Former State House Correspondent of Daily Times, Lawal Ogienagbon writes on the centenary celebration of the Daily Times and his experience working in the company.
IF Daily Times, as it was known, had really been around, the celebration of its 100th anniversary would have been a nationwide affair. The event would have shaken the country. It would have perhaps still been on, as I struggle to write this piece in fulfilment of a promise.
Daily Times turned 100 on June 1, having first hit the newsstand on that day in 1926. It was born with a bang; it turned 100 with a blip. It became a centenarian without doing so in a blaze of glory. A century as a newspaper is not a mean feat anywhere in the world. It calls for celebrations.
This, it seems, is not the case with Daily Times. The paper cannot celebrate because it is no longer what it used to be: the voice of the voiceless and the defender of the defenceless. In its heyday, Daily Times was a strong newspaper. It was also powerful. The legendary Babatunde Jose, who built the outfit into an empire, once noted that the editor of the newspaper was as powerful as the then Nigerian Prime Minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa.
Jose, who started as a technician in the lithography section and rose to editor, managing director/chairman, was not being hyperbolic. He was saying it as it is. Unfortunately, today at 100, the same cannot be said of Daily Times, which is blowing a muted trumpet at a time the world should join it in marking this milestone.
It is rare for newspapers to turn 100, at least in Nigeria. No newspaper has ever made the mark. It is a first for Daily Times, and it is worth celebrating by rolling out the drums. Its founders and pioneer workers, if they were alive, would have done everything to mark the milestone. That Daily Times is unsung at 100 breaks the heart. Many hearts ache today that Daily Times, the newspaper which led while others followed at the height of its apogee, turned 100 without fanfare.
By the time people of my own generation joined Daily Times between the late 1980s and early 1990s, its fame was still intact. It was the newspaper to beat in an industry where newspapers, as the novelist, James Hardley Chase, would put it, ‘come easy, go easy’. Despite the vicissitudes of life, Daily Times survived as a long-distance runner, at least for a time, to enable it to mark its 80th anniversary in 2006, even though it was obvious it was going under. Daily Times’ privatisation in 2004 did it in.
When Daily Times was the paper by which other papers were called, it called the bluff of the governments of the day to remain an authoritative and independent newspaper as envisaged by its founding fathers, led by Sir Adeyemo Alakija.
Daily Times was founded to be assertive, nationalistic, non-partisan, fair, objective, and to uphold the truth. Some lines from its policy statement and vision in its maiden edition of June 1, 1926, are worth recalling: “The paper will be conducted on lines that have never been attempted before in this country; and representing as it does informed opinion, it will be a landmark in the history of Nigeria… Like our great contemporary, the London Times, the Nigerian Daily Times is a national newspaper and will be attached to no particular creed or party… The bigger problems which affect Nigeria as a whole will be our immediate concern, and these will provide for a long time to come enough outlet for our energies”.
Indeed, for a long time, Daily Times lived up to the ethos of its founding fathers. It was not only a workplace, but it also became an institution where knowledge was imparted. As a worker, all you needed to do was open your eyes and mind to learn. There were experienced hands in every department ready to guide a willing learner. When my set joined the Daily Times, things were still rosy for the organisation.
Its titles were many and under the same roof at the expansive plant at Agidingbi, Ikeja. The flagship publication was, of course, Daily Times, followed by Sunday Times. Others were TimesWeek (the weekly magazine formerly known as Times International), West Africa (a sub-regional magazine published in London), Headlines (a publication of past landmark political and socio-economic events), Business Times, Evening Times, Times Home Studies. Besides, Daily Times ventured into other line of business in order to sustain these publications.
It was fun and rewarding working for Daily Times then. For instance, as a reporter with Daily Times, you got paid for writing for any of the other titles. This was the Daily Times I grew in after joining in 1991/92. I came in as a judiciary reporter, having covered the courts for The Punch, which I left for Daily Times. In no time, I was moved to other beats.
I was in Akure as Ondo State correspondent. Despite not being on the politics desk, I was tapped to cover the NRC presidential campaign tour across the country in 1993. I was also National Assembly Reporter, Abuja; State House Correspondent, Dodan Barracks and Abuja (during the Abacha regime). I also covered the lying-in-state of former ceremonial president Nnamdi Azikiwe at the old Parliament Building in Lagos before the body was conveyed to Onitsha in Anambra State for burial.
It was not all work and no play. There was always time to relax and enjoy. As reporters, we did that very well across the road opposite the Daily Times office at Agidingbi. The ‘briefing’, as we called those sessions, often lasted late into the night. At 100, it would be fun to gather for ‘briefing’ again to celebrate Daily Times. If the ‘boys’ (we know ourselves) get to read this, we can still make it happen, coming from across the globe to toast to a century of our alma mater at a place and time agreed upon by us. Hail, the ‘ageless’ Times!
