It’s 30 years of revolution [OPINION]

By Simon Kolawole

Mr ‘Folabi Lawal, of blessed memory, told me this fascinating story sometime in 1998. He was the THISDAY bureau chief in Abuja, officially designated as deputy editor, nation’s capital. Mr Nduka Obaigbena, the chairman and editor-in-chief, had asked Lawal to send a document to him in Lagos “by the next available flight”. But when Lawal got to the airport, the last flight had left. Unlike now, flights were few and none operated beyond 5pm or so because of a lack of capacity to manage late flights at the local airports. Distraught because he knew how important it was to get the parcel across, Lawal returned to the office and gave the chairman a call to deliver the not-so-pleasant news.

‘Chairman, I tried my best but there was no flight,’ he said, subdued.

‘You mean there was no flight at all?’ Obaigbena asked him, clearly disappointed.

‘None, chairman,’ Lawal replied.

‘Not even a presidential jet?’ Obaigbena replied, apparently without batting an eyelid.

Lawal laughed. Presidential jet was not an option anybody who loved himself would consider. Nigeria was under the iron grip of Gen Sani Abacha, as citizens — including journalists — were being arrested, detained, disappeared, or simply assassinated over mere suspicion of being sympathetic to the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), which was at the forefront of the opposition to his military regime. Bombs were going off and NADECO was being held responsible. How would some journalist approach the pilot of the presidential jet and hand over a parcel to him to deliver to Lagos at the height (and in the heat) of the Abacha dictatorship? It was unthinkable. It was impossible.

But that is how to get the best out of Obaigbena. Tell him something is impossible and you are challenging him to prove that impossible is nothing. Otherwise, he would not have started THISDAY in 1995. It was unprecedented that anyone would start a newspaper in Nigeria without first investing in a mammoth printing press. That was the first law. And that was the most expensive capex item which discouraged many would-be publishers from pursuing their passion. You needed a sugar daddy to start a newspaper. THISDAY successfully entered the newspaper industry without owning a printing press and soon enough, many daily publications started coming on stream. It was possible.

When THISDAY was about to roll out in 1995, I was working with the TEMPO/TheNews group. Mr Eniola Bello was the deputy editor of PM News, an evening newspaper published by the group. He reported for work one day and told us that Obaigbena — reputed for publishing the defunct THISWEEK, Nigeria’s first all-colour, all-gloss weekly newsmagazine — was about to start a newspaper and that he had decided to join the pioneer team. It was greeted with scepticism: some of his colleagues doubted it would be a success. Bello, who would become THISDAY MD in 2005, never looked back. And when THISDAY started coming out, initially at weekend, it was an instant hit.

Abacha, in one of his moments, had shut down The Guardian, Concord and Punch in 1994. In those days, journalists didn’t need to commit any serious offence to be hammered by the military junta. The military guys were so, so power drunk. They were walking on our heads as they liked. Not only was The Guardian shut down but its head office was also bombed. And as if that was not awful enough, the late Mr Alex Ibru, its publisher, was shot in broad daylight at Falomo, Lagos, by Abacha’s killer squad in 1996. He narrowly escaped death but lost an eye. Abacha had dropped Ibru from his cabinet in 1995, apparently because he failed to turn his newspaper into a mouthpiece for the junta.

When the major newspapers were shut down, THISDAY and a couple of others came in to fill the gap but were not expected to survive the re-opening of the established newspapers. That is not the kind of thing you tell Obaigbena. You are only challenging him. In fact, you are provoking him. By the time the newspapers were re-opened, THISDAY had carved its own share of the market in such a manner that if it was not your first choice, then it would be your second. It did not set out to be the newspaper to be read by every Danladi, Emeka and Babatunde. It set out to be the unputdownable newspaper among the rich and the powerful in business, politics and the diplomatic community.

Whereas you might not see THISDAY in Kabba or Kaura Namoda, you would see it in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt — the power houses of Nigeria. You might not see THISDAY in Kainji, you would see it in Kakawa, Lagos, which serviced the biggest corporate offices in Nigeria. The strategy was very clear. It became the newspaper that leaders in business and politics wanted to clutch, the newspaper that befitted their status. It was the newspaper every office worth its salt wanted to buy for its executives, the newspaper they desired to advertise in, the newspaper in which they wanted their stories and photos featured. Those who said THISDAY would soon die ate their words. Impossible is nothing.

How did THISDAY do it? I did not join the newspaper until August 1997. But from the outside, there were many things I liked about it. One, it served readers the best stories in business and politics. The stories were well-sourced and authentic. I would never forget how it broke the news of the death of Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, foremost nationalist, at a time nobody was ready to touch it. He had been falsely reported dead in 1989 in one horrible moment that left the Nigerian media with egg on the face. Although THISDAY did its home work before reporting the Great Zik’s death in 1996, it was not an easy decision. But that authenticity perhaps finally accentuated THISDAY’s authoritativeness.

Two, THISDAY treated breaking news stories with such flair and speed like no other newspaper did. It usually devoted the first two pages to what it called “Behind the News”, exploring various details and angles in bits and pieces. Moreso, the weekend editions of THISDAY were so well packaged that the weekly newsmagazines coming out on Mondays were left with mostly crumbs. There are those who believe that THISDAY did things so well that it effectively killed the weekly newsmagazines which specialised in in-depth treatment of news. I have to say here that no study established a causal link between THISDAY’s robustness and the demise of newsmagazines. It is just an educated assumption.

Three, Nigerian newspapers used to dedicate their back pages to sports, general news and cartoons. THISDAY broke the tradition by doing daily analysis, with business taking the space on Mondays and politics dominating the other days. The analyses were accompanied by Business Notes and Political Notes, which gave short and sharp takes on developments in those sectors. Over time, the back page transformed to a space for regular columnists. THISDAY back page became the page of choice for many readers and it started churching out a new class of columnists. The variety across political, ethnic and ideological lines was something that marked THISDAY out and so it has remained till now.

Four, THISDAY reported business like no other newspaper did, and this uniqueness might have raised the bar too high for business-only publications. The newspaper had a partnership with the Financial Times of London and ran the Management Series, which was as good as attending a business school. This was a must-not-miss for many in the business community. The newspaper also pioneered reporting the daily transactions on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (now the Nigerian Exchange Group, NGX) with the table of the share prices of all quoted companies, not just the top gainers and losers as was the easy thing to do then. It was a logistical nightmare but, remember, impossible is nothing.

Five, THISDAY established its foothold on the media landscape by going colour. Let me clarify here that it did not pioneer colour newspapering in Nigeria — that distinction goes to Sunray of Port Harcourt. However, THISDAY was the first to publish colour on a daily basis. Newspaper managers who sniggered at it and said THISDAY would soon die later jumped on the bandwagon. The first colour pull-out, I think, was a THISDAYStyle publication on Princess Diana’s funeral in August 1997, edited by Jamin Ohwovoriole. That was also the month Mr Eziuche Ubani recruited me for THISDAY and, along with my late pal Emeka Enechi, we started the all-colour pull-out, SportsXtra, on Sundays.

There are several things that have marked THISDAY out in the last three decades which I cannot write within this space. For instance, Nigerians used to read different versions of a Lagos/Ibadan-based newspaper same day. The first edition with stale news was for far-flung places. The second edition with fresh news was for the south-west and Abuja. THISDAY broke the jinx in 2000 with simultaneous printing in Lagos and Abuja. There was a price to pay, though: THISDAY often arrived late on the newsstands, so much so that frustrated vendors branded it as an evening newspaper. Nevertheless, every newspaper worth its salt started producing a single edition nationwide with fresh stories.

Sure, not everybody has the same feelings about THISDAY. That is the way life goes. For me, I have only fond memories. I left the newspaper in 2012 after two spells, during which I was appointed features editor at the age of 25, Saturday editor at 29 and editor of the daily newspaper at 34. Credit to Obaigbena for birthing his vision and sustaining it with constant innovation. Credit to all the members of staff — past and present, dead and alive — who tilled the land and toiled day and night to help build the THISDAY brand. Credit to those who have supported the business over the years. At 30, THISDAY deserves its flowers for revolutionising newspapering in Nigeria. Impossible is nothing.