The Peter Pan Story: Epilogue
“Anytime he wrote an editorial he considered unbearably vexing he would use Peter Pan to oppose it in every sense, even parody the core of the opinion. Daily Times supported Casino, for example, and Peter Pan opposed it. Enahoro wrote both pieces.”
George Sharp, one of the Peter Enahoro’s writings in the late fifties, was a political commentator, Peter Enahoro, the second Enahoro writing, was a scenic writer; and Peter Pan, the third and most whimsical of the Enahoros, was a personality interviewer. Although Sharp was gaining readers for Sunday Times, it was soon clear, as Enahoro recalled, that the fellow was also winning enemies for the Daily Times Company. The British owners of the paper didn’t like the trouble that George Sharp was creating for the company and they found a way to get Enahoro to stop the column. Enahoro said he had no choice but to stop writing under the pseudonym of George Sharp and what he did to calm the senses in him crying to make political noise was to turn the format of Peter Pan around. Instead of doings of doing the zany interviews, Peter Enahoro began to mix the roles of George Sharp and Peter Pan. That’s when Peter Pan began to draw the heavy following it carried into exile with Peter Enahoro.
It was also around the time that Peter Enahoro was made the editor of Daily Times when the incumbent, Alhaji Babatunde Jose, became the managing director of Daily Times. Enahoro now says he didn’t like to be a daily editor, a position thrusted upon him, because he preferred the reflection that weekly journalism allowed a columnist. By then, Peter Enahoro had stopped writing under his real name, concentrating on writing under Peter Pan every Saturday in the Daily Times. He was then 27. He also had to write the Times editorial opinion. Enahoro said he often disagreed with the opinion he had to express in the editorial but “like a doctor who had to operate on an enemy, you had to be professional.” But Enahoro found a way out to fight the establishment. Any time he wrote an editorial he considered unbearably vexing, he would used Peter Pan to oppose it in every sense, even to parody the core the opinion. Daily Times supported casino, for example, and Peter Pan opposed it. Enahoro wrote the two pieces.
Thus, for what he was in those heady days, Peter Enahoro couldn’t possibly be a good editor which called for quite a bit of conformity. Enahoro was certainly a non-conformist. He found it impossible to fit into the role of a manager.Thus, he didn’t last long as the editor of Daily Times because he was causing his superiors all kinds of headache. Stroking his moustache in his small room at Ikoyi Hotel, Enahoro recalled that the management of Daily Times decided to “promote” him out of the sensitive job of the editor and so something called Group Editorial Adviser. That was the time that Enahoro began to drink to kill time. He said nobody wanted his advice. Anyway, he recalled, the job content of the Editorial Adviser at the time was nil. He had a secretary who had nothing to have typed and no telephone call to have placed. It occurred to him around the time to start writing Peter Pan three times a week, a decision that demand of him concentration. And the decision also saved him from drinking himself to insanity at the Blue Velvet Club. His disenchantment with society was growing and his ability to express it in writing was getter sharper. He said the Daily Times would have liked to stop his column at the time, but couldn’t because the column was a factor in the good circulation figures of the paper and, of course, he added, Peter Pan had become an institution. In fact, Enahoro said, Peter Pan became so hot that the late Chief Akintola, who was the premier of Western Region, banned Daily Times from the region because of Peter Pan.
At some point along the way, Peter Enahoro was made the Editor-in-Chief of Daily Times, a position that Enahoro said had not much in it by the way of job content. So he kept pouring all his energy into turning out Peter Pan three times a week, a calling that demanded a lot of travelling in and out of the country. Enahoro recalled that the owners of the paper in Britain were so please with the literariness of Peter Pan that the chairman of the parent company, Cecil King, sent him a written commendation. In fact, as he recalled, his stars were shining so brightly at the headquarters in Britain that the owners decided just before the January 1966 military coup to make Peter Enahoro the Editorial Director of Daily Times, working under a gentleman named Namme as the Managing Director, while AlhajiJose was to become the Vice-Chairman of the holding company in Nigeria with Cecil King as the Chairman. If that had happened, Enahor reasoned, he would have become the effective Grand Editor of all Daily Times publications. But that didn’t happen because trouble soon broke out in the north and the British owners of the Daily Times then decided to put off the changes. In April 1966, Peter Enahoro travelled round the country, came back to Lagos and wrote the series called “The First 100 Days.” The series out as singular if one compares it to the other things that Peter Enahoro used to write up till then. Enahoro wasn’t just playing with word in the series, and it clear that he had something to say, unlike other times that a columnist must fill the space although he may have nothing to say.
What Enahoro said in that series tore apart the social delusion in the country, forecasting the danger that would cause spasm in the nation-state called Nigeria. It was a bravura performance, and it was clear from the three pieces that Peter Enahoro was pouring out his heart, and that when he was done, he might not have anything left in his chest. In retrospect, it is hard to see why he should be driven out of his country for writing the truth as he saw it. The articles were published on April 27, 28 and 29. The contests were prophetic in their incisiveness, for everything he warned against began to happen less than three months later.
By that time, Enahoro was 31, yet a tender age for a man to possess such vision as displayed in that series. It was probably a good thing for Peter Enahoro to pack up and leave, because in the 100 Days, Enahoro had topped himself and couldn’t repeat the feat again. As he said in a television interview on his celebrated return, Enahoro, of all his columnist colleagues of those actionists days, was the only one still writing. He said that his vision was now lager. And, yes, Enahoro has grown up. Who wouldn’t? Yes, he now says that he may not do many of the things he did in those heady days. But one thing he has always done and will always do is: throw caution out the window if it means not speaking his mind.
©Daily Times, December 19, 1979
(Pp. 17-19)
