Leonid Lantsman, the American who, in August 2007, arrived Nigeria for a six-month internship with TheNEWS has completed his assignment. A send-forth party was held for him last week by editors, reporters and staff of Independent Communications Network Ltd., publishers of TheNEWS and PMNews.
Lantsman, 23, studied Government and African Politics at Cornell University, Ithaca, USA. For one year, he was at the School of Oriental and African Studies in the United Kingdom. A polyglot, he speaks English, Russian, French, Swahili and Yoruba.
It was when he was learning Yoruba at Cornell that he met Prof. Adeolu Ademoyo, a Nigerian hitherto teaching Philosophy at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife. “I spoke to my Professor that I wanted to go to Nigeria; I didn’t want to work for a Western organisation,” Lantsman revealed. Ademoyo collected his resume and promised to contact his friends, publishers of TheNEWS in Nigeria. That was it.
To Lantsman, working with us was akin to attending another university altogether, this time, the university of life. He recalled that when he told his parents that he was coming to Nigeria, “my mother grabbed my leg, begging that I should not.”
Apart from his parents, he too had, before then, read a lot of negative reports about Nigeria. That is, stories about people getting killed on the streets, ritual murders and some neo-Tarzanist stuff scary enough to keep him off Nigeria.
But kept off he wouldn’t be; Leonid headed for Nigeria. Six months after padded with a welter of experience, Lantsman said he now knows better. “I just graduated from school. This is my first job and it has been most gratifying,” he enthused. “Nigerians,” he said, “are not the way they are portrayed in the foreign media. Rather, they are hospitable, adventurous, creative, hardworking and have sense of dignity.”
The intern has been so persuaded by what he saw that he has promised to write a book about Nigeria. He has also made up his mind to return soon (”in December hopefully”) to the country.
As an intern, Lantsman had nose for news. He is not the type of journalist that would be looking for blue-chip and chrome-plated assignments on Victoria Island or Abuja. During his stay, he reported the Osun Osogbo festival, the Kano Durbar, Kainji Lake National Park and has written stories on Ekiti, Kaduna and Bauchi states.
It has been a pleasure having Lantsman work with us and we wish him success in his future endeavours.
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This week, we publish a no-holds barred interview with Usman Maishanu Abubakar, a.k.a. Young Alhaji, who is giving Senate President David Mark the fight of his life. So daring and shooting ceaselessly from the hip, no interviewee can pack a harder punch.
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