A SIMPLE birthday celebration of one of the organic “Daily Times” icons who arrived on the 7th floor this week, Mr. Ndubuisi James Ugbede and the Minister of Information Alhaji Idris Mohammed Malagi’s remark in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, where he is attending the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show 2025, provoked a revisit of two old commentaries on this column in 2018 and 2023.
On Thursday this week, (April 10, 2025) at the Lagos Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Iyalla Street, Alausa Ikeja, a remarkable colleague Mr Lekan Otufodunrin and I were guest speakers at a symposium organised in honour of a former Director of Times Journalism Institute (TJI) under the aegis of their Times Journalism Institute’s Alumni Association (TJAA) now headed by Mr Clifford Agugoesi. In a preface to my discussion I had recalled some touchy but significant issues about the iconic “Daily Times” as a strategic national asset and indeed a paradise we lost to curious privatisation of public institutions and agencies that the IBB regime initiated and the Obasanjo civilian administration controversially concluded. Some excerpts from my opening remarks:
‘…I decided to honour the invitation because ‘Journalism’, the World Bank Institute describes as “the best profession in the world” is involved. I am always anxious any time the organic “Daily Times” Group is mentioned. I always remember that monument as one of Nigeria’s national security assets that the ‘militricians’ and politicians destroyed, which has actually diminished the stature of journalism in the most populous black nation on earth. I didn’t mean to haul any missile in the direction of those who curiously sold “Daily Times” anyhow during the Obasanjo administration (1999-2007).
I mean that if the legacy of the iconic Adeyemo Alakija who bought it over from Cecil Kings had not been destroyed by that ill-fated decision to sell the company to those who have reduced it to an online newspaper, even the digital library as a resource alone would have been a money spinner, a veritable stream of income at this time when all the institutions of higher learning and indeed the nation still don’t have any reliable library for institutional memories.
I hope most of us here are aware that even the National Library in Abuja hasn’t been completed about 50 years after Murtala Muhammed proclaimed Abuja as Nigeria’s capital. The capital of the federation will be fifty years old in February 2006 (1976-2006). The library project is still conspicuously neglected near the beautiful National Mosque, overlooking the equally exquisite National Christian Centre. Doubtless, the country would have had recourse to the “Daily Times” Library as our own Congressional Library still generally regarded as the most reliable library in global context.
It is one of the critical national assets that have enhanced the powers and the glory of the United States Congress. There is virtually nothing on earth you can’t research at the remarkable Library of Congress. They make a lot of money daily from researchers. That is where you can still get all the copies of the authentic “Daily Times” publications when there was a country…’
It isn’t my pleasure to invoke sad memories of “Daily Times” one of the most influential and indeed most profitable newspapers in the world then. I am quite wary of calling the DTN, a defunct newspaper. I know the consequences in today’s Nigeria where the court (of law) is no longer regarded as ‘the last hope of the common man’. ‘Do not say I told you’ as a corner gossip piece indicated in those days of the best-selling “Lagos Weekend”. Most of the ‘old soldiers’ in the print media, indeed members of the TJAA are aware of the time even the “The New York Times” visited the “Daily Times of Nigeria” for research and orientation. The historic visit is still in NYT’s library.
My dear “Daily Times” veterans, this isn’t intended to be a day to read from a piece on the day “Common Sense” died in Africa’s most populous country. I mean this is not a day to read from the book of lamentation on “Daily Times” but a day to celebrate with one of the blessed ‘survivors’ of the organic “Daily Times”, Mr. Ndubuisi Ugbede who just clocked 70. Comrade Ugbede,congratulations on your birthday. It isn’t easy to reach that milestone in this “country of anything is possible” as a former army chief once described our blessed country…It is the Lord’s doing as it is written and so it is marvelous in our eyes. May the good Lord who has blessed you to reach the 7th Floor continue to keep you strong and healthy in His pavilion…!
In a related and relevant development, a report from Las Vegas early in the week indicated that the Federal Government ”Begins Technical Upgrade for Media Organisations, Says Information Minister”. According to the report filed by the ministry from Nevada, “The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, has stated that the Federal Government has begun investing in cutting-edge technologies and acquiring state-of-the-art equipment for federal media organisations to ensure effective service delivery. Idris made this statement in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States during discussions with leading broadcast and information companies at the ongoing National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show 2025”.
The Minister was quoted as saying that such investments would lead to the upgrade and replacement of obsolete infrastructure across radio and television stations owned by the Federal Government. To actualise this, he said, his ministry “is forging partnerships with broadcast equipment manufacturers to avail local broadcasters the opportunity to benefit from emerging technologies and industry-specific training”.
The Nigeria’s delegation led by Idris malagi consisted senior officials, including Salihu Abdulhamid Dembos (Director-General/CEO Nigeria Television Authority), Ali Muhammed Ali (Managing Director/CEO of News Agency of Nigeria), Charles Ebuebu (Director-General/CEO of National Broadcasting Commission), Dr. Lekan Fadolapo (Director-General, Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria), and Jibrin Baba Ndace (Director-General/CEO, Voice of Nigeria). The NAB Show, running from April 5 to 9, 2025, with the theme “The Technology, The Trend, The Future,” provides valuable insights into industry trends, covering topics such as Artificial Intelligence, cloud visualisation, the creator economy, and sports production and streaming.
This is therefore a time to remind the powerful delegation in Las Vegas that the mission the minister has pledged in Nevada is a strategic one but he should not fall into the danger of assumption that investment in digital equipment alone can transform the Nigeria’s public information management system.
It is a fact that the public information management infrastructure has been quite weak and so the superstructure hasn’t been reliable enough to serve the public good expected from them in 21st century where the information ecosystem doesn’t support a ministry of information to drive efficiency of public information in the age of the giants of digital journalism and communications.
Although I once suggested here in 2023 that even the federal information ministry should be scrapped to give room for restoration of Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS), this piece isn’t about the quality of the Information Minister and his team. Doubtless, Mallam Idris, a media entrepreneur before joining the federal cabinet, has been generally regarded as one of the most resourceful information ministers since 1999. He doesn’t scream to respond to publications and telecasts that the government doesn’t like. He likes to engage media organisations quietly in resolving even conflicts and controversies.
That is also why we can also suggest a few things to him at this time to look beyond equipment of the public broadcasters he calls “federal government-owned organisations”. They are not federal government-owned, after all. They are public broadcasters that should serve public interest just as the BBC and SABC, Africa, which only the parliaments can ‘regulate’.
As I had noted in 2018 and 2023, again, I would like to suggest restructuring of one of Nigeria’s most significant institutions that successive governments have been competing to ruin: the public broadcasters known as the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) and Voice of Nigeria (VON).
My interest in these public broadcasters as they should be called, was renewed then (2018) through two related issues involving two Nigerian significant female journalists, Ms Kadaria Ahmed formerly of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Ms Toyosi Ogunseye former Sunday Punch Editor who then joined the same BBC, a very successful public broadcaster. The first was Kadaria’s when she marked her 50th birthday in December 2017 with a colloquium on the state of the media and a book presentation in Lagos. Read the details of the Kadaria story through the links below: https://guardian.ng/sunday-magazine/a-time-to-restructure-nta-frcn-and-von/
The two striking stories of Kadaria, Toyosi and the BBC had then set me thinking about the expediency of discussing the rise and fall of institutions in Nigeria. Which was why I am was persuaded then that instead of reading regularly from the book of lamentation on how the military juntas in Nigeria tactlessly seized the then Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service (WNBS) and changed it to NTA now in focus, we should think of how to rebrand the public broadcasters (NTA, FRCN and VON) now from the ruinous clutch of the federal government. There has been no credit to give to any government since the takeover: no government has added value to the NTA, FRCN and VON. We only pretend that all is well.
And here is the thing, why is it that Toyosi could join the BBC, a public broadcaster instead of a Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS)? How is it that the only reference point is that the FRCN and NTA too made John and Sola Momoh, for instance? And sadly, why can’t Channels television get some values from the FRCN and the NTA that trained its owners some years ago?
The same sad commentary can be extended to the Daily Times and the New Nigerian, among other once prosperous state-owned newspapers such as Daily Sketch, Herald, The Observer, Chronicles, The Tide, The Triumph, The Standard, The Voice, etc, the Nigerian system has destroyed too.
The point really is that all these once fruitful newspapers that have been killed by the Nigerian leaders once made the Dele Giwas, the Doyin Abiolas, the Segun Osobas, the Nduka Obaigbenas, the Doyin Mahmuds, the Ray Ekpus, the Yakubu Mohammeds, the Dan Agbeses, the Garba Shehus of this world. Most Nigerian elders would remember this recent aspect of our history.
In other words, I used to think that the idea of prosperous state-owned newspapers was an idea whose time was long gone until I travelled to Liberia the other day and stopped over in Ghana where I got a copy of the state-owned newspaper the Daily Graphic. As a newspaperman, I didn’t need to ask any question about the quality of the content and production. The newspaper is generally regarded as the most influential and the most commercially successful newspaper in Ghana today.
But note this paradox of history: the well produced daily newspaper in Ghana has some striking similarity in history with our own Daily Times that the military regime seized, ruined before a civilian government sold it in January 2004 to what now looks like an ‘undertaker’ of a national monument.
To be continued…
- Oloja is former editor of The Guardian newspaper and his column, Inside Stuff, runs on the back page of the newspaper on Sundays. The column appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Mondays.