By Charles Okogene
Jacob Akinyemi Johnson, otherwise known as J.A.J, the .Meccadon, made history in the ’80s when he emerged as one of the youngest, if not the youngest, broadcaster on radio in Nigeria; that was when one can count the number of radio stations in Nigeria on ones finger tips. When it was only federal government owned Radio Nigeria and maybe, Radio Lagos and BCOS of Lagos and Oyo states respectively.
Straight from the famous St. Gregory’s College, Obalende Lagos, he walked into the FM station studio of RN2 on Martins Street, Lagos and distinguished himself as one of the station’s presenters that made the station thick, that commanded a huge followership or listeners. He made radio listening a must and interesting for young Nigerians of that era just as Ernest Okonkwo, Sebastian Forum, Tolu Fatoyibo all football commentators made listening to football commentaries on radio, a delight for football lovers.
That was the stuff J. A.J was made offl until he was head hunted by the owners of Sliverbird FM to midwife the Ajah based station; he not only established the radio station on a solid footing but in turn head hunted the likes of the late Nnamdi Anazie, Femi Sowolu, the late Tope Brown, Steve Kadiri among others to help make Silverbird that came with ‘more music, less talk’ pay off line then the numero uno station, a position that Raypower 100. 5 FM, the first privately owned radio station in Nigeria, hitherto occupied before the arrival of Silverbird. There he introduced the cliche, ‘on air personality (OAP)’ into Nigeria’s broadcast lexicon.
Hear him tell the story of his highpoint in broadcasting when we asked him in a recent interview.
“Many high points, including introducing the term ‘OAP’ (On-Air Personality) to the Nigerian broadcast landscape. Femi Sowoolu, a media consultant, acknowledged my contribution, tweeting in 2020, he said, ‘he deserves to be eulogised for introducing the term ‘OAP’ into the Nigerian broadcast firmament. It was JAJ that first employed the moniker back in ’97.’
“But most notable was my assembling of the highly successful Rhythm 93.7 pioneering team that took the industry by storm and changed the complexion of FM radio broadcasting forever. The team included Femi Sowoolu (OAP), Steve Kadiri( RIP) ( OAP), Tope Brown ( RIP)( OAP), Momoh Kubanje ( RIP) ( news head),
Nnamdi Anazia (RIP) ( sports head),
Ogbuefi. Cliff Adigwe( RIP) ( engineering head), Alozie Uzoukwu ( Entertainment head) and DJ Waxzy (pioneering Rhythm FM DJ).”
J.A.J who is better known now as Meccadon was large and still large except that FM broadcasting has almost gone to the ‘dogs. ‘
…parts of this story was published before on this site on December 23,2023.
Leave a Reply