HE is not Larry King - the broadcast icon that once ruled the airwaves at CNN. They only share the first name, Larry. He is the Big Larry. And like King, Izamoje is one of Nigeria's broadcast icons, having ruled the nation's airwaves for over 25 years.Hardly is there any Nigerian who has not heard the sonorous voice of the Chief Executive Officer of Brila FM and sport broadcaster, Dr. Larry Izamoje across many news media.Recently, Izamoje turned 50. And his golden jubilee celebration has been remarkable as it coincided with the 10th year anniversary of Sport Radio, Brila FM, the launch of his book, Scoring Life Goals and his award with an honorary doctorate degree by the Business School, Lousanne, Switzerland.For all his stellar achievements in life, it is interesting to know Izamoje was not born a special child nor with special gifts. He is like the boy next door. The resilience of his human spirit in all he does is perhaps his defining virtue.Born in Onitsha, present day Anambra State, as a fourth child to a family of nine, young Larry had a tough early childhood, grew as a wild kid.He did everything most young children would do. Specifically, he was a truant, always running away from classes. He was not too good in Mathematics. He would hide away, playing football and table tennis when he was not supposed to be found playing. He was, in fact, rascally.'I was the most rascally among my siblings. I gave my parents a lot of troubles,' he recalls.For his early education, Izamoje Dogho Grammar School, Warri and Oroerokpe Grammar School, Oroerokpe near Warri. He later went to the Institute of Continuing Education, still in Warri, for his A-Levels. He gained admission into the University of Lagos (UNILAG), were he graduated with a degree in Sociology in 1984.Izamoje's road to stardom began accidentally while still a student at UNILAG. 'My coming into sport journalism was more accidental than planned,' he says. 'I broke my leg while playing football during an inter-hall competition. I decided to run commentaries for the same competition. It became a regular afterwards. Then, someone came to me and said you need to go and see Ernest Okonkwo, who was then Nigeria's most reckoned sport commentator.'He took the advice serious and went to see Okonkwo the next day at FRCN. After a 10-minute talk with Okonkwo, he was issued an identity card as a freelance artiste with FRCN. That status also meant he would earn N15 per story or appearance made. It was a lifetime opportunity.Izamoje recalls that meeting Oknokwo at the time was wonderful because he was a sport icon whom everybody wanted to listen to on radio. 'He was a living encyclopedia of sport and the English Language in his time. I learnt at his feet.'With the FRCN job, Izamoje's joy knew no bound. It brought him fame and some money. But more than these immediate gains, he was driven by the joy of being on the microphone regularly to talk sport.On the completion of his Masters degree and on invitation, he joined the now defunct Concord Newspaper in 1984 as a sport reporter and rose to become Deputy Group Sports Editor. In 1990, the late publisher of the now defunct newspaper, The Mail, Clarkson Majomi, poached Izamoje from Concord to be the Group Sport Editor of the Mail Newspaper. But when the newspaper could not pay salaries and was dying, Izamoje was again poached by the president of the DBN Sport Consulting Company, the parent company of DBN TV, as a Manager Sport.He worked in DBN diligently until 1992 when he resigned to start his Brila Sport as an independent sport consultancy outfit. He did many radio programmes for many clients like Coca-Cola, Bournvita, Cowbell, Strabag, Western Union among others in over 15 radio stations. 'It was the one we did at Ogun Broadcasting Corporation, OGBC, with Bournvita that made Nigerians to know me,' the Edo State-born broadcaster says.In the late 90s, in addition to his radio shows, Izamoje ventured into the publication of a sports magazine, Sports People. But he was not successful with it.He was however not deterred because in 2002, he pioneered the idea of a sports radio in Africa with his Brila FM.Getting Brila on sure foot was challenging. While he basked in the euphoria of getting the FM license, everything around him advised that he discontinues the project.'The challenges of pioneering a new thing in Nigeria set in. People were used to FM radio for music. But here we are doing sport radio. We faced the challenge of acceptability. Although some people did not believe that it would work, we had faith. That is why I tell anybody that wants to do something to put in the spirit of David when people put on the spirit of Goliath.'I made moves so that the business would not fail. I attended the ESTN Radio Conference with my wife in USA and met different sport radio operators in the world.By the time we started the Brila Sport Radio FM in 2002, USA was already counting 194 sport radio stations, whereas Africa had none. So, we needed to go to the US to see how it was done and buy equipment.'When we came back, we needed to train staff, although we had being doing many sport programmes for radio stations and had been known, we had the challenge of extending sports show beyond 30 minutes.'There was the challenge of programme acquisition and having partners who will supply us with contents. That was how we signed up with the Voice of America (VOA) an affiliate relationship. There was also the challenge of high taxes from equipment we brought into the country. We had the challenge of workers who did not understand what the mission was all about and wanted to bring their old way of doing things in other radio stations to ours. We had the challenge of our young staff who were used to 30 minutes sport talk now faced with the challenge of talking sport 24 hours.'There is the challenge of erratic power supply. We had to make NEPA (PHCN) the third source of power supply. We had generator one and two as our primary power supply. If we run on generator one for 12 hours, we would switch to generator two when there is no power supply. At times when there is no power supply in three days, we would depend on generators. Even with the little improvement in PHCN now, it is only fighting to replace our generator two. At times, when PHCN restores power, we would not even bother to go for it because we know it would not last.'Ten years on, however, Izamoje says the reward for his venture has been enthralling. He has opened stations in Kaduna, Onitsha and Abuja aside the one in Lagos.As one who lives for Sport, Izamoje is saddened by the turn of events in Nigerian sports' 'It is systemic failure; what has happened to the larger society has also bastardised sports. If you want to blame, blame everybody in Nigeria for what has happened to sports.'We have all not been faithful to the Nigerian project. Those who are outside sport have not been faithful in their own area and those who are in sport have not been faithful too. We have redefined sport negatively to mean one sport - football; rather than call it sports, we call it sport and narrow it to football. The sport of fooball has been narrowed to one team, the Super Eagles. That one team too is narrowed to foreign-based players. So, the problem of Nigerian sport is coming from us; we have given the wrong meaning to sports in this country. And there is need for reorientation for every Nigerian and change of government policies as they affect sports,' he says.Izamoge is of the view that Nigeria must put things in order to begin to harness the benefit of sports as a big tool for foreign relations, economic productivity and good health.'People just think that sport is recreation. But this is just one aspect of sports. Sports give political power. Look at us, we say we are doing urban planning without creating places for Sports. We have not been fair to sports. Nigeria needs a big broom; we must sweep and clean the nonsense we are seeing in sport. We must sweep radically and drastically and create a level plain ground for people who are genuinely interested in sports to come in and listen to people like us who are social crusaders.'Izamoje's best book is the Bible. His best food is pounded yam and traditional egusi soup mixed with ugwu and bitter leaves served with fresh fish and goat meat.
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