Veteran journalist and former presidential aide, Babafemi Ojudu has revealed the daring and controversial method he used to obtain rare photographs of Major Gideon Orkar shortly after the failed 1990 coup.
Speaking on State Affairs with Edmund Obilo on Splash FM 105.5, Ojudu narrated how he deceived a 15-year-old photo shop attendant into handing over film negatives containing images of Orkar by distracting her with Coca-Cola errands.
“I met a young girl, she was about 15 and she was an attendant in the photo shop,” Ojudu recalled. “I said, we were here to take photographs the other day, we have not been able to collect the photographs. Where is your Oga?, and she said, my Oga traveled.”
Pretending to be a customer, Ojudu asked to see the photographs and when the girl brought them out, he spotted something unusual in the negatives.
“She now brought out the photographs, and I said no, it’s not in these. Then she brought out negatives. I looked and could see a little beret,” he explained, hinting at Orkar’s military identity.
To buy time, he sent her on a soft drink errand. “I said, we are thirsty, take money, go and buy Coke. So I gave her money and she left,” he said. “I started pocketing the negatives. When she came back, I said this Coke is hot. Take more money and go get cold Coke.”
By the time she returned, Ojudu had taken as many of the negatives as he could.
His daring move provided rare imagery from one of Nigeria’s most dramatic coup attempts, a calculated act of journalism under pressure that remains part of the untold stories of that turbulent era.
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