By Clem Oluwole
I did not know about the serious health challenge facing Chief David Attah until I read Adagbo Onoja’s piece in his column last Tuesday on page 18 of this paper. Adagbo painted a very disturbing picture of the man I have come to regard as one of my mentors in the journalism profession. It will interest my readers to know that Chief Attah was my general manager at Th e Nigeria Standard Newspaper owned by the Plateau state government. I was already on ground facing frustration when Dave, as he was fondly called by his mates, was brought from the Daily Times where he was the training manager to pilot the aff airs of the paper. As a professional colleague, our paths had crossed even before his appointment. He was a Jos man and I attended his wedding at the St.
Th eresa’s Catholic Church, Jos. Chief Attah was appointed to succeed Mr. Peter Harrigan, a left-handed classroom teacher who knew next to nothing about journalism. His credentials were the book he wrote on a topic I cannot even remember and he was white. Mr. Harrigan was a carefree folk who dressed so casually you would not pass him as a copy boy but for the colour of his skin. He was always in shirts and trousers with bathroom slippers to match! Th e Briton had an aversion for necktie and he would not even tuck in his shirt let alone cuff the sleeves. Harrigan resented the way he was harried out of the company.
And he did not hide it. So much for Peter Harrigan! Chief Attah was a direct opposite of his predecessor. Light-skinned and trendylooking, Dave was every inch a ladies’ man. His dress sense was infectious. In his time, heavy knotted neckties were in the vogue. He was such a fashionable, young chief executive who loved his James Brown loose end trousers that reigned in the 70s.
Th e Plateau Publishing Company Ltd, publishers of the Standard underwent a rapid transformation the very moment Chief Attah mounted the saddle. A keen football lover, he was the brain behind the formation of the Standard Football Club of Jos. Peter Harrigan mooted the idea before Attah emerged on the scene but I blurred his vision. As the tin god of the sports desk, Peter did everything possible to get me to set the ball rolling. But I kept shifting the goalpost. To manage a football club was going to be an additional responsibility and with the kind of frustration I was passing through in the hands of the company secretary, who did not breathe the same air with me, I constituted a wet blanket to Harrigan’s dream. But then Chief Attah came, he dazed me with double promotion because he knew it was long overdue.
So, when he rekindled the football club idea, I asked him to give me just one week to come up with a blueprint. And by April, 1976, less than three months into his tenure, the Standard FC, fondly called Pen Power, was launched into the Nigerian soccer space. By virtue of being the paper’s sports specialist and the crafter of the blueprint, I was elected as the pioneer chairman. Th e club was later to take the country’s football by storm. Chief Attah gave us all the support and encouragement that we needed. Players were recruited from all over the country, regardless of their tribal roots or religious
persuasions, and given full-time pensionable employment in the company but their mandate was to play football as pseudoprofessionals. Small wonder, by the time he exited the company to contest for election into the House of Representatives in 1979, the club he mentored had produced no fewer than 12 national team players (six for Green Eagles and six for Flying Eagles). No club in the Nigerian soccer history was able to match that record let alone surpass it. By August, 1976 or thereabouts, Chief Attah began to replicate the Daily Times’ scenario in the Standard. First, he introduced the Sunday edition with George Ohemu as its editor. He soon followed with a monthly magazine, the Rock, and a woman, Mrs. Philomena Shilong, was put in charge. Th e Rock was the fi rst magazine in the North.
He was not done yet. He fl oated a weekly comic newspaper, Pappy Joe, with Danjuma Adamu Anyeze as its editor. Th e visuals were sketched by a prolifi c cartoonist, Tunde Okosi. Pappy Joe was a strip cartoon running daily on the back page of the paper like Garth of the Daily Times and New Nigerian’s Modesty Blaise until its transformation into a newspaper. Pappy Joe’s mandate was to provide comic relief for a people held captive by soldiers in government. Chief Attah is an accomplished professional. He was a leading light who inspired us with his seminal write-ups in his weekly column, THINKING ALOUD, published in the Sunday edition. Chief Attah’s managerial skill was legendary. He ensured that the company’s production stock level never fell below three months. Th e circulation was amazing just as he made sure that all the circulation routes were well serviced with the fl eet of vans he kept under close watch knowing that they were the life
wire of the paper. Th e anti-climax of his contributions to the phenomenal growth of the company was the establishment of the Cactus Exercise Book Complex and the construction of the Standard Building which he conceived as money-spinning assets. By the time he quit the stage to answer his people’s call to represent them at the Federal House of Representatives, he had laid a solid foundation for the company that could survive the test of time. I personally missed him when he bowed out of the organization. He was my inspiration. I will forever remember his comment on my appraisal form when he described me as an asset to the company based on my contributions as the group sports editor of the paper, chairman of one of the fi nest football clubs in the country and a keeper of a weekly sports column. When the military sacked the Shagari regime in 1983, Chief Attah returned to his home state in Benue. He was appointed commissioner for commerce and industry ostensibly because of the entrepreneurial acumen he exhibited at the Standard, and he was kind enough to grace the launching of my fi rst comic book entitled Share A Laugh Vol. 1 at the Plateau Hotel, Jos. I was highly honoured by his presence because he had to squeeze time off his offi cial engagement in Kaduna. We drifted apart until 1995. By then, he had been made Chief Press Secretary to the late Gen Sani Abacha. He invited me to the Presidential Villa and I got him to give me a letter of recommendation to the military administrator of my home state, Kwara, Group Capt. Baba Adamu Iyam, because we both felt the state would benefi t from my rich experience especially in the fi eld of sports. When I met the milad, he told me he was about to dissolve his cabinet. But the endemic intrigues of Kwara politics stalled the dissolution until a few months before his redeployment to Edo state. Th at was almost a year after I was introduced to him. When I came to Abuja a couple of years ago, I linked up with Chief Attah on phone and we scheduled to meet at his Gwarinpa home. I had enquired how he was coping with life after the demise of his beloved wife six or so years ago. Somehow, we have not been able to connect. When I heard about the public presentation of his autobiography early this year, I put a call to his line severally but could not get through to him. I just concluded that he had changed his line and gave up. Unfortunately, I could not attend the book launch because I was out of town. Before I started this write-up, I tried his line again. Th e phone rang but he did not pick the call. Neither was the call returned until press time. I was deeply touched after reading Onoja’s piece on Chief Attah. Adagbo has said it all. Oga Dave has not only paid his dues, but he is also a pride to the Idoma race. Will they watch one of their own suff er this kind of fate?
Many may be wondering: “Why should anyone launch a subtle appeal for Chief Attah’s care considering the height he has attained in life?” Th e fact is that there comes a time in our journey through life that we shall need one kind of help or the other regardless of our status – high or low. No individual can be an island onto him/ herself. Money is certainly not everything. Chief Attah has touched many lives as an iconic newspaperman and politician. Where are they now? Indeed, one iroko in Idomaland in the person of Senate President, David Bonaventure Mark, can make a diff erence in this regard. He should extend his pecuniary adventure with singing machine from Idomaland, 2Face Idibia, to Chief Attah. I am not in a position to authenticate the story that the nation’s No. 3 man gave a Ferrari automobile valued at N47m to the songster as a wedding gift.
But if it was true, it would be tantamount to pouring water into the Atlantic Ocean. In any case, the story has been denied by Mark’s camp. 2Face is a wealthy young man who is even in a position to help his bedridden kinsman. As for someone like me, who is only wealthy in words, the best I can do is to CRY ALOUD to the likes of David Mark who can spill the cash. I wish my oga well. Th is piece was fi rst published in this space on April 5, 2013. I decided to reproduce it as a fi tting tribute to the media icon because nothing has changed since then other than the grim reality that he passed on to the great beyond on Tuesday, July 4, this year. May God grant his kind soul eternal rest, Amen
