Africa Now!

• One of these was Peter Osajele Aizegbeobor Enahoro, the Nigerian journalist who was also known by his pen name, Peter Pan.
• As a journalist and journalism teacher, I have followed his career – one of professional excellence and achievements.
• He was a bold journalist who was not afraid to say what he thought was right.
• Enahoro served as subeditor, features editor, (the Nigerian) Sunday Times editor, editor of the Daily Times and editor in chief of Times Group.

Early life

• Born on 21 January 1935, he came from a well-heeled and well-known political family in Uromi, now in Edo State.
• His parents were educationists and he was one of 10 siblings.
• Another well-known sibling was also a journalist: Mike Enahoro, who died in 2015, was a broadcaster of note in the 1980s.

A great journalist

• Enahoro became perhaps the youngest Nigerian journalist to edit a national newspaper, Daily Times, in 1962.
• The editor of Daily Times, another legendary Nigerian journalist, Biodun Aloba, had spotted him taking on a politician at a press conference and invited him to join the paper, then owned by the Daily Mirror of London.
• It was the beginning of Enahoro’s rise to become “perhaps Africa’s best-known international journalist”, as Frank Barton described him in his book The Press in Africa.
• Enahoro escaped from Nigeria in 1966, fearing for his life after the 15 January coup, as stated in his memoir.

A long shadow

• Enahoro was long gone from Nigeria by the time I became a journalist in the mid-1980s but his reputation loomed large.
• Many younger journalists of the day became interested in international reporting because of Peter Pan’s example and success.
• But we are not yet very good at suggesting what can be done to heal it so that we don’t become part of the problem.

Romance with a dictator

• A part of his life that he only touched on in his memoir was his return to Nigeria in 1996 to work for the government of the late dictator Sani Abacha.
• In his memoir Then Spoke the Thunder (2009) he tried to justify his acceptance of the offer to “take over the Daily Times”.
• For his incisive writings and commentaries, Enahoro’s seat in the pantheon of journalism in Nigeria is assured, his latter-day romance with the military notwithstanding.