The Candour of Raymond Dokpesi
The death of Raymond Dokpesi yesterday reminded me of some rather unusual things about the man. The words ‘innovator’ or ‘pioneer’ are often used to describe people in Nigeria in an exaggerated manner but I think in the case of Raymond Dokpesi they are apposite.
The first is that King Sunny Ade (KSA) was the one who introduced him to a lot of Nigerians with this song that was the final track on his Authority album released in 1990. Dokpesi was born in 1951 meaning he was 39 at the time KSA was singing about him. Even by the dubious standards of Yoruba praise singing musicians and songs, that was quite young. We can at least be sure that Dokpesi must have been a fairly wealthy man in 1990 for KSA to dedicate a track that ran almost 20 minutes to him on an album.
The song was rather catchy, in part because most people weren’t really sure what he was talking about. Was KSA saying that Raymond Dokpesi was a man who had candour as a personal quality? That would have been somewhat odd given that candour is hardly ever used to describe people in a wholly positive way — in popular usage it tends to describe the telling of painful or uncomfortable truths. Nevertheless, KSA got people happily singing Raymond Dokpesi mi wa candour about someone they didn’t really know, yours truly included.
The second interesting thing about Raymond Dokpesi and the KSA song was the second line of the chorus — Dr. Dokpesi mi s’omoluabi. Again, by the standard of fuji and juju music praise singers, this was also unusual in the sense that Dokpesi was an actual PhD having obtained a doctorate in marine engineering from the University of Gdansk.
So to recap — KSA, the preeminent Yoruba juju musician of the time dedicated a whole song to a 39 year old PhD holder in marine engineering — five years his [KSA’s] junior — from the small riverside town of Agenebode in the old Bendel state (when we like someone, their house is never too far away as KSA sang on the track).
Four years later in 1994, Nigerians finally got to know who that Raymond Dokpesi was when he launched RayPower 100.5 FM (they actually started test broadcasting in late 1993), Nigeria’s first privately owned radio station following General Babangida’s 1992 deregulation of the broadcasting space. I’m probably showing my age here when I say Raaaaaaaaaaaaay Power! Two years later in 1996, Dokpesi then started Africa Independent Television (AIT), which was hailed as the first satellite TV station in Africa. (Around the same time, Nduka Obaigbena launched ThisDay Newspapers, which was a revolution in Nigerian newspaper publishing, at the age of 36. What was it about young men from the old Bendel state changing the Nigerian media landscape in the 1990s?)
The story of how a PhD holder in marine engineering in his very early forties blazed the trail for private broadcasting in Nigeria is beyond my area of competence. I will only say that, looked at in the cold light of recent history, it was an incredible achievement. When DAAR Communications (the parent company of AIT and RayPower) moved to their base in Alagbado, Lagos, the place was barely habited (or even habitable). The story then was that they got such a huge piece of land from the Airforce officer who owned swathes of the place by measuring with a stone i.e. they threw a stone and decided the boundaries of the land where it landed. Somehow, he got guests to wake up 4am to brave terrible roads and traffic to attend 7am interviews in their studios. And how did the staff manage to get there in time everyday?
AIT and RayPower were an important part of my teens growing up in Nigeria. Kenny ‘Keke’ Ogungbe and Dayo ‘D1’ Adeneye were the middlemen who brought me a lot of the music I listened to on AIT Jamz. And which self-respecting teenage boy did not have a crush on Jumobi Adegbesan on AIT? Many (deluded) hearts were broken when Richard Mofe-Damijo married her more than 20 years ago.
However that his latter day foray into partisan politics may have erased the incredibly innovative streak that he had in his younger days, it should not be forgotten. He was a trailblazer who left an indelible mark on Nigerian media and the country.
I hope he gets some fitting obituaries written about him.