Coming to The Times
“I missed the chance to meet Dr. Patrick Cole at the New York Times but my colleagues who saw him described him as a man of impressive stature, towering and sporting a big cigar and a distinguished looking walking stick.”
A cable from the American Embassy in Nigeria signed by the ambassador was handed to the foreign editor of the New York Times. As soon as he opened it, he sent for me, and his secretary called me on the National Desk where I was working as the intermediary between the national correspondents of the Times and the editor in New York. I went over and the foreign editors showed me the cable. It said that a Dr. Patrick Cole who had been recently made the Managing Director of Daily Times in Nigeria was visiting from Lagos. The cable requested the foreign editor to arrange a facility tour of the New York Times for Dr. Cole. The man wanted to know from me what I knew about Dr. Cole, and I told him that I knew absolutely nothing about the man, never saw him either in person or photograph.
Anyway, the editor said, it would be nice if I would be around when Dr. Cole arrived. I was looking forward to that visit. But then I became ill, took off and missed the chance to meet the now head of the Daily Times. When I got back, colleagues who saw Dr. Cole described him as a man of impressive stature, towering and sporting a big cigar and a distinguished looking walking stick. I felt that I lost something by missing Dr. Cole. Not because I wanted to join the Daily Times at that time, but because I thought that when the time came to go home, he would cushion the plan. Finally, when I met, it was in Lagos in his fourth-floor office at Kakawa.
In all began as an idea by Alhaji Fagbo, now the Director of Network News at the Nigerian Television Authority and my editor at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in the early seventies. Alhaji Fagbo was visiting the United States about the middle of September in 1976 and I had gone to Network Airport in New Jersey to drive him to New York. On the way back, we began to talk about the possibilities of my returning home. I told him that I wasn’t quite ready to make the move, but suggested that I would like to be writing from the United States for the Daily Times Group. By that time, I had been writing for Tunji Oseni at the Sunday Times, having been introduced to him by Alhaji Fagbo who was also a good friend of Oseni. Alhaji Fagbo told me that I should change my mind about continuing to want to live in the US for an indefinite period. In any case, he said, he would speak about me to Dele Cole on getting back to Nigeria and that he was sure that something could be arranged whereby I could establish a good connection with the Daily Times. He did, subsequently, and sent down that I should send a letter to Dr. Cole. I did. Then for two or three months, nothing happened.
One day in January or thereabout in 1977, I received an envelope with stamps of Jamaica in the West Indies. Inside was a short letter from a signature which says P.D. Cole. He said that he was in New York, telephoned my home and didn’t get r response. He told me in the letter that he saw my letter requesting to write from the United States for Daily Times and that he had sent the letter to his aides in the publication Division for determination on whether the Times could gain from my expertise. Anyhow, he wrote, he would like to know my salary at the New York Times and that I should write him another letter if after some time I didn’t hear from his aides in the Publications Division. He said in the letter that I should find out a Stanley Macebuh who was in New York on a visit. As I was putting down Dr. Cole’s handwritten letter, my phone rang and Stanley Macebuh was on the telephone. We made a lunch date for the next day and had to cancel because of heavy snowfall which made it impossible for either of us to venture out. However, the following day, we got together for lunch. We picked each other’s brain, saw things similarly and ended up calling each other “Dele” and “Stanley” and since then developed genuine liking for each other. It was only much later Stanley told me of his report to Dr. Cole, which was that Daily Times should do all it could to get me. Anyway, Stanley and I had another lunch in New York at a friend’s house. There, we agreed that I should come to Lagos to meet the folks at the Daily Times. It was during the visit which took a month between July and August 1978 that Dr. Cole deftly talked me into leaving the New York Times and coming to Daily Times.
When he puts his mind to it, Dr. Cole can be very persuasive. Our first meeting was noteworthy. I arrived at the old Murtala Muhammed Airport and was picked up and driven to the Bristol Hotel where I stayed by Tunji Oseni of Sunday Times. Alhaji Fagbo was also at the airport. In the evening of that day, Tunji took me to Dr. Cole’s house in Ikoyi but the Times managing director was not home. We met his wife and returning to my hotel. The next day, I turned up at the Times not far from Bristol. I went up to Dr. Cole’s office and as I approached the glass encased office of the personal assistant to Dr. Cole, Stanley Mecabuh, who was there saw me, rushed forward and almost tore off my arm in a bear handshake. Stanley took me to Dr. Cole’s office and asked the M.D. if he knew this man, referring to me. The M.D. said no and Stanley said that’s Dele Giwa. Dr. Cole shook my hand, asked me to sit down and told funny stories about Nigeria and what I might expect and so on.
After a few minutes, we went down to see Tony Momoh, editor of the Daily Times, in his office near the Newsroom. He, too, like Stanley, almost crushed my hand in friendly handshake. I was taken around, met Mr. Jaja, the deputy chief executive; Mr. Osugo, the general manager for Publications Division, and a host of other sweet fellows. On that one-month visit in 1978, I did a study for Daily Times’ reorganization of its news operations and held inconclusive talks on the possibility of my joining them in the near future. Eight months later, in April 1979, I arrived in Nigeria and the next day went up to Daily Times to tell them that I was back and that I would show up for work a week or so later. But Tony Momoh wouldn’t hear of it. He insisted that I start right there and then. He took me by the hand from Stanley’s office where I was taking coffee to a gathering of support editors in his second floor office. And that was it!
©Daily Times, February 17, 1980
(Pp.60-62)
