Mr. Dotun Saseyi is popularly known as Maestro in the media circles. he currently runs Petals FM, Ibadan where he is the General.
He shares his media journey in this interview with SAM NWAOKO of Nigeria Tribune.
After a long stint in TV, here you are on the radio. How did you come by Petals FM?
When I was in Lagos with Galaxy Television, the late Comrade Yinka Odumakin came to my programme a couple of times. We talked but not so much. But more than a couple of times, his wife, Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin came on the same programme. They are activists and they have their different ways of handling their activism. So, she came many more times than her husband and I think the idea of me getting into the Petals FM thing must have been a result of two of them, somehow, knowing me. They both knew me differently.
When Goodluck Jonathan was going to leave office, Comrade Yinka Odumakin was at Galaxy Television in late 2014 and he had a website that he was building. He wanted me to do a few things, we got talking. The website was on and everything ended when Jonathan was no longer in office. That was when he told me at one of our meetings that he was in the process of getting a radio license. I asked where and he said Ibadan. I said okay but told him I had a commitment because while I was doing the website thing which was remote, I got an invitation again from my old boss at Galaxy. So we had a one year thing going on. So, I told him I had to finish that one year thing with Galaxy Television before I could go to any other place. So at the end of the 12 months, I had even forgotten until I remembered and called him. He said he had also forgotten and that he was going to clear it. That is how I got coming this way to Ibadan because I had left Ibadan for years.
Being at the helm at Petals FM, compared to the other places where you had been, how have you been hanging in there or coping after the exit of the Chairman/Founder, Comrade Yinka Odumakin?
It could have been worse but for some people, who are absolutely committed to his memory; who are determined that the place would not go down. On some occasions at least two must be mentioned. You can’t but reckon with the commitment of his widow, Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin who, beyond Petals FM, is also looking after the entire estate, trying to ensure that his legacy remains. Every year, you will see that there is always a celebration of life and times of Comrade Odumakin. It is always a memorial in Lagos. She’s been an amazon in taking care of what he left behind. so, there is no way you will not mention that.
The other person that must be mentioned is Prince Zaccheus Adedeji who also was committed to him in life and even more so to his memory behind him. So, they’ve not allowed the thing to be totally unbearable, but it is quite difficult. It’s a nightmare.
Some feel that the Nigerian economy isn’t fair to media outfits. What would you say are some of your survival tips?
We are surviving very badly. That’s my situation, I don’t know about others. We are surviving very badly because of inflation. How do you cope with diesel jumping from N200 to N600 to N800 and now to N1,000 per litre? How do you plan to survive that unless you have a steady flow of cash from somewhere which, luckily, some people have? But most of us don’t and so, we have to grind it out. So, we are not surviving very well.
However, that is not absolutely due to the economy alone. There are a lot of other factors. For one thing, you cannot compare the time you had one or two private radio stations in Ibadan with now that you have over 40? I don’t understand the avalanche of licenses dumped on Ibadan and environs. What five, six, maybe eight radio stations were sharing with difficulty is now what over 40 of us are sharing.
How did your media journey start?
After my degree in English and Literary Studies at the Ondo State University, Ado Ekiti, and national service, I worked with Paragon Petroleum in Lagos for about a year or so. Then I went into quarry business, I sold gravel for a very short while before I returned to Ibadan. When I returned to Ibadan, I got talking with my cousin, Woye Fadahunsi, who was also with Tribune then. We agreed that I should try if I could get into Tribune then. I came, I saw Mr. Folu Olamiti, who was the Editor, Nigerian Tribune. After meeting with him, I went upstairs to see the Managing Editor then, Mr. Biodun Oduwole. That is how I started with the Nigerian Tribune. I was on the sub-desk. My boss then was Alhaji Muda Ganiyu. That was my first contact with the likes of maverick Wale Ojo-Lanre.
Did you plan to become a journalist, considering what you studied or it just happened?
I had no such plan. I wasn’t even thinking about that. I certainly did not think I was going to be a journalist at all. But that is how my path lined out and I ended up with the Nigerian Tribune and I was there for about one year. It was quite tedious. On the sub-desk you work quite late into the night. It wasn’t in the days when you could do your computer networking and you don’t have to do first and second editions anymore. It used to be like that.
When I left Tribune, I found myself at Third Eye Communications owned by the late Chief Akanni Aluko. There, I was also on production. It was quite funny because I thought I could offer more than that. I thought I could really write very well; I thought I could really be a good reporter and all that. But apparently the forces were not looking in that direction for me, so I kept ending up at production, proof-reading, sub-desk and so on. I left Third Eye and went to Ondo State.
I went into timber business in Ondo State. In those days, you had a lot of virgin forests in Ondo State and there was a lot of timber in the forests. People were coming from Italy and China and all those places to simply just scrape the forest. So, when I left Third Eye, I went to see some of my friends in Akure and that is what they were doing. They didn’t have a lot of money to invest in the business, I didn’t have money either, but I had a friend in the UK who sent me about N17,000 which I put into the timber business. I started off and it was yielding until some of my partners decided to play a fast one and everything collapsed. Those were the two moments in my life when I ventured into business. The first one was quarry business and the second one was the timber. So, when I was dealt a bad blow by my friends in Akure, I returned to Ibadan again to get my groove going again. That took a while until Galaxy Television started in Ibadan.
You were in the print and you decided to try your hands in electronic media?
I wasn’t looking at Galaxy TV at all. We were watching TV at that time; private radio and TV was a lot of AIT and Ray Power. So, when Galaxy came to Ibadan, we started watching Galaxy TV and it was really beautiful because it was off government stuff and it was not the norm. Apart from watching, I was not paying much attention. There was nothing more than just watching but I liked Galaxy TV a lot and I did really watch the TV station. By the way, I needed a job or some kind of business to make money. A brother sent a message to urge me to see someone who could take me to Galaxy TV because he felt this was something I could do. I said I want thinking about that. So, I wrote an application and took it there.
Galaxy is run like an American company where you didn’t have a lot of bureaucracy or bottlenecks. When I got there, it didn’t take me long to see the President, Chief Steve Ojo. He talked to me very briefly and said ‘okay, we’ll see how this goes but I am not in charge of news. My brother is in charge of news and he is going to be around at so and so time. When he comes, you will know if you are in or out.’ But I think he was pleased after the brief interaction. When his brother, Engineer Francis Ojo came, he had Aunty Toun, a veteran broadcaster and Dr Ogedengbe (I don’t know if he is a professor now). The two of them gave me a newspaper piece which I read. I didn’t read up to two or three paragraphs when they stopped me and said ‘you can go’. That was how I joined the Galaxy team. I had a very long stint there from the middle of 1996. I left between 2002/2003. Then tragedy struck, I lost my wife in 2004 and I needed to get away from a lot of things. So, I returned to Ibadan. Later on the advice of Chief Steve Ojo, I moved to Galaxy Lagos because I was a part of the team that built Galaxy Lagos afresh. Then I left and returned. That was my first leaving and returning.
The second time I left Galaxy TV was in 2007 during which I went to work at TVC. I was Head of Programmes at TVC between 2011 and 2012. It’s been more of broadcasting than any other thing.
That’s where you made most of your mark, it seems?
I should think so because I didn’t cut any serious thing in print. I was in the lower rungs and I didn’t stay in the print media for any serious spell. It wasn’t long.
Look at what broadcasting was then and what we have now?
When you compare the two eras as an ‘internet citizen’ by which many seniors have been described by the younger generation who are classed as ‘internet indigenes’, how have you been able to adapt?
If you are talking about the Internet as distinct from journalism then and now, they are two different things though there would be a meeting point. My generation will not have a serious excuse for not being able to work around the internet, the computer and everything. We cannot absolve ourselves because the computer has been around for a long time and it still caught us relatively in our youth. So, it depends on how much dedication we applied to it growing up or growing older.
It’s understandable that you call the younger ones ‘indigenes’ because there is nothing else. You and I will go to the library or run to University of Ibadan or The Polytechnic to interview people just to complete one news story. Now they will just sit in a place and can do a video call to the person you want to interview. If you like you just send the message or do audio recording. There are lots of options in an ICT age now that you don’t have to run around. Those days you have to run around. People who are older than us can absolve themselves, they will be excused but people like us cannot because I remember when I joined Galaxy Television, Galaxy was already on non-linear editing. We were using the computer to edit.
It was really complicated because in those days Galaxy was using the Adobe Premier. Today you have a lot of options to Adobe Premier, back then you didn’t. All of us had to learn.
So, if you had been with Galaxy for that stretch, there is no way you will not have got some of your system computerized because the transition to ICT age was witnessed by almost all of us. When I was handling news and current affairs in Galaxy Television Lagos, we were receiving news tapes sent by flight so that we could break news. The tapes are sent from Abuja to Lagos by flight and we station someone who would receive it and so we could put it in the news in the evening. That’s how much dedication to this job we had. When I was in TVC we were talking about satellite which had come them. You didn’t have to be throwing things all over the place, you reports would come and you could break news any way you want. People before us could be caught in the web of computer illiteracy but not us. I don’t consider myself so good with the computer but I can get by.
The thinking in some quarters is that the younger people no longer read as much as our generation did. They are of the opinion that it is already affecting the newsroom. Do you agree with this school of thought?
We like to say everything we did was perfect and the next generation imperfect because they are not doing what we did. We were reading because we needed to read. They are no longer reading because they don’t need to read so much these days. Why would you need to read so much when everything you need is on your phone? So, the compulsion to read is no longer there; we have to also be progressive. When you finish spending your time, do you also want to spend the time of your child? This is their time. I know that there are some good things that we did or that we were compelled to do which we would have loved them doing, but it is their time. If reading is not bringing them so much happiness, joy, money and so on, why do we compel them to read? If reading would be the thing, they would discover it themselves or the generation after them would return to reading. These days, you pick your phone, it is either the entire library of another person is on your phone or you just plug it and you are doing audio booking. So, you are reading already by plugging something to your ears and the reading is going on. I think things were made more difficult than necessary in our generation. All those exams were designed to fail you, not to make you succeed. You succeeded despite all the obstacles on your way.
So, I don’t see it the way others are, that the reading culture is gone and so on. The reading culture is going another thing is replacing it. They are now more into images and they want to see. If you are not graphic, forget it. How many of them are into poetry these days? In our time it was crack, jack iambic pentameter and so on. Now it is more of entertainment, like rap. Until Professor Niyi Osundare came to rescue us with “Alternative Tradition” and Biodun Jeyifo and so on, we were rooted in shackles etc. the intensity of poetry and its solemnity are all missing today. Today, poetry is irreverent and designed to rebellion. So, I don’t blame them.