What probably remains the most enduring legacy of the renowned journalist, Alhaji Liad Tella, is the inspiration he has cultivated in multitudes across assorted sectors over the years.

Clocking the age of 75 is a milestone for a man, who has invested over five decades in journalism, rising to the top of his career as Deputy Editor of National Concord, and Editor-in-Chief of The Monitor Newspapers.

Even testifying to his pedigree, President Muhammadu Buhari in a birthday message to Tella, said the veteran journalist has invested in journalism, rising to the zenith.

He also celebrated his contribution to knowledge as Senior Research Fellow, Department of Mass Communication, University of Ilorin, and his commitment to Islam, being one of the founding fathers of Muslim Students Society of Nigeria (MSSN), and a Federal Commissioner at the National Hajj Commission, for many years.

“President Buhari rejoices with the Tella family, the media community, especially the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), and the Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), and wishes the Asiwaju Musulumi of Iwo land longer life in good health, to further serve God, society, and humanity at large.”

Not a few would readily recall Tella’s life of service spanning decades. He is considered as an enigma. What may recur in most discussions is that the man, most of his colleagues and admirers affectionately call Alhaji or El-Haj, possesses a relentless commitment to the religion of Islam with the support of his dresser and darling beau’ and soul mate, Barrister Funke Tella.

According to the Director, Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC), Lagos State University (LASU), Tunde Musibau Akanni, in one of his articles, Alhaji Tella has mustered unmistakable efforts in contributing particularly to the visibility of Islam, which has, in turn, earned the faith more reckoning, emboldening many young professionals from the southwest today to identify with it.

Based on testimonies of those close to him, Tella has always been modest with his enviable accomplishments even as he never wasted knowledge sharing opportunities with attentive younger ones.

Although he has a Master of Science degree in Political Science from the University of Lagos in 1984, Tella began his journalism career as a senior reporter at the Daily Times in 1978. He left in 1982 as Chief Correspondent (old Kwara State) to join Punch Newspapers Limited as News Editor.

He rose to become Acting Editor in 1984 before he quit Punch and joined Concord Newspaper as Foreign Affairs Editor and left in 2001 as General Manager, Sales and Circulation. Until last month, he was National Commissioner in charge of Policy, Personnel Management and Finance (PPMF) of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), Abuja, portfolio he assumed since 2006.
 
As a media executive for decades, the position gave him opportunity to interact with all in Nigeria, across the political divides, having his network across the political parties, despite being a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
   
He was in Action Group, Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), Alliance for Democracy (AD) and Iater joined the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2005 to pursue his community desire to have a Federal College of Education in Iwo.
 
He contested the House of Representatives’ seat on the platform of the PDP for Iwo Federal Constituency in the 2011 general elections. Tella said he was in politics for socio-economic bargaining and advancement of the interest of the people in the Constituency, as well as the state and Nigeria at large. 
 
He promised to deploy his wealth of experience and legion of contacts at state, national, and international levels to better the lots of the Federal Constituency, but his aspiration didn’t come to fruition as he lost the election to the APC.

In a recent interview with The Guardian, he spoke on the election: “It was not that I didn’t win, but the election was manipulated and I refused to go to court. I considered it as a waste of money going to challenge the election result in court.

At Concord, where Alhaji Tella was then group news editor and later deputy editor – daily, his office became a meeting point, not only for the Muslim staff of Concord but also all Iwo/old Oyo State young men and women, who recognised him as the mentor and role model that he was.

It was learnt that besides, his home at Alade Close, Iju, too was a rallying point for those who saw him as a benefactor of immeasurable value. Even with his mother hen, disarming, all-time warmth, Tella is described as someone who has never fold arms and resigned to fate in the face of challenges.

According to Akanni: “When it became clear that the Abacha junta meant to completely crush Concord and other similarly proscribed publishing organisations following the annulment of the 1993 election won in 1993 by MKO, the Concord publisher, he incorporated a media consultancy firm.

“His clientele cut across both the public and private sectors. Often, they celebrated his interventions on their matter each time he was called in. The official interactions he had using his company availed him the opportunity to demonstrate some of the tangential advisories he has had opportunity to raise as a Concord columnist, which had endeared him to the world, in the first place.”

His experience and creativity from the private initiative stood him out when he became commissioner at National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON). His directorate was described as the central, daunting and most tasking one-called Operations. But Tella’s extraordinary industry and cosmopolitan disposition exhibited in the media for more than four decades had successfully registered him as a household brand in the media and beyond, nationwide and even internationally.

Tella’s antecedents in the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria (MSSN) were no less supportive of his new assignment. For all the years Tella served at NAHCON, the organisation was uniquely renowned for prudence and integrity, yet never lacking in excellent delivery of its mandate. It consistently refunded surplus budgetary allocations thus earning official commendations during the Presidents Obasanjo and Yar’Adua years.

Reports have it that NAHCON remains, to date, a beneficiary of the tenacity and creativity cultivated by team Tella – as he was always, of course, quick to impress it on colleagues and acquaintances that he would do anything to treasure and guard his integrity as a distinguished prince of a Yoruba ancestral home of Oyo, the original roots of his own Agboluaje extended family in Iwo.

Way back in 1992, the Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Board in Osun State was no less a beneficiary of Tella’s devotion to duty deriving from varied management and allied experience garnered from his chairmanship of Odu’a Printing Company, as well as committee membership constituted by state and federal governments implying international exposure.

It is on record that Alhaji’s performance as the Chairman of the Muslim Pilgrims Board remains the one to be beaten decades after he left. Little, therefore, did people who knew his trajectory, the wonder that he was invited to serve the nation’s Muslim community at the highest level of NAHCON.