IN JUNE 1996, I had perhaps my first major test as a journalist from the Niger Delta. The Rivers State government under Colonel Dauda Komo had decided to revamp the state newspaper, and a new crop of journalists was being recruited to do a good job.

Kudo Eresia-Eke was serving as Commissioner for Information under that government. He hired the services of Taijo Wonukabe, a Lagos-based media relations firm, to get the best of journalists of Rivers stock together, and propel them to re-brand the paper.
I was in Lagos when l was invited to join the team. I had two weeks to put together a proposal as to what I would do if I were to become editor of the Sunday paper. One idea was to run a weekly magazine story, dwelling on a subject of popular interest.

In my capacity as editor of the paper, I was to write the first story and set the tone for the paper. The subject was Harcourt. Who was the founder of Port Harcourt? Why was this port named after Harcourt?
Dagogo Ezekiel-Hart, the editor in chief, was generous enough to sign out allowances for every reporter and editor to go in search of that elusive fellow after whom the young city was named. Go in search of the white man who first arrived the city known as Port Harcourt today.
At that time, in 1996, the internet was still far from our newsroom. We had to do the leg work, go around town, go around Nigeria, in search of Harcourt. One line editor was despatched by air to Lagos. Another was deployed to the national archives, Enugu, and all-around Port Harcourt, our reporters combed the ancient hives for the story of this man called Harcourt.
In the end, all that mass of information was dumped upon the desk of the editor, Tide On Sunday, and I was obliged to make sense of it all. Long before the photograph came to my attention, the following story was published in the maiden June 30, 1996, edition of The Tide On Sunday. It is served fresh in the pages of Coastline News Network, your local CNN…

HARCOURT WAS born. Harcourt lived. Harcourt died. That much is obvious. Harcourt was white. His Caucasian origins showed clearly in his aquiline nose, his thin lips and the pale pigmentation of his skin. To the local folk with whom he first came in contact in the early days of the colonial era, he spoke with a curious nasal accent like every white man in the neighbourhood.

Read the full story on Naira Diary https://nairadiary.com/the-history-of-port-harcour/

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