A former broadcaster with the NTA, Mr Frank Olize; former director-general of NIPSS Professor Yakubu Sankey and a former Force public relations officer, Frank Odita are three individuals ELEOJO IDACHABA seeks to know where they are now.
Frank Olize
Anyone born in the late 1980s would not be familiar with the name Frank Olize. This is because this Delta state-born former news caster with the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) left full broadcasting in the early 1990s. He was one of the voices on NTA who anchored the Sunday night news and current affairs programme Newsline. In another way of saying it, he made that programme popular by what it is in the country today. After his usual phrase of ‘It’s nine o’clock. Do you know where your children are?’ It’s time for the one-hour programme with him. Olize now in his late 70s left the NTA, to many, unannounced. Not until a few years later, many thought he simply took the back seat. He, however, retired quietly and left the shores of Nigeria for the USA. In those days, the old and younger Nigerians looked forward to 9:15 pm every Sunday in order to hear the latest weird, funny and sometimes serious stories of the week anchored by this icon. Writing about this man, a lecturer in the Mass Communications of Chukwu Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University in Anambra state, Chinenye Nwabueze, said: “Frank Olize is unarguably a legendary broadcaster who was a dominant brand at the NTA in the 1980s and 1990s. He was very popular as an anchor of Newsline, a programme aired every Sunday from 9-10 pm. Not just that the programme was very interesting, Olize’s unique style of presentation kept viewers captivated and glued to their television set while he was on air. He took television presentation to another level through that programme. He had a way of captivating his viewer’s emotion while the viewer watches the programme to the extent that he lets tears drop down from the eyes when the story gets so emotional. He made that programme a Sunday-Sunday tonic for many Nigerians.”
Long after his exit from the tube, rumour went wild that he was dead until he was spotted in Dubai in a French suit during the wedding of his daughter a few years back. Analysts are of the opinion that he simply want to keep himself away from the happenings in Nigeria; hence he kept everything about himself in top secret. The general consensus, however, is that in the current democratic experiment in the country, if Olize were to be around, he would have been heading one of the government agencies, but where is he?
Yakubu Sankey
Prof Yakubu Sankey is the former acting director-general of Nigeria Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) in Jos under the regime of late President Musa Yar’Adua. He replaced Professor Akin Akindoyeni, the erstwhile DG who was sent on compulsory leave on the ground of financial scandal. During his stewardship as DG, Sankey courted several controversies while in office and some he inherited. For example, as secretary and director of administration under Akindoyeni, he was privy to the allegations of financial recklessness which analysts said on taking over, he was prepared to cover up. Some of these bother on the sale/lease of property belonging to the institute in Abuja and oil money-related scandals. Apart from these, Sankey went on head-on collision with the Office of the Vice President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, whose office supervises the agency directly. It bothered on the sack of one Mr Briggs, an assistant director (AD) of the agency who was alleged to have stolen a camera while on a trip to China, a development Sankey was not prepared to sweep under the carpet. Report had it that when the information got to Jonathan, he ordered due process in handling the matter, but Sankey preferred the said AD out because of the image problem it would have on the agency. This was an affront on the vice president, more so as the said AD hails from Jonathan’s home state of Bayelsa. As this continued, it wasn’t long before another scandal surrounding a missing N6 billion was uncovered under Sankey, a development that got former EFCC and ICPC bosses and the IGP in the investigation. According to an Abuja-based news medium, “There is no doubt that the sacking of Akindoyeni as boss of NIPSS may pave way for a full blown investigation into how the agency was run, but with Sankey holding the forte as boss, not many would be convinced that government would get to the root of the elite college.” That was the impression held about him. Shortly before he was forced into retirement in 2009, he went into another collision course with the Police Service Commission over the demotion of Mallam Nuhu Ribadu from AIG to DCP for which the commission said Ribadu was no not qualified to be in NIPSS. Sankey stood his ground and refused to comply; saying only the police authorities that sent him there can remove him. Long after he left NIPSS, nothing has been heard about him any longer. The question is, where is he at the moment?
Frank Odita
He is one of the finest officers Nigeria ever had in the police force. This Delta state-born former cop joined the police in 1958 and was last seen as presenter of Crime Fighters, a programme that ran on major television station then. He can, therefore, be described as one of the bridges between the colonial constabulary forces and the modern day Nigeria police. Odita who, according to reports, is now a security expert, lives in Lagos. In an interview with a national daily a few years back, he bemoaned the state of the police today, saying the heritage of the force was destroyed by the military. According to him, “The Nigeria police was an enigma of respect and a pride to the nation because of the level of training and orientation it got from the colonial master until the military destroyed and reduced it into a beggarly institution.”
Odita was a one-time Force Public Relations Officer, a position he carried out well in the days of the military when there was this perceived cold war between the military and the force. He later rose to the rank of commissioner before he retired in the early 1990s. He is someone who is averse to the call for amnesty for Boko Haram members.
In an interview he granted when the matter started initially, he refused to be carried away by those who go by cheaply comparing the sect to the Niger Delta militants who were granted amnesty by Yar’Adua. He said, “The Niger Delta militants were granted amnesty because they came out to dialogue with the government. The government also thought that what they were agitating for was legitimate, but we can’t say that for Boko Haram because we don’t know what they are fighting for.”
He is one person who has not been seen, especially on Crime Fighters in recent times. Where is he?
