to more than 200. And for the first time, Nigeria’s only news agency provided video clips and sound bites to subscribers, and breaking news alerts through mobile services. As a further departure, the agency’s editorial department was restructured, with an elaborate and modern multi-media studio and a research and documentation unit. Oyo instilled a new sense of professionalism in the agency, reviewed staff allowances and ensured more regular and compulsory training to prop up skills. To her credit, the agency’s nationwide offices and moribund international offices were revived and new partnerships were built with other news agencies across the globe for news exchange and training, like Reuters and the Chinese Xinhua.
In the office of the managing director of NAN, Oyo’s face is the only female picture on the wall. And the picture of her face is not only on the wall, but in the hearts of many she loved, coached and touched. Oyo had always operated a bottom-up style of leadership. She knew all her staff by their first names, and knew some of their parents, spouses and children. Oyo had a personal time table for birthdays and anniversary of staff members, and was also by their bedside in hospitals when they took ill. She shared both moments of joy and misfortunes with her staff.
Both in the Presidential Villa and NAN, where she served for more than ten years, staff members always recall their relationship with Oyo with fond memories, sometimes with tears when they remember her aliment and final internment last year. ‘‘She was more than a boss, she was a mother,” Rosemary Ezeugoh, her secretary at the Presidential Villa, said. As Oyo’s staff in NAN, whenever I had the opportunity of being with her I always took mental notes. Like many other staff members, Oyo counselled me on financial management, study habits, career projections, marriage and the beauty of hard work. She exuded courage and poured out wisdom from her heart at every turn. She was a life-coach to many. NAN staff members will always remember Oyo yelling at reporters to never take bribe for reports. And to every staff, she would plead: ‘‘Don’t eat with your ten fingers; always save some money from your salary for the rainy day.’’
Oyo’s charisma and leadership qualities were unmistakable even at first meeting. Her loyalty, as former President Olusegun Obasanjo said in his tribute was unquestionable. And her integrity remained impeccable. For those who knew her closely, Oyo was the typical loving, kind hearted mother and grandmother you loved to be with when you behaved properly, and the cantankerous mother and grandmother you liked to avoid when you are wrong. She was disciplined, with a journalistic nose for details. Oyo loved deeply, sincerely and fully, and reprimanded thoroughly and mercilessly when the situation deserved it. Once, her daughter, Okiemuote, told me: ‘‘If mummy is not happy, you will know instantly and if she’s happy, the whole environment will feel it. She doesn’t hide her feelings.’’
Oyo’s warm-heartedness, discipline, friendliness and motherliness endeared her to many, including strangers. She lived her life in a triangle – and passed on the lifestyle to every one she mentored. She was deeply religious and remained a devoted catholic and a knight; she loved her family, which includes her loving husband Vincent, two children, two in-laws and three grandchildren and many others. For her, family was first. Finally, she loved her job and the newsroom was her haven.
In spite of the grace and privilege she enjoyed, Oyo never hid the fact of her growing up in a very poor background. Born to a father who was a carpenter and a mother who was a petty trader, Oyo spent her childhood hawking the local snacks item, akara, on the street of Ilorin, Kwara State, before going to class every morning. During some of the counselling sessions with staff members, Oyo would recall that on her return from school as a pupil, she moved from house to house to sell gari prepared by her mother before doing her homework.
She was known as omo baba kapenta, interpreted daughter of the carpenter. Born the only girl among four children, Oyo also had to tough it out among her brothers as the third child.
Was it a coincidence that she passed on Nigeria’s Independence Day or another act of fate? Was it to underline her faith and love for her country or to underscore her firsts as a Nigerian? Her former boss, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, said in his tribute: ‘‘Through her distinguished public service as my senior special assistant on Media while I was at the helm as the civilian president of Nigeria between 1999 and 2007, Remi earned the recognition and admiration of many of her compatriots across the length and breadth of Nigeria. She was a dutiful and hardworking woman and she gave her best to the end in the service of her fatherland. She was not only dutiful;Remi was also professional and loyal to the core. Not only loyal in terms of her job, but loyal in terms of being a Nigerian. Her integrity was above board and on no account could you persuade her to do what she considered not to be right.’’
Remarkably, Oyo was appointed a member of the 1999 Constitution Drafting Committee by former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, and later received a national honour, Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON). In her dedication to the service of humanity, she earned many recognitions from the National Council of Catholic Women Organization for her philanthropy, especially in supporting the girl-child education and women’s health. On January 7, 2011, His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI made her a Papal Dame of St. Gregory the Great.
In many ways, a journalist is a historian. An in writing history, some journalists and historians become part of the history. Also, journalists and historians share a similarity with blacksmiths in spite of the differences in approach and craft. As an Idoma and Yoruba adage says, ‘‘When blacksmiths die, they leave their hands behind so they are hardly forgotten.’’ Oyo wrote history as a journalist and formed part of Nigeria’s history as a journalist, but more importantly she lived like a blacksmith, leaving behind her a strong legacy. It’s been one year since she left, but her caring heart and hands have left testimonies on the lives of the many people she met and touched. In our hearts, she still lives. Oyo scored many firsts in her lifetime, but most importantly, she remains the little, poor girl on the streets of Ilorin who reached the peak of her career in journalism and left her picture in the Presidential Villa. She will not be forgotten.
Echeija is a Press Officer, Media and Publicity Department, Presidential Villa
