Patrick Dele Cole: The stories behind the Daily Times, The Guardian and the corridors of power

He was sent to the Daily Times to sell a military government’s transition programme. Instead, he protected journalists from that government, helped turn the newspaper into a national institution and later laid the foundations for The Guardian. But his most revealing stories were about the battles, sacrifices and difficult choices behind the public figure.

Patrick Dele Cole had a simple rule for dealing with powerful people: never mistake the authority to give orders for the right to control the truth.

It was a principle he carried into the newsroom, the civil service, the presidency and the diplomatic service. It also earned him enemies. Military officers threatened to arrest him. Government officials complained about his access to the president. Colleagues resented his influence. And at one point, after walking away from a senior civil service career, he found himself with six children, no house, no car and just N253 in the bank.

Yet Cole, who died in London on Saturday, October 17, 2026, aged 86, kept moving. He helped build one of Nigeria’s most successful newspaper operations, contributed to the emergence of another, participated in the country’s transition from military to civilian rule, advised President Olusegun Obasanjo and represented Nigeria abroad as an ambassador.

His life was not a straight climb through the corridors of power. It was a series of unexpected turns, difficult decisions and encounters with people who either helped him realise his ambitions or tested his convictions.

In a revealing interview with Richard Ikiebe, Cole recounted episodes from his life that offered a rare glimpse into how Nigeria’s political establishment worked, how two of its most influential newspapers were built, and what it cost to stand between journalists and a government determined to influence what they published.

His stories were often funny, sometimes painful and occasionally astonishing. Together, they reveal a man who understood power from the inside but never believed that proximity to it should mean surrendering one’s judgement.

Read also: Consciousness and compromise: A final conversation with Patrick Dele Cole (1940–2026)

The assignment that changed his life

Cole was born on August 4, 1940, in Abonnema, in the Kalabari Kingdom of present-day Rivers State. His education took him from St Bartholomew’s School in Enugu to Baptist High School in Port Harcourt and Ibadan Grammar School before he left Nigeria in 1962 to pursue higher education.

He studied at the University of Otago in New Zealand from 1962 to 1965 before moving to the University of Cambridge in England. He earned a doctorate in history and became a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, between 1970 and 1973. He also spent time as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, United States.

His academic career might have kept him in university life. Instead, he returned to Nigeria and joined the federal civil service, where he worked in the Cabinet Office alongside an influential group of senior officials, academics and policy thinkers.

The country was then under military rule, and the question of when and how the armed forces would return power to civilians was becoming increasingly contentious.

Cole became involved in the work of preparing that transition. Alongside Philip Asiodu and C.O. Lawson, he helped develop a programme setting out the steps needed to return the country to civilian government.

The original deadline was 1976. The work included proposals for creating more states, relocating the federal capital, reforming government, establishing guidelines for political parties and conducting a proper census.

The document became known as the Nine Steps to Civil Rule, also described in his recollections as the Nine Point Political Programme.

The plan was submitted to General Yakubu Gowon, then head of state. But the politics surrounding the transition were more complicated than its authors had anticipated.

Some officials and intellectuals believed the military should remain in power until the country had developed sufficiently. Others favoured a hybrid system combining military and civilian government. There were also those who believed politicians would squander national resources if allowed to return too soon.

In 1974, Gowon announced that politicians had learnt nothing and that the military would not hand over power in 1976 as promised.

Then, in July 1975, Gowon was overthrown by General Murtala Mohammed.

The new government revived the transition programme, drawing on the work already done in the Cabinet Office. It eventually became part of the military government’s plans for returning Nigeria to civilian rule.

But Cole was about to discover that preparing a political transition on paper and persuading Nigerians to accept it were two different tasks.

The government wanted the Daily Times to help explain and sell the programme to the public. The newspaper was one of the most powerful media organisations in the country, with a wide readership and a formidable national distribution network.

Cole was appointed to its board in 1975 as a non-executive director representing government interests. He was subsequently brought into its management, becoming managing director in 1976.

He understood why the military wanted him there. What he had not fully anticipated was the suspicion with which the journalists would receive him.

“I had two constituencies,” he recalled. “I had journalists who were noticeably nervous: ‘Who is this guy from nowhere who has come to run this place? We don’t know him. And he is going to be listening to those guys from Dodan Barracks.’”

The journalists had reason to be wary. The Daily Times had a history of confronting those in power. Under its celebrated chairman and managing director, Babatunde Jose, it had clashed with the Gowon administration over corruption and public accountability.

On November 5, 1969, the government closed the newspaper. A week later, Jose, his deputy Leban Namme, editor Henry Odukomaiya and Lagos Weekend editor Segun Osoba were arrested and detained.

The paper’s subsequent confrontation with the military establishment had helped shape its reputation as an institution willing to challenge authority. The acquisition of a 60 percent controlling interest by the federal military government, through government-owned NICON Insurance, and Jose’s departure raised fresh fears about its independence.

Cole was entering a newsroom where government ownership was not an abstract question of corporate structure. It was a potential threat to journalists’ jobs, freedom and safety.

He decided that the only way to earn their trust was to show them that he would protect them.

“The only way to gain the confidence of anybody working with you is to be able to tell and show that you can protect him or her,” he said.

His message to the journalists was direct: “While I am here, I assure you that no journalist will be arrested, they will not close this place. Do your job, and nobody will ever call you and tell you what to write.”

He later added: “I can’t remember one single instance where I called somebody and said, ‘This is the way you are going to report.’ They were professionals.”

That was the beginning of an unusual relationship. Cole had been appointed to represent the interests of a military government that wanted to communicate its transition programme. Instead, he became the person standing between that government and journalists determined to do their jobs.

His first task was to bridge the two sides. His second was to give the journalists a reason to believe that independence could survive government ownership.

The military threatened him. He refused to back down.

Cole’s assurances were not empty words. He recalled being summoned, abused and threatened by military officers whenever the newspaper published material they disliked.

“For the military, I cannot tell you how many times they threatened to shoot and lock me up, and all that,” he said.

His response was to insist that officials who had complaints should bring them to him rather than attempt to intimidate the newsroom.

“My first job was to give notice to the military leadership: ‘Do not touch, don’t come near; anything you want to do, you can tell me but just don’t come.’”

It was a risky position for a man whose appointment depended, at least initially, on the same government he was resisting. But Cole understood that a newspaper could not command public confidence if readers believed its stories were being dictated by officials.

He was also convinced that the Daily Times needed to do more than survive. It needed to raise the quality of its journalism.

Some of the country’s most talented journalists had left the organisation for newer publications. Cole set about bringing back experienced writers and recruiting others who could improve its reporting, analysis and commentary.

Among those he brought into the organisation were Dele Giwa and Stanley Macebuh, alongside other accomplished journalists and intellectuals.

He also established an editorial board modelled on arrangements he had encountered at The Washington Post and The New York Times.

The idea was to separate the development of editorial opinions from the day to day running of the newsroom. Rather than chairing meetings in which features writers produced editorials, the board would take responsibility for the newspaper’s opinion pages.

Cole gave the board considerable freedom. He did not even attend its meetings.

“Okay, you decide what you want to put in the newspaper, in the opinion columns,” he told its members.

The arrangement helped strengthen the newspaper’s intellectual identity and gave its editorial positions a more structured institutional basis. Macebuh became chairman of the board, bringing his reputation as a sharp and independent thinker to the role.

Cole also insisted that appointments should be based on merit.

When the Daily Times advertised for an editor, Tony Momoh applied and emerged as the best candidate. But Cole discovered that his colleagues had assigned Momoh to the training department instead.

His response was characteristically blunt.

“Did you advertise for the post of training manager?” he asked. They had not. “What did you advertise for? Editor?”

He refused to accept the change.

“You guys sat down, and you said he was the best, now you are telling me that he is the training manager; therefore he cannot be the editor of Daily Times. You must be joking. Since he came first, that is the job he is going to do.”

Momoh became editor.

The episode was small compared with Cole’s confrontations with military officers, but it revealed the administrative philosophy behind his management. Institutions could not become excellent if personal preferences, internal manoeuvring or outside pressure were allowed to override established procedures.

The newspaper’s success soon became visible in its circulation figures. Cole recalled daily sales reaching about 350,000 copies, with Sunday editions selling as many as 600,000. In another account of his tenure, he recalled a Sunday record of 630,000 copies.

For him, those numbers meant more than commercial success.

The public was buying the newspaper because it believed what it read. Nigerians were not simply purchasing a government publication to learn what officials wanted them to know. They were reading stories about their own lives, their country and the people exercising power over them.

That, he believed, was the real achievement.

The story that tested his promise

The Daily Times’ independence was tested repeatedly, but one episode illustrated how far Cole was willing to go to protect it.

During preparations for the Sunday Times, editor Tunji Oseni received a call from a senior government official. The government had heard that the newspaper was preparing a lead story about Nigeria Airways and wanted it stopped.

Oseni refused to withdraw the report. The disagreement escalated, and the editor was reported to higher authorities.

Cole eventually emerged and backed his journalists.

The story went ahead.

The incident helped settle the question of whether the Daily Times could publish material that embarrassed the government that owned a controlling stake in the company.

Cole did not believe that independence meant hostility towards government. It meant that the newspaper’s decisions should be made by journalists exercising professional judgement rather than by officials seeking favourable coverage.

He had a broader understanding of the problem. Even privately owned newspapers could be compromised if their proprietors demanded that editors protect their personal, political or commercial interests.

“However independent a newspaper is, it takes strong journalists, and I mean really strong, to keep away the influence of the proprietor,” he said.

He added that only exceptional proprietors would refrain from trying to influence publications they had established.

The danger, he explained, did not always require an explicit instruction. An editor who knew that a proprietor could dismiss him or withdraw his support might censor himself before anyone made a telephone call.

“The mere presence in the consciousness of the editor or the managing director, that he has somebody at the back who can pull the rug from under his feet, is perhaps a sufficient deterrent for him to behave in a particular way.”

It was a striking observation from a man who had managed a newspaper under military ownership and would later help establish one under a private proprietor.

His experience had taught him that press freedom depended not only on ownership structures, but also on the courage of editors, the judgement of managers and the willingness of those in charge to defend professional independence when it became inconvenient.

He helped prepare Nigeria’s return to civilian rule

While Cole was protecting the Daily Times newsroom, the newspaper was also helping Nigerians engage with the military government’s transition programme.

He had originally been brought in partly because the government wanted the paper to explain the constitutional process. But he and his colleagues did more than publish official announcements.

The newspaper organised public meetings across Nigeria, opened its pages to contributions from citizens and published material on federalism and constitutional arrangements. It sought to make the transition a public conversation rather than a document prepared exclusively by officials and politicians.

Cole also worked with Bolaji Akinyemi and Walter Ofonagoro on a book about federalism in Nigeria, reflecting his continuing interest in the country’s constitutional development.

The work mattered because the return to civilian government was taking place in a period when military rule had become established across much of Africa. In some countries, officers who had initially promised temporary interventions were increasingly reluctant to return to the barracks.

Nigeria faced its own uncertainty over how political authority should be transferred, how institutions should be reorganised and what safeguards should accompany a new constitution.

Cole had helped think through these questions in the Cabinet Office. At the Daily Times, he helped create a space where the public could debate them.

The newspaper became part of the process through which the transition was explained, contested and discussed.

It was an unusual position for a newspaper. Cole was expected to help sell a government programme, but he understood that doing so credibly required allowing Nigerians to question it.

The military’s relationship with the paper remained tense, but the arrangement largely worked. The newspaper continued to publish independent journalism, while the government had a channel through which the public could engage with the transition.

Cole’s work also extended to the welfare of the journalists themselves. He believed that press freedom was difficult to sustain when journalists were economically vulnerable.

Under his leadership, the Daily Times expanded its training programmes, sent journalists abroad for further education and developed staff housing schemes. He recalled purchasing more than 30 of the last Volkswagen Beetles being manufactured at the time, making vehicles available to journalists who needed transport.

The company acquired land, built houses for staff and strengthened its training infrastructure. Its operations expanded, with new printing facilities, distribution centres and businesses including Times Press and Niger Pak.

The newspaper group also held interests in other ventures, including West Africa magazine, and contributed to the development of Stock Exchange House in Lagos.

Cole was proud that the Daily Times had become an organisation in which journalists could build careers, receive training, own homes and plan for retirement.

He understood that a journalist worried about rent, transport and the future of his family might find it harder to resist pressure from those with money or political influence.

Professional independence, in his view, required both courage and an institution that gave people the means to exercise it.

The unfinished plan to protect the Daily Times

By the end of the 1970s, Cole had become convinced that government should not own a newspaper.

The Daily Times was thriving, but its ownership structure left it exposed to changes in political leadership. He and some of his colleagues sought to transfer the government’s controlling interest to a trust that could protect the paper from political interference.

The idea was to create a more secure arrangement for the newspaper’s future, formalising the understanding that had allowed the management to operate with considerable independence despite government ownership.

Cole recalled that the necessary documents had been prepared and signed by those involved. The final step depended on the chairman of NICON, who was away in Calabar.

Then came the end of Obasanjo’s military administration.

General Obasanjo signed the final document on his way to hand over power to Shehu Shagari at Tafawa Balewa Square in October 1979. Cole signed it as well, but the remaining signature was not secured before the transition was completed.

The plan stalled.

Cole left the Daily Times shortly afterwards. Although Shagari wanted him to continue, he decided that he should return to the civil service rather than remain in a position where he had already completed his assignment.

The Daily Times had reached extraordinary circulation figures, developed a national distribution system and built a reputation that few Nigerian newspaper organisations could match. But the effort to place it beyond the reach of government influence remained unfinished.

For Cole, it was an example of how institutional progress could depend on timing and political circumstances as much as good intentions.

The paper had shown that a government-owned newspaper could operate with considerable editorial independence under the right leadership. But he had wanted to create a structure that would make such independence less dependent on the personality of whoever occupied the managing director’s office.

That ambition would remain relevant long after he left.

The day he resigned with N253 in the bank

Cole’s departure from the Daily Times did not lead to a comfortable return to the civil service.

After leaving the newspaper, he expected to resume his career as a senior civil servant. Instead, he encountered a problem that he found impossible to accept.

The government wanted him to join the team setting up the Open University, then being developed under the Shagari administration. Cole agreed to the assignment and went to the Ministry of Education, where he had been posted.

But he was told that the arrangement required a northern representative to balance the two professors already involved, one Yoruba and one Igbo.

Cole was stunned.

He had returned to the civil service expecting to be given a job based on his experience and qualifications. Instead, he believed he was being excluded because officials wanted to satisfy an ethnic formula.

He went home and thought about what had happened.

“You mean in the civil service, I cannot get a job because somebody wants to do balancing?” he recalled asking himself. “So if you were not Igbo, Yoruba or Hausa, you cannot get a job in Nigeria?”

That was the day he resigned.

He described it as his darkest day.

The decision was not accompanied by a new job, a business plan or a financial cushion. Cole had six children to support. He had no house or car and only N253 in the bank.

He and his family moved into a room at 1004 Estate on Victoria Island, Lagos, provided by a friend. They remained there for about two and a half years.

He was fortunate to have bought a piece of land in Ikeja under a staff housing arrangement he had helped establish at the Daily Times. The property still needed development, but he was eventually able to build a house and move his family there.

Then Alex Ibru, the businessman who would later establish The Guardian, offered him an unexpected lifeline.

Ibru did not know what Cole had been earning at the Daily Times or what the civil service might have paid him. But he knew that his friend had left government without a clear plan for the future.

For the next 12 months, Ibru gave him money at the end of every month so that he could support his family while deciding what to do next.

Cole recalled the arrangement simply: Ibru would arrive, leave an envelope and go.

There was no elaborate contract or immediate business proposal attached to the assistance. It was a personal act of support at a time when Cole had taken a decision that left him financially exposed.

At the end of the year, Ibru announced that he wanted to start a newspaper.

Cole’s reaction was not enthusiasm.

“Don’t be stupid, what is wrong with you? Are you crazy?” he recalled telling him.

Ibru was serious. He wanted Cole to help build a newspaper, and he spent the next two years persuading him.

Cole initially tried to discourage the idea. Rather than establish a newspaper from scratch, he suggested buying an existing publication in the Caribbean or the United States.

Ibru refused.

He wanted to build a new newspaper in Nigeria. Eventually, Cole agreed.

The decision would lead to one of the most consequential partnerships in Nigerian media history.

How The Guardian was born

By the early 1980s, Cole had seen what a well-managed newspaper could achieve. He had also learnt how difficult it was to protect editorial independence when a proprietor or government became too involved in the newsroom.

With The Guardian, he wanted to build an institution that would combine strong journalism with a clear separation between editorial and commercial responsibilities.

His role was less visible than it had been at the Daily Times. He deliberately kept much of his work behind the scenes, drawing on the experience of people who had already helped build a successful newspaper.

He approached Stanley Macebuh to lead the editorial work. He also recruited Pius Ayan, an experienced printing and mechanical operations specialist, and Awosanya, who joined the team preparing the publication.

The work took about two years. The Guardian was first published as a Sunday weekly on February 22, 1983, before beginning daily publication on July 4 that year.

Cole did not see himself as a saviour of the country or the man who would rescue Nigerian journalism. His ambition was more practical.

“I was hoping to have pretty good journalists, working in a pretty nice atmosphere, and there is no reason why they shouldn’t be able to be one of the most respected in Nigeria,” he said.

Read also: Education must build patriotism, skills for Nigeria’s future, expert says

The division of responsibilities was central to the project. Ibru would provide the money and manage the business side. Macebuh would oversee editorial direction, while Cole helped establish the institution and its working principles.

Ibru, according to Cole, understood the importance of leaving professionals to do their jobs.

“You guys are the professionals. You have run Daily Times, so there is nothing I can really tell you about newspapers,” Cole recalled him saying. “I am a businessman, so far as the business side — getting money, the banking and all that — is concerned, yes, I will get that for you.”

It was an arrangement that Cole valued because it recognised the difference between owning a newspaper and knowing how to produce one.

Read also:Patrick Dele Cole: The diplomat who stood up to power and helped reshape Nigerian journalism

But even the most carefully defined boundaries could be tested.

The Guardian adopted a house style that rejected the use of honorifics such as “Chief” and “Dr” in ordinary news reports, preferring “Mr” and “Mrs”. The policy reflected the newspaper’s desire to apply the same standards to powerful people and ordinary citizens.

Then a report referred to Michael Ibru, Alex’s brother, simply as “Mr”.

Ibru came to Cole to complain. His family had discussed the issue, he explained, and he wanted the newspaper to change its approach.

Cole refused.

“Get away, what do you mean? Because of Michael Ibru?” he recalled telling him. “So far as we are concerned, this is the policy of the newspaper.”

He was even more direct when Ibru invoked his family’s position.

“Alex, I don’t care what your family have said. You are not going to change this thing.”

The exchange was revealing. Ibru was the proprietor and financier, but Cole believed that the newspaper’s established editorial policy should not be altered to accommodate the owner’s family.

The Guardian’s campaign against the use of traditional chieftaincy titles in ordinary reporting became one of its distinctive features. The policy reflected a broader belief that public standing should not automatically confer special treatment in the pages of a newspaper.

For Cole, the test of independence was not whether a proprietor refrained from making demands when nothing important was at stake. It was whether the rules survived when a decision affected someone close to the owner.

The Guardian’s founders wanted to create a publication known for the quality of its journalism rather than the social standing of the people it covered. Its house style, editorial structure and commitment to professional judgement were part of that effort.

Cole had learnt from his years at the Daily Times that editorial independence required protection. At The Guardian, he helped create an arrangement in which the owner was willing to let experienced journalists lead the newsroom.

He had now helped shape two newspapers through different ownership structures, carrying the same conviction into both: journalism could not flourish if those who financed or controlled it also dictated what it should say.

The public servant who could tell a president no

Cole’s career after the newspapers took him back into government and international affairs. He spent time in business before becoming Nigeria’s ambassador to Brazil and Argentina and later serving as Special Adviser on International Relations to President Olusegun Obasanjo during the latter’s first term in office.

His experience in journalism had prepared him for diplomacy in ways he had not initially anticipated. At the Daily Times, he had dealt with ministers, heads of state, foreign diplomats and international organisations. He had attended meetings involving the Organisation of African Unity, UNESCO and the United Nations.

He also came to understand the importance of press relations in international affairs. As ambassador to Brazil, he worked in a period when economic and trade ties between the two countries were developing, including arrangements for barter trade and educational exchanges.

But his role advising Obasanjo brought him close to the internal politics of presidential power.

Cole recalled that being able to tell the president the truth could make him unpopular with people around the president. Some colleagues viewed proximity to the head of state as a valuable political asset and were suspicious of anyone who appeared to have direct access.

He said Obasanjo once appeared on a television programme where he was asked what Cole did. The president’s response was characteristically blunt.

“What doesn’t he do?” Obasanjo replied.

Cole believed the remark upset some ministers, who interpreted it as a sign of his influence.

His position was complicated. He was expected to advise the president, sometimes mediate disputes and investigate allegations involving senior officials. He also had to deal with people who feared that he might report their actions directly to the head of state.

He described a president who did not always accept gossip at face value and sometimes confronted people with allegations in the presence of those who had made them.

The process could become uncomfortable. People accused of misconduct might deny the claims, only for the president to challenge them with the details of what had been said.

Cole sometimes found himself trying to establish what had happened and explain the circumstances to the president. His work created enemies on different sides, particularly when people believed he had influence over appointments, contracts or access to the presidency.

He also became involved in the tensions between the political party that had brought Obasanjo to power and the new administration’s efforts to build its own network of support.

Cole had been active in the Peoples Democratic Party’s political organisation, including as national vice-chairman for the South-South. He understood the role of party officials and governors in securing Obasanjo’s election, and he witnessed the disputes over who should receive appointments in the new government.

Those who had worked for the party expected their efforts to be rewarded with positions. Obasanjo, however, relied increasingly on governors and other political actors in deciding who should enter his government.

The competing interests created resentment and weakened relationships within the party.

Cole eventually concluded that the administration’s priorities were shifting towards the struggle over the 2003 election. He believed the president’s political calculations had begun to dominate the work of governance and that there was little reason for him to remain in the same role.

His experience reinforced his understanding of power as a system shaped not only by official duties, but also by personal loyalty, rivalry and the constant struggle for access.

It was the same lesson he had learnt at the Daily Times: institutions could be undermined when people treated influence as a possession rather than a responsibility.

He once reflected that Obasanjo could have been the Mandela of Africa. It was a revealing assessment from someone who had worked close to the former president and understood both the opportunities and the limits of leadership. For Cole, the comparison spoke to the kind of continental role Obasanjo might have played and the expectations that accompanied his return to democratic government.

A historian who never stopped questioning Nigeria

Cole’s years in journalism and government gave him a wide view of Nigeria’s economic and political development. In later life, he remained a public commentator, contributing to The Guardian’s editorial discussions and speaking about the country’s failures and possibilities.

He was particularly critical of waste in public spending and the failure to build on Nigeria’s agricultural and industrial potential.

He recalled a period when the country had functioning refineries, ambitious industrial projects and a stronger position in agricultural commodities such as cocoa and palm produce. He contrasted Nigeria’s decline in these sectors with the growth of countries that had built successful industries around similar resources.

His criticism was not simply nostalgic. He believed that successive governments had failed to turn the country’s natural advantages into jobs, production and lasting prosperity.

He also questioned the growing cost of government and the habit of borrowing without a clear plan for how the money would improve people’s lives.

“The government is like a household,” he said in an interview with The Guardian, arguing that budgets should be based on the resources available to fund them.

His broader point was that economic development required more than announcements and spending plans. It demanded discipline, investment in productive activity and a willingness to confront the costs of waste.

He was equally concerned about the quality of leadership and the example set for younger Nigerians.

At his 86th birthday celebration in August 2026, Cole called for a new generation of leaders who would reject corruption, ethnic division and transactional politics. He believed that Nigeria’s future depended on young people who understood that public office was a responsibility rather than an opportunity for personal enrichment.

His views were rooted in the same conviction that had shaped his professional life. Whether dealing with a military government, a newspaper proprietor or a president, he believed that people should be able to question authority without being punished for it.

He was not claiming that every decision made during his career had been perfect. Rather, he believed that institutions worked better when people were willing to acknowledge mistakes and explain why promises had not been fulfilled.

For a man who had spent decades around powerful people, his advice was remarkably direct: tell the truth, do your work and do not confuse access with achievement.

The family behind the public figure

Away from the newsroom and the presidency, Cole’s life was shaped by his family. He was married to Mina Dugoabere Cole, a pastor with the Redeemed Christian Church of God, who died in London on October 1, 2021, after a prolonged illness.

Her death deeply affected him. Those who knew the couple described their marriage as a close partnership, with Mina’s faith and commitment to family complementing Cole’s public responsibilities.

He spoke warmly about his children and the satisfaction of seeing them build lives of their own. His son, Tonye Patrick Cole, born on January 11, 1967, became a prominent businessman and co-founder and former group executive director of Sahara Group.

Cole considered the success of his children one of his greatest blessings.

“You pray that your children will be better than you, and in my case, that prayer has been answered,” he said. “They’re all better. They’re all richer. And that’s a good thing.”

He also spoke about contentment, arguing that a person did not need to spend a lifetime pursuing material wealth or comparing himself with others to find fulfilment.

His advice was to keep the mind active, live without envy and take satisfaction in doing one’s work honestly.

It was a quieter reflection of the values that had guided his public career. He had occupied influential positions and moved among some of Nigeria’s most powerful people, but he did not measure his life by proximity to authority alone.

He valued the freedom to speak his mind, the opportunity to build institutions and the knowledge that his children could do better than he had.

A legacy written in institutions

Cole’s career crossed several fields, but the thread connecting them was his understanding of institutional responsibility.

At the Daily Times, he helped protect journalists from military interference while building a newspaper operation that reached readers across Nigeria. He introduced an editorial board, strengthened training and staff welfare, and worked to create a structure that could eventually protect the newspaper from government ownership.

At The Guardian, he helped turn Alex Ibru’s ambition into a newspaper founded on professional journalism and a clear division between editorial and commercial responsibilities.

In government, he contributed to the planning of Nigeria’s return to civilian rule, advised Obasanjo on international relations and represented the country abroad. In later life, he remained a critic of waste, corruption and the failure of political leaders to deliver on their promises.

His story also carries a warning. The Daily Times trust arrangement he helped prepare was never completed as intended. His experience in the civil service ended when he believed ethnic balancing had taken precedence over merit. His years around the presidency showed him how personal rivalries could weaken public institutions.

He knew that good intentions and talented individuals were not enough. Institutions needed rules, independence and people prepared to defend them when doing so became difficult.

Cole’s life offers a particularly useful lesson for Nigerian journalism. A newspaper’s independence is not guaranteed by its reputation, its ownership structure or the quality of its reporters alone. It also depends on whether the people managing it are prepared to protect the newsroom from pressure, including pressure from those who appointed or financed them.

He understood this because he had occupied both sides of the divide. He had been the government representative sent into a newspaper, the manager responsible for protecting its journalists and the organiser helping a private proprietor build another publication.

His recollections of those years reveal a man who was not afraid to challenge the people who could make his life difficult. But they also show that he understood the importance of relationships, negotiation and the practical work required to build institutions that could outlast their founders.

Cole died at 86, having lived through Nigeria’s final years under colonial rule, independence, military government, the return to civilian rule and the political changes that followed. He had seen the country at its most ambitious and its most wasteful, and he never entirely abandoned the belief that it could do better.

Perhaps his most revealing words were not about a newspaper, a president or a diplomatic assignment, but about the simple responsibility of working for another person without surrendering one’s conscience.

“Saying ‘no’ to the person who employs you isn’t a sin,” he said. “It’s a blessing.”

For Cole, that was the essence of professional independence. It was also the principle that linked his years in the newsroom to his work in government and diplomacy.

He had spent a lifetime around power without accepting that power should have the final word. And in helping build two of Nigeria’s most influential newspapers, he left behind a legacy that will be remembered not simply for the offices he held, but for the institutions he helped strengthen and the journalists he insisted should be left alone to do their work.