Patrick Dele Cole, a pioneering Nigerian journalist and diplomat, died aged 86. He played a foundational part in establishing federal institutions and restoring civilian rule. Olusegun Obasanjo said, "The way I look at Nigerians, there are two types: the good Nigerians and the bad Nigerians. Patrick Cole was among the good."
The intellectual, writer and adviser made an outsized contribution to Nigerian political and civil life
Every consequential Nigerian has enough sofas for an airport lounge.
Patrick Dele Cole, who has died aged 86, was no exception. But when he wanted a quiet word, he would take you to his own very personal space -- a stone igloo constructed in the corner of his Lagos living room, beyond the reach of listening devices.
"Citizen Cole", as he was dubbed by a journalist friend, is best known in Nigeria as a pioneering newspaperman. But by the time he died, he had travelled so many walks of life both seen and unseen, that it is tempting to regard him as the embodiment of his country's outsized personality -- at least, its better parts. He was a diplomat, writer and politician, as well as legendary bon viveur.
"He had so many sides to him: whether he was drinking in some scruffy bar or carrying secrets from one African head of state to another, he was equally at home," said Keith Richards, the former chief executive of Guinness Nigeria.
One of a group of young Nigerian intellectuals for whom the world was their oyster as independence from Britain dawned in 1960, Cole played a foundational part in establishing Nigeria's federal and state institutions, twice helping to usher the military back to the barracks and restore civilian rule.
In a crowded political field of kleptocrats and ethnic jingoists, he stood out for his enduring patriotism and unwavering commitment to speaking truth to power -- whether privately inside his igloo or on the pages of the press.
"The way I look at Nigerians, there are two types: the good Nigerians and the bad Nigerians. Patrick Cole was among the good Nigerians," said Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria's longest-serving head of state. Cole served as both his adviser and international envoy, while also providing counsel to almost every other Nigerian head of state.
PDC, as friends knew him, was the son of a Sierra Leonean civil servant and a mother from the creekside town of Abonnema in the oil-producing Niger Delta. He was educated in Nigeria, before attending university in New Zealand and at Cambridge, where he earned a PhD in history and was a fellow for three years.
His sharp intellect and strategic mind quickly found him in the inner circle of the military cabal in charge during the 1970s, when Nigeria's new oil wealth allowed the state to establish industries and project its power abroad.
Most prominently, Cole was appointed as managing director of the Daily Times, then one of Nigeria's most widely read and influential newspapers. He is credited with having recruited some of the most accomplished journalists of the day and shielding them from his military friends -- in spite of being repeatedly threatened with going to jail.
Many Nigerian journalists today credit Cole's staunch defence of press freedom and professionalism as having laid the foundations for the vibrant media culture that followed.
Cole was also part of a "brains trust" in the 1970s, advising the government on the path to a new federal constitution and holding elections. It was something of a golden age for Nigeria on the African stage, where it led support for southern Africa's liberation movements.
"When I was military head of state . . . if I had to send anyone to any leader in the frontline states I would send Patrick Cole," Obasanjo said.
As a secret envoy, Cole said: "My own job . . . was frankly to kind of pop around the whole of southern Africa making sure that these liberation movements were properly fuelled with the things which they needed for battle."
Later in the 2000s, when Harare was at loggerheads with Britain over broken commitments made at Zimbabwe's independence, Obasanjo sent Cole as an emissary to mediate between Tony Blair and Robert Mugabe. In a phone interview on Thursday, the former Nigerian president chuckled at how hard a task he'd set.
A meticulous note taker, Cole made minutes of the innumerable high-level meetings he attended. But he resisted unveiling these in a biography: "They would kill me," he joked.
Author Lindsay Barrett, a friend of Cole's, said: "PDC did his best not only to enjoy life but also to ensure others did so too. He was both scholarly and very worldly in his approach to human affairs."
Cole survived his wife, Mina. His seven children were all with him in London when he died. He often described them as his proudest achievement.
Paying tribute, his son Abiye said: "So much love, so much fun, so much success and all without exploiting people or lying (to others or to himself)."