chapter 14

The Lagos based international broadcaster that employed me was known as Television Continental TVC, when I joined the station late in 2010. It had a change of name to become TVC Communications but the acronym remains TVC.

We had a two-week orientation training at the Ketu headquarters of the company and I was posted to Ondo State as Correspondent. Since TVC had a coverage contract with the Olusegun Mimiko government, I reported to the Governor's Office at Alagbaka for accreditation and other formalities to enable me to function as a bona fide Reporter of TVC not only at the Governor's Office but also in Ondo State at large. TVC had a cameraman, Tunde Lawal in Ondo State before my employment, we bonded quickly and began to work together harmoniously.

The Mimiko administration provided not only office accommodation but also residential accommodation to the staff of television stations they signed coverage agreements with. I was shown the TVC room in a 3-bedroom flat shared by the staff of three television stations with their headquarters in Lagos but I never slept there once in the over one year I covered Governor Mimiko's administration for TVC.

I was shuttling daily between Ado Ekiti and Akure throughout the period  which soon pitched me against the helmsman  popularly call Iroko because he found out that the TVC Correspondent was permanently absent from any of his events lasting beyond 5pm. 

I was shuttling between the two Governor offices in Ado Ekiti and Akure because I had engaged a cameraman -  Gbenga Ojo Ogunmiloro, on my on accord, to cover the activities of Governor Kayode Fayemi while the official TVC cameraman was permanently in Akure. This arrangement made it possible for me to file stories from Ondo and Ekiti States to TVC Newsroom on a daily basis.

During my tenure as the Ondo State Correspondent of the TVC, I had a nasty but interesting encounter with the police while performing my official duty on one election dday. I was the head of a team from Adaba FM (the radio station is a sister organisation to TVC) assigned to cover the election in the South senatorial district of the state. On election day, at a police checkpoint near the secretariat of Odigbo Local Government, our Adaba FM branded Hilux van was stopped and we were harassed for flouting the vehicular restriction.order. All our pleading that we had the necessary accreditation and tags which exempted us from the restriction as journalists performing our normal duty was not accepted. We were detained at the checkpoint but our phones were not confiscated. 

Meanwhile, a live coverage of the election was going on, on Adaba FM and at a point, a call came to me for an update on the voting activities where we were. Not minding that I was speaking live on radio, I narrated our ordeal. The telephone call infuriated the most senior police officer at the checkpoint and he jumped into our vehicle and ordered.our driver to move that we are going to Ore Divisional Police Station. Before we arrived at the Ore police station, the Commissioner of Police in Ondo had who had listened to the report on the radio of our encounter with his men on the road had ordered the Divisional Police Officer DPO of the station to apologize to us and release us to continue our election monitoring assignment. So, when we got to the station, we met all the officers and men there outside already waiting for the journalists from Adaba radio. Right in our presence before we left Ore, the DPO despatched a team on the orders of the CP to go and replace the team that arrested us at Odigbo.

We continued our job excited about what we have been through and visited polling stations in Okitipupa and other neighbouring communities where met many who's who in Ondo State. They included, ex-Governor Olusegun Kokumo Agagu on the queue at Iju-Odo his home town and Senator Jimoh Ibrahim in his own village nearby where he showed me the upstairs he said he built for his mother during his NYSC service year.

After the election, I returned to my beat at the Ondo State Governor's Office to face more complainants about my frequent absence from official functions of the State Government. It was getting to a head but the plan to hire another reporter who would reside permanently in Akure was also on. With the cooperation of the General Manager of Adaba FM, Sir Martins Ayoola, a reporter was employed in person of Mr Moradeyo while I was re-assigned as Ekiti State Correspondent and that ended my daily shuttle between Ado Ekiti and Akure.

In due course, TVC signed a contract with the Fayemi administration and the cameraman who had been working for me in Ado Ekiti while I was officially the TVC Correspondent in Ondo State was absorbed by TVC and became a bona fide staff of the station.