![wanna be like mike wanna be like mike](https://miro.medium.com/max/2000/1*NpYp1qIVm1p2npp9dORorw.jpeg)
How bad can a vox pop be? This Mike is mean, we grumbled. When we turned the report in, Mike said it wasn’t good enough. We decided we were going to do the mother of all vox pops. I didn’t go to UNILAG spend three years studying Mass Communication all because I wanted to do a vox pop. So, he asked us to conduct a vox pop on what Valentine’s Day meant to people. Mike welcomes us and duly informed us that he didn’t think we could write because the Mass Communication kids from UNILAG had become lazy and expect things to be handed to them.īut, he was willing to give us a fair shake. We were going to do Weekend Concord a favor. We were after all marking time before we write for the New York Times and Times of London. We thought it was a cakewalk because we felt that we had the intellectual style suited to the Guardian and Newswatch of those days. Delu Ogunade rescued Muideen Akorede, Bayo Abiodun and I. When I returned, all the prime internships were taken. I went to Ibadan and camped in my mother’s kitchen. The serious kids started theirs over the summer. This week, I’ve been singing, “Wanna be like Mike” because when I’m sixty I still wanna be like Oga Mike.įunny thing is my path almost never crossed Mike’s.Īs a Mass Communication student at the University of Lagos, we were required to complete an internship. Last week, Oga Mike turned 60 and somehow he doesn’t look sixty. The man still has the taste and style that someone two decades younger like me is struggling to copy. As one of my Warri friends would say, “the professor bow”. I shared some online versions with my professor who is an Oscar award winner. Back in those days, Mike had a column in the Sun newspapers. I told him I graduated from a journalism school called the “school of Mike”. My screenwriting professor took me aside one day and asked why writing was relatively easy for me. We all had our talents and we all wanted to be great film directors. I had a funny experience once in film school. Without Mike, I’m not the Ose Oyamendan I am today. Mike is the man who put me on a career bike and steered me on. After a turbulent start, I’ve had the most loving relationship with him. I first met him during Valentine week twenty years ago.
![wanna be like mike wanna be like mike](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nt2MoMC11uY/maxresdefault.jpg)
He is shy but give him a good story and watch the shyness melt into exuberance. You can chew his words like a great meal. His words are flowery and so visual you can see them. Mike writes like the poets from the old days. The Mike I wanna be like is Mike Awoyinfa. But, the song doesn’t remind me of Michael Jordan. There’s a cool Michael Jordan, Nike commercial that I love. The hook is, “Wanna be like Mike”.