In December 1979, as I navigated my first few months in journalism, I had just published “The Exit of Peter Pan” when I literally ran into Peter Pan himself, Mr Peter Enahoro, perhaps Africa’s most famous journalist.
That week, there was a new heart pumping within me and a new bounce in my steps following news that the man had returned to Nigeria after 13 years of his famous self-exile.
And then that day, word swept the offices and hallways of The Punch that our industry’s favourite son was on the premises, visiting his old friend and our Managing Editor, “Uncle” Sam Amuka. I knew what I had to do to set my eyes on the man to whom, like many in the business, I owed my career.
Mr Amuka’s offices were only a short distance away from those of the Sunday Punch, where I was engaged. Once through our doors, you turned right and unless you had a reason to try to avoid him, his were just footsteps down the hall.
I made that turn. I had never met Owanlen but I knew him well enough. And since news broke of his presence in the country, his photographs had been in all the papers. I was going to smuggle myself into his presence.
But once I made that right turn, everything changed. As I looked up at the figure striding powerfully towards me, there he was.
Just like that. And he was about to grant me the moment of a lifetime as he told me he was on his way to my office to look for me. He read me and wanted to encourage my work!
I had written “The Exit of Peter Pan” in response to his disclosure that “Peter Pan” would never write again. “No,” he had told our Muyiwa Adetiba of Face-to-Face-with-Muyiwa-Adetiba, “We must conserve that to the memory lane.”
And so, indeed, he did.
Almost 45 years later last week, at the age of 88, the man himself took his final bow. That was a brutal day for me, as I am sure it must have been for his family, friends, and fans.
I do not claim to have known the Big Man very well, but courtesy of Mr Adetiba, I linked up with him again in 2019. I simply wanted to thank him for the inspiration he provided to my career, but the encounter opened a window into his humanity, sensitivity, and empathy.
At the time, he was lying in bed most of the time for health reasons. Despite that, he immediately identified something he could do for me, and—long before he told me—spent a considerable amount of time making phone calls and sending text messages in that regard.
That experience was stunning, partly because I made no request of him, and particularly given the experience I described here in the last two weeks of manipulative Nigerians abroad. I learned that he was not simply a man with a clever pen.
Another thing that struck me was his strong sense of family. He worried tremendously about his older sister, who was 92 at that point, expressing contentment when she “finally settled into a care home in [the US] post hospitalisation.” He was pleased that she “has a daughter at hand there and a small body of the family clan in the US taking turns to visit.”
It was also on that sickbed that I saw him give a remarkable two-hour address to the Annunciation Catholic College Old Boys Association of Irrua in June 2021, demonstrating his astounding recall, energy and commitment. “It went on an hour longer than was expected as absolute maximum but I didn’t mind that a bit,” he told me afterwards.
Owanlen was also exceedingly gracious as he reflected on my hometown and joked about what appeared to be our “fertility.”
He wrote, “In 1946 my father took extended leave preparatory to transfer to Warri. He took two of my brothers and me on some of his visiting rounds. I still remember a visit to the Odionwelle of Igueben. I remember the Yoruba style cap that matched the material of the long sleeved gown. Later, at age 21, I had my first glasses prescribed by a Miss Esangbedo who I learned was from Igueben and the first Esan woman to qualify as optician. [Tom] Ikimiwas first Esan to serve as Nigeria’s Foreign Minister.
“In Warri we’d known Father [Anselm] Ojefua as the first Esan ordained a Catholic priest. Another Igueben son. He was a frequent visitor to our home having left a niece in my parents’ care. She lived with us until she went off to get married. What is it about you Igueben people and “first”? Is it the local water you drink?”
Yes, Owanlen Enahoro’s works in Nigeria and abroad are fairly well-known, as are his books, commencing with the hilarious “How To Be A Nigerian” in 1966. Others are: “You Gotta Cry To Laugh”, “The Complete Nigerian”, and “Then Spoke the Thunder”.
But at his passing last week, the ironies were immediately obvious: Nigerian journalism today has little recall of him in terms of an archive where even journalists can read his actual writing. Just as the mainstream media lacks commitment to follow-up, it also has no interest in what it may have written yesterday, let alone decades ago.
To that end, then, it is no surprise that Owanlen’s Daily Times, which he served famously as a young man and returned as sole administrator decades later, was silent last week. It offered no in-house acknowledgement of its celebrity but merely quoted those who did.
Nigerians paying tribute included the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), but it is widely known that those are merely penned in his name and that he has scant regard for journalists or journalism, particularly of the Nigerian or critical kind. Ask yourself whether, as time prepares Buhari for his departure, he will give an exhaustive interview to a Nigerian journalist.
Governor Godwin Obaseki of Enahoro’s Edo State also offered a tribute, calling Owanlen a “national treasure.”
But in Edo, consider that the Nigerian Observer, an age-old journalism treasure which enhanced local governance by actively reporting it, is gone from the streets.
Governor Obaseki observed that “the vibrant press in the country today owes much of its credit to Pa Enahoro’s bold and courageous skill with the pen to hold those in power to account for their deeds.”
He is correct, which is why I hereby challenge the governor to put his hands where his mouth is and resurrect the Nigerian Observer as an example to the entire country.
If Mr Obaseki is willing and committed to transparency, I offer my services, free of charge, in the endeavour. Because neither journalism nor democracy can thrive on platitudes.
In our individual ways, we must pay genuine tribute to this icon, and to the Enahoro family, one of Nigeria’s finest, most honourable and most giving.
Farewell, sir.
