How has your life in the past five years?

It has been hectic, busy and exciting. I have come in charge of presenters across NTA stations nationwide, become a member of several committees, and I have written a book. I have added more responsibilities to my life.

What would you consider your greatest achievements this period?

In the blink of an eye

What about it, and how did the inspiration come?

Actually, I have always been a writer. I began to write at the age of seven. Television I must say obliterated my writing. People knew me more for TV and had no idea that I was writing except those who read the guardian newspapers where I contributed twice a month on the features page. I am first and foremost a writer. My dream has always been to be an author, so finally my dream has come true.

What is your vision for the book?

I discovered there is a lot of history that many people, especially the young ones don’t know that is in this book. There are a lot of things that have happened in the past that we seem to have forgotten that are well documented in it too. It is just to juggle the memory of the average Nigerian to say we used to be here, how have we improved since then? I write mainly social issues about life, and I do a lot of interviews that I hope people will take away some lessons from. To change the world does not mean you go on the moon or you fly a plane, you can change the world by your writing.  I hope that society would change for the better just by this little contribution that I have made.

Thus far, how is in the blink of an eye doing in the market?

It has done extremely well. My books are in three quarters of the bookstores in Abuja, and in most unusual places like restaurants as well. In Lagos, there are in some phenomenal bookstores like Nu Metro. I have a very strong strategy and publicity team, and we are doing a tour of the country with the book; we have been to Jos, Kaduna, and Kano. Hopefully Enugu, Calabar, Port Harcourt and Lagos will follow. There are little book readings we do across the country, 20 to 25 people, and we introduce the book to them. It has helped. My marketing team is very strong too. It is an exiting period in my life, and anything about the book lights up my eyes!

Why is it that you’re your on cover page?

I had no intentions of having my photograph on the cover. It was an accident. A pleasant accident! We tried in vain to get a cover that will represent the title. Now, a friend from London had taken me some pictures after my sister passed away (January 2006) and I was very sad. When he sent the pictures down, I just left them on the table, until my husband said ‘look at what you are looking for’.  Though I resisted it very hard, it still emerged on the cover.

Several years after the letter you did to Idoko, what feelings does it evoke in you?

Idoko is now in London. The letter reminds me that as a people, we are very brilliant, but we need to deploy our energy into positive things. Nigerians are doing good things across the world. Most of what you hear about Nigerians are the ones that are not doing well. I believe that as a nation, we would get better. There are already positive signs in that direction. As a people, I think we are the best in the world! When I look at the letter I wrote to Idoko, occasionally there a few lapses today, but I tell you, it is not that bad.

You wrote something very passionate about your late friend and colleague. What are the feelings?

We Miss Tokunbo Ajayi very much. She was a very special broadcaster with very special skills and very professional to the core. Tokunbo my friend; when she died I was totally shattered, partly because, today in broadcasting you are not likely to see such professionals. At the top, yes, but at the bottom, it is an all comers affair. You see a lot of people who think they are pretty, but fail to understand that beauty is not synonymous with professionalism.

How did you get into Television?

By accident! I had finished youth service with OGBC Abeokuta and joined the Benue State Ministry of Information, Makurdi, where I worked for 6 months. While I was there, I was given the responsibility of producing and presenting the T.V program called Benue State Government half hour. Before then, I had never really presented anything on T.V, so it was just a learning process. After all the learning, the general manager of NTA Makurdi asked me to join them; which I did after I got married.

What does success mean to you?

Well, success really means more hard work. It is a place you get to and know there is a need to work harder. I find that I hang around a lot of young people because there is so much going wrong today. No matter what form of success you get whether it as a broadcaster, or a pepper seller, you need to be humble at your job and then God adds more steps into your life that goes higher.

With your kind of schedule, how do you cope?

That is balance and grace. You have to learn to balance. I do love my family very much, without them this book would not have seen the light of day. My husband has been extremely supportive, my children (the older ones) have volunteered; they are on the team.

 Do you have any mentorship program for the youth?

Usually, what I do is to adopt 2 or 3 persons a year. I have had personal assistants who learn from me then after about a year or 6 months, depending on what they want to do, I let them fly. They would have learnt patience and polished whatever skills they have. I speak to young people in my church, and at the universities; I try to make them understand the reason for their existence.

With your involvement with the youths, what do you think is the future for Nigeria?

I think if Nigeria has come this far, we can only get better.  We have a whole lot of problems with value reorientation; quite a number of things broke down in the last 10 years. People would say military dictatorship, but as a people, we should always remember there is also what is called followership. It is important that if you have a leader who is not good, you as the follower must stand on moral high grounds. The truth is, we had leadership problems, and also followership problems. I think that as a group, between the leaders and us the followers, we can improve this country and make it one of the greatest places in the world. Take music for instance, I think that in this terrain our young people are doing extremely well. In five years time, Nigeria will be the destination; the place to come and record music like it used to be in Jamaica when Bob Marley was alive. Americans will begin to come here because we have so many talents!  If you take a look at our fashion industry, you would know that our fashion designers are phenomenal. They are going to get ahead and make sure that this country is on the map of world fashion. In the area of writing, most of the writers you see today are young; we are at the point of renaissance – back to that point where Chinua Achebe and his ilk were in the past when there was a flurry of writers.

Ace broadcaster, author, wife, and mother, philanthropist and many more; Eugenia Abu is an amazing woman who has been able to strike a balance in life. The Nigerian woman that must succeed must be super!