Daily Times now focusing return to Nigeria’s consciousness – Anosike
The which was first published in June 1926 is marking its 91st anniversary this month, to climax with an exhibition and a heroes’ award Tuesday May 16. The Publisher and Editor in Chief, Fidelis Anosike, says the anniversary is being marked elaborately to
Daily Times ow has running it been the since you took over its ownership 13 using it to raise our media practice. This is a media organization, not merely a newspaper outfit. We have as our human resources people trained in the various areas of mass communication and media practice with capacity to produce what you can’t get just anywhere. We’re providing depth. We’re providing researched work and we thrive in investigative reporting. You have seen the news elsewhere now, but if you value quality, you will seek us out.
What would you recall as the state of in 2004 when you took over its management?
By the time we took over, it was virtually dead. It was so bad they were printing just about a thousand copies daily. What we bought was the legacy built over the decades by the numerous result-oriented professionals that had worked there.
The first copy of Daily Times was published on June 1, 1926 with Ernest Ikoli as the pioneer editor and Adeyemi Alakija as the chairman of the board of directors of the publishing house then named Nigerian Printing and Publishing Company. The organization expanded over the years to dominate the publishing industry with a string of newspapers and magazines, and to branch into related and probably not so industry-specific ventures, inaugurating the first beauty pageant, Miss Nigeria, in 1957 and establishing the Times Journalism Institute in 1965, among other things. Its glorious era came in the 1970s when the Daily Times was churning out the hundreds of thousand copies I mentioned earlier, up from 95,000 copies around 1959.
But it was also in the 1970s that it began to decline. By the middle 1970s Daily Times had become so strong it became a huge centre of attraction. It was the nation itself. So much was centred on it and the Federal Government became jittery.
It acquired 60 per cent of Daily Times of Nigeria (DTN) and 100 per cent of the New Nigerian Newspapers (NNN) on September 1, 1975. As government tightened control, adherence to editorial values declined and readership and circulation strength of the newspaper suffered.
Things had become noticeably bad by the late 1990s, and the Federal Government under President Olusegun Obasanjo, working through the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE) began the process of returning the media organization to private ownership.
The Daily Times PLC was advertised for sale in 2003 and we (Folio Communications Ltd) were eventually approved the preferred bidder. Daily Times was by then already destroyed as I have noted. We took it over nonetheless because it had the brand presence and other forms of legacy worth reworking. We’ve really been working. We’ve cleaned up the system and Daily Times is a brand new place.
Would you say you have progressed successfully enough since you effectively took it over in 2004?
We won’t say we have come as well as we would have wished. We’ve attained 75 per cent success. There was sabotage. So many people were fighting over it and we faced those legal issues I alluded to. So many people were targeting Daily Times and we had to deal with that. The idea now is to bring this once all-pervading Daily Times back into its far famed national and continental consciousness and that’s why we are doing a very elaborate 91st anniversary by which we are recognizing our founding fathers and other personalities with contribution to media and national development.
We are celebrating the likes of the late Adeyemo Alakija, Ernest Ikoli, and Babatunde Jose. (Babatunde Jose rose from being a technical training recruit in 1941 to become a reporter, to regional correspondent, to assistant editor and to editor by 1957, and then managing director in 1962 and chairman in 1968). Some of the other celebrated Daily Times media professionals have been Dr Patrick Dele Cole (a former managing director), Chief Segun Osoba (a former editor and then MD), Uncle Sam Amuka (a former editor), Mr Peter Enahoro (a former editor), Dr Yemi Ogunyemi (a former MD), late Innocent Oparadike (a former group MD), Onyema Ugochukwu (a former editor in chief ), Mr Tony Momoh (a former editor and then general manager), and late Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo (a former MD).
Over the decades, these people contributed into forming various titles and institutions that made the group tick. Are you returning any soon?
By next year we are rebuilding the Times Journalism Institute. We can’t complete the rebuilding of the Daily Times without the journalism institute. We’ll be using it to train journalists and retaining the best of them to write the newspaper. Among the titles we’re considering quite earnestly are the Business Times, Sunday Times and the Lagos Weekend.
The already features as specialized pages in the daily edition…
Yes. We run it now in the inside pages of the flagship Daily Times but we intend it to come out as a stand-alone publication soon.
As part of activities marking your 91st anniversary, you addressed a press conference Tuesday May 9, mentioning an exhibition and then a heroes’ award for May 16. Briefly, what are the highlights of the twin events?
The June 16 package of the 91st anniversary will begin with a national exhibition, ‘Nigeria through the Times.’ The Exhibition will bring to memory the struggles of our founding fathers who laboured for Nigeria’s greatness as documented by the Daily Times and retained in our very rich archive.
The exhibition shall showcase the history of Nigeria from the colonisation era and the rise of Nigeria’s nationalism. It will include pictorial exhibitions of historic constitutional conferences and the emergence of political parties. It will also feature the Nigerian independent pictures, the Daily Times first publication of June 1, 1926, the Daily Times Independent edition of Oct. 1, 1960 and some editorials of the Daily Times. The second of the twin events of that day will be the Times Heroes Award 2017, instituted to honour Nigerians who had distinguished themselves in various endeavours in ways canvassed by the Daily Times.
Those to be honoured are President Muhammadu Buhari, to be given the Nnamdi Azikiwe Leadership Award, President Nana Akufo-Ado of Ghana who will receive the Babatunde Jose Leadership Award. The immediate past President, Goodluck Jonathan, will receive the Ernest Ikoli Leadership Award, and the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki will have The Politician of the Decade Award.
Eight serving governors, Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia, Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos, BindoJubrilla of Adamawa State, Nyesome Wike of Rivers, Willie Obiano of Anambra, Ibrahim Dankwabo of Gombe and Yahaya Bello of Kogi will be honoured. Also to be specially recognized will be media icons like Nduka Obaigbena, John Momoh, Linda Ikeji, and Chris Ubosi.