Nigeria is better off as one –Bisi Olatilo

Bisi Olatilo needs no introduction to any Nigerian with passion for quality broadcasting. The multi-lingual broadcaster and media entrepreneur has been around for a while, and has seen it all, so to speak. In this interview, he speaks on the need for Nigeria to embrace the philosophy of coexistence amongst all tribes and religious faithful in the interest of the nation.
Excepts:

In your own definition, who is a true Nigerian?
A true Nigerian must be somebody who loves Nigeria very well, one who is not ready to compromise Nigeria on the altar of politics. What we have seen on the political front these days is that people in their quest to clinch political positions forget the fact that they are Nigerians when they say all manner of negative things about Nigeria.
For me, whoever is in the saddle will come and leave, but Nigeria will remain forever. It will do us more good when we try as much as possible not to talk down our country or whoever is in power, because that is the most unfortunate thing ravaging the entire country.

It is baffling how you manage to speak fluently in the three major Nigerian languages (Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba) without mixing dictions or expressing an accent of one for another. Were you born of three parents from the three different tribes?
I thank you for asking me this question because I am always asked the same question every minute of the day. I do not speaks all these languages just because I want to show off, but it happens that whenever my friends call me, they speak in these languages and I respond eloquently and they enjoy it.
You know I travel a lot; and I am surprised to know that after 40 years of speaking these languages, some people are just coming to term with the fact that I can fluently communicate in the three major Nigerian languages (Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba).
Let me put it this way; I think I was lucky enough to have been born in Kano State, I am happy that you said that Kano and Kastina are the two states that speaks pure Hausa language without adding any other tongue to it…

Yes, it is call kanawa.
I grew up in Sabon-gari in Kano, and one thing that will shock you is that the Igbo that I speak was learnt in Kano too. That is why when I speak, I always say that I hope that as a nation, we can return to those good old days. We were lucky to have grown up in those days that Nigeria was one and I pray that we would return to it.
It is something that is very daunting, but I think that we can all work at it because Nigeria was one as at the time I was telling you about. What I am saying is that in those days, we used to go to the hinterland of the town of great Kano. The lesson here is for us to take back, let us go back in time, we need to sit down and see how we can rework Nigeria. I mean, it is one indivisible country.
Somebody said that there is no reason to celebrate that we are over a hundred years old and I disagree with that. It has been a great deal of achievement for us to have stayed together as one Nigeria for a hundred years, even though some are biased over that and they say that we were merely co-existing. But I say to them, even so it is a great achievement for us.
The lesson here is this, let everybody try in his or her own little beat to see that this co-existence works. I think that brings us to the issue of the just concluded National Conference and I believe that it will go a long way in reworking Nigeria, because we had everybody from different parts of the country and they all sat dawn and reasoned the way forward.
I heard all that transpired at the International Conference Centre covered in the BIS Show, and we heard from great world leaders who were full of praise for the unity of Nigeria after a hundred years. One of them was even frank enough to speak of the great deal of hope Nigeria holds to the rest of the world. I recall he said that if Nigeria sneezes, the whole world would catch cold. You can evaluate such a statement from a world leader.
The Liberian President also did said that there would be no Africa without Nigeria. There was also a consensus opinion among all of them and at that, they warned us to now rework our security apparatus. It is ironical that Nigeria, which has been in the forefront, helping other African countries out of their problems is now saddled with one.

I also can recall that the President of Gambia said that Nigeria is bigger than any tribe, religion and tradition. As a veteran broadcaster, what is the strength of Nigeria TV content when compared to TV content from other parts of the world?
You talked about the BIS show winning best TV programme awards amongst other numerous awards, but let me shock you a little; before our programmes started winning awards, I as a person, as an employee of FRCN (Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria), for two consecutive years was named the best broadcaster by the Nigerian Media Merit Award committee who has also awarded the BIS show as the best TV programme of the year.
The essence of any good programme is firstly, you must do a good research. Like for the kind of TV magazine programme that we do, you know that we cover everything from weddings, politics, events and others.

I presume that you like football?
That is an understatement, because back in my school days, in my secondary school days, I was my school goalkeeper. That was about 45 years ago. Then I was a sports commentator too. That was where my broadcasting urge started. During those years, you can only listen to the radio news so to speak. At 7, 4 and 10 o’clock, names were popped out for the news. Names like Ikenna Ndaguba for the news, while on Saturdays, it used to be football commentaries by Ishola Folorunsho. Then I asked myself, why can’t I do this? And low and behold, when I had the opportunity, I started from my school. What I did then was to go round and collect news and read it at the school assembly. It was possible because my principal encouraged me to do it. So you can imagine little me reading news to an assembly of over 1,000 persons.