"How I survived as broadcast manager"

The veteran broadcaster, accomplished business leader, diplomat, teacher and moral beacon, Dr. Christopher Kolade passed away peacefully in the early hours of Thursday, October 9, 2025, at the age of 93. Fondly called "Mr. Integrity", Kolade was born in 1932 in Erin-Oke, Osun State into the family of an Anglican missionary. 

He attended Government College, Ibadan, before proceeding to Fourah Bay College in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he completed his higher education.

Kolade’s career spanned broadcasting, business, diplomacy, and academia, just as he served as Director-General of the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). A leading advocate for ethical business practices and corporate integrity in Nigeria, Kolade, during his life time chaired several notable organisations.

Among them was the chairmanship and being the Chief Executive Officer of Cadbury Nigeria Plc. A distinguished diplomat, Kolade also served as Nigeria’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. In academia, he was a respected faculty member at the Lagos Business School (LBS), where he taught Corporate Governance and Human Resources Management.

He was also at the LBS' School of Media and Communication (SMC),  as lecturer in Leadership and Conflict Management.  Both schools are part of Pan-Atlantic University, where he also served as Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council aside being the Chancellor of McPherson University, Ogun State.

Below is an excerpt from an interview granted the duo of Mike Awoyinfa and Dimgba Igwe in their book: "50 Nigeria's Corporate Strategists." by the late boardroom guru.  "I survived as a broadcast manager through luck. I always had bosses who understand that my "excesses" came from desire to do what was right. 

They knew what was wrong  but they had to operate the system. And so, whenever I went "wild" they were able to contain and also stand between me and officialdom. 

I can remember occassions when my director-general had to go to the board and say: "You want me to discipline  this man but I will not because it was well-intentioned.

Take the case when there was a programme actually being broadcast on television and I was the director of television. I didn't understand how this programme could have gone on air. It was totally contrary to our philosophies and beliefs, so I phoned from the house and said: "Kill that programme and put on a filler".

The Daily Times phoned me the next day and said: "We were told you were the one that stepped down the programme" and I said "Yes, I was the one". That was my job as director of programmes. But a few days later,  they went with an editorial and said I was arrogant. That I took it upon myself to stop everybody from seeing the programme. 

Some of the board members picked it up as well and said such a thing should not have happed. But my director general said: "the man was doing his duty. Even if he made an error, at least, he took a decision. That's what he is paid for."

"I had things like that in the early part of my broadcasting career. When I became the director-general,  it became a daily struggle between me and those in government as what would be allowed and what would not be allowed. And once or twice, we had conflicts but we survived. As I said, I was lucky.

What I discovered as D.G. was that for as long as you are professional in what you are doing and you are prepared to stand up for what you're doing and to say: "you can sack me if you wish but this is what I'm going to do", my experience is that they would back away from you.

I withdrew from broadcasting at the age of 45 because I realized you can't carry on like that with people in power. Those who are holding power do not take kindly to the kind of person that wins every time.  He is often in conflict with them and very soon they would find some ways of doing away with him. Very soon their credibility may begin to suffer. So, I just made up my mind that if I could do this job for five years and survive it, that would be the time to go.

In my days, 45 was the voluntary retirement age for public servants. I said that at 45, I will go. So when  my 45th birthday was six months away, I put in my papers. I had actually written that letter before I started looking around for what to do next. My first objective was to clear out at 45, having put in the notice which was accepted within 48 hours. So you can see how eager they were to see me go. I then looked around. I had some friends in the private sector and I talked to them and we discussed various options. 

Here was I, still young at 45 with a lot to do. I actually received four offers from different companies in the private sector. But I chose Cadbury because I wanted to get into something where the success would be something I could contribute to from the first to the last.

If I had gone into a place dealing in commercial trading, you will be using other people's products to go into the market, add a little margin and you get your own profit. But here in Cadbury or in the manufacturing business, you are taking raw materials,  sometimes you are making your own raw material before you put them into your product. 

You have the responsibility for the quality of the process, the quality of the product, then when you make the product, you have to market it to the consumer's satisfaction.  You have to market it in such a way that the consumer would want it today and is prepared to come back tomorrow for repeat purchase. Those are huge challenges which I felt suited my temperament.

I was able to cope in the private sector because fortunately I was not heavily trained in public sector management.  In fact, I can say I was not trained at all. I moved along as the spirit directed me. And therefore my psychology did not at any time absorb the public service practices to such an extent that it became submissive to them.

And I was able to operate within those practices because one has little intelligence to know what's right from what is wrong. If you asked most of the civil servants who had to deal with me, they would probably tell you that they saw me as more of breaking the system, rather than operating the way it should be operated"