St Saviour’s Church Lagos was bursting at the seams as soulful singing reached to the heavens. Mrs Ayodele Victoria Atte, widow of Jimmy Atte, walked behind the coffin with her lovely children, head bowed, her mind in a turmoil.
I sat in the church taking in the sea of heads. Ahead of me sat a former executive director of Programmes, Peter Igho, and a former executive director Engineering, Edward Amana. We all smiled weakly trying to console each other. People came from far and wide to pay their respects. Some of them I had not seen for ages. The Lagos zonal centre under its zonal director, Wole Coker, had two days before organised a night of tributes which attracted former directors-general of NTA and former executive directors, directors, NTA staff and retirees. It was clearly a family affair.
A day before, executive director News, Sola Atere, superintended over a service of songs in the NTA Chapel in Abuja. Now we all reminisce about things that could have been and things said and unsaid, about moments in time, about immortality, about paths charted by those who have gone before us.
As the coffin glides past to its resting position in church, everyone sighs and looks away. It’s time to say goodbye.
It is extremely difficult to speak about Jimmy Atte in the past. He personified broadcasting in all its ramifications, having served in the Programmes Directorate as executive director for many years and then moved on to serve as executive director News. He typifies the quintessential broadcaster whose knowledge of the field is broad across all genres. To serve in both directorates is a blessing and Mr Atte, with his essentially proactive mind, was a blessing to those who worked with him.
As a young undergraduate, I became quite familiar with his name. Mr Atte’s name always came up as part of end credits on most programmes watched on NTA. This told an incredible story of a towering presence in the background of several successful programmes during his active years.
As executive director News, he worked hard at providing a human angle thrust to news programming by his very training as a programmes man. He created “Saturday Night with Augusta” which was content that would ordinarily be expected to have come under the Programmes Directorate, but under him it came under news. He made news a little more entertaining by creating NTA News Extra, which was for a very long time NTA News Directorate’s No.1 programme. He wanted to soften the edges to make it more entertaining and more viewer-friendly.
Mr Atte’s legacy will not be complete without his mentoring side. There is hardly anyone across directorates in NTA who was not touched by him. He was in a hurry to teach, impart and impact; qualities that are lacking in many establishments today. The drivers in NTA continuously tell of Atte’s generosity. How he was quick to assist when they had life issues and how they began to consider him as their hero who they looked up to at the end of the day to show them some love which he always did.
He was many different things to many different people. He liked to refer to himself as a Kaduna boy but his work in NTA took him across Nigeria and his friends cut across geographical lines. A typical federal government ward working everywhere and adopting everywhere as home.
To many, he was a friend, mentor, brother, teacher, a broadcaster’s broadcaster. He will be sorely missed. We, in the Directorate of Programmes, consider him our own. A fine programmes man who many learnt a lot from. A boss and a mentor.
As executive director Programmes, my heart goes out to all members of staff of NTA, particularly staff of his core directorate, Programmes. As an individual, my heart goes out to his family – his children, his brothers and sisters – but my heart goes out particularly to his wife Vicky, a good woman, friend and my classmate. May you be comforted by the many kind words of his professionalism and his charity, Amen.
By his passing, may we all remember to be kind to one another. It costs us nothing. May the gentle soul of Jimmy Atte rest in peace, Amen.
Eugenia Abu
