By Tunji Adegboyega
QUOTE: There is hardly a newspaper in the country that you get to today that you would not find journalists groomed at The Punch calling the shots. How then can such an important ‘mill’ clock 50 unsung?
Whether or not Punch Nigeria Ltd. rolls out the drums to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Punch, the least some of us who have had cause to pass through the place can do is put some of our thoughts, experiences and lessons out there to the public. Punch rolled out its maiden edition on Sunday March 18, 1973. Journalism students need to know the History of the Media in Nigeria and The Punch is an indispensable part of that history. There is hardly a newspaper in the country that you get to today that you would not find journalists groomed at The Punch calling the shots. How then can such an important ‘mill’ clock 50 unsung?
I have said it several times, and I will continue to say it; that, for me, working in The Punch was a great privilege. A dream come true, if you ask me. Since my days in the secondary school, I had always wanted to be a journalist. I remember how some of my colleagues at the Federal School of Arts and Science, Ondo in Ondo State kept wondering what manner of person I was when I filled my Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Direct Entry Form back then with Mass Communication (Mass Comm) as first and second choice. Meaning for me, there was no alternative. The in-thing then was to have such a keenly competitive course like Mass Comm as first choice and pick a less competitive one as second. So, it was really audacious for me to insist on Mass Comm or nothing. Mind you, in the early 80s when I secured admission into the Department of Mass Communication at the University of Lagos, you needed more points to enter the Mass Comm department than you required for Law in the same university.
I had my mind on two options after graduation: Newswatch Magazine or The Punch. Then, government-owned newspapers dominated the space and I never saw myself working in any government newspaper. Not even in my dream. So, you can imagine how elated I was when I got my letter of employment as a sub-editor in The Punch in September, 1985.
I am grateful to God almighty for the privilege of rising to edit the influential daily title, The Punch. This was despite being among the quadrumvirate that downed tools over salary delay which we figured out to be the product of corrupt practices at the time. Later events proved us right.
I also thank God for sparing my life to witness the company’s 50th anniversary. I am grateful to Alhaji Najeem Jimoh, Mr Dayo Adeyeye, features editor, Mr Balogun (Uncle Nat) the then editor of the daily title who insisted on merit, which gave me the opportunity of working in the company. Of course there were others that I worked with who also contributed in no small measure to my success in journalism today.
Here, I cannot forget Alhaji Y. Kareem, the chief sub editor, Mr Demola Osinubi, the immediate past managing director/editor-in-chief, a foundation member of the staff of the company who retired only last year. Of course, I cannot afford to forget Jide Kutelu, Ben Oyemade, the then head of the graphics section and several others who have since passed on. May their souls rest in peace.
The above paragraph was necessitated by two reasons. One, the need to stress the importance of merit as a critical factor that has given the paper the pride of place it has occupied for long in the history of newspapers in the country. Very few organisations, in and outside the media industry have this kind of discipline in the recruitment of their workers. Yet, they want to succeed. This is one of the major reasons Nigeria too has perpetually remained a potentially great nation since its creation. Putting square pegs in round holes.
Two, camaraderie among the workers. This is also important. Even in those days that the company did not have money, it was blessed with dedicated workers who were ready to go the extra mile to see the paper come out. Several times that one would have thought the paper would not be on the newsstands the next day due, for instance, to failure of public power supply and simultaneous collapse of the company’s generators, or liquidity problems, the workers’ never-say die attitude would make one of the power generators to roar back to life and it is only then that some of the workers, particularly the journalists who should have gone home since, would leave the premises. There was this inexplicable ‘shareholder’ (mind you, not mere stakeholder) commitment to the company’s cause despite the fact that salaries were then as erratic as they could be.
Please don’t get me wrong. It is not that the founding chairman, Chief James Olubunmi Aboderin and his team did not bequeath to the company enough power generators. The Punch had more than enough. As a matter of fact, we heard that one of them was removed from a ship and could serve the entire area of the company’s then location at Onipetesi area of Ikeja. Whenever I remember this aspect of the company’s life, I doff my heart to Chief Aboderin. He was a man with unimaginable foresight. At the time he acquired those generators, power supply was not as erratic as it was few years after his death. He saw into the future and tried to mitigate whatever could come between success and his pet project. The only impediment he could not conquer was death, that the legendary William Shakespeare said would come when it would come. Death finally came for him at a time the newspaper needed him most on February 28, 1984.
Those of us who did not know him personally were told how much he cared for his workers, particularly his editors. As a matter of fact, we learnt he had just placed orders for some Peugeot 504 vehicles for them from the then Peugeot Automobile of Nigeria (PAN), shortly before his death. That was significant in an era when journalists were not getting the best from their employers. It is still so till today in several media houses where underinvestment rules the waves.
“Looking at a king’s mouth”, wrote the legendary Chinua Achebe, “one would think he never sucked at his mother’s breast”. This proverb is true of The Punch newspaper. Seeing the paper’s opulence and greatness today, only those who are conversant with its history would know that the paper has indeed gone through a lot. Expectedly, a business that has survived a whole 50 years in our kind of environment, with its generally inconducive business climate — flip flops in government policies, unreliable power supply, and what have you — must have gone through a lot of vicissitudes.
Being a media house, particularly in the years of military interregnum, compounded its problems, especially with its pro-people editorial policy leading to its mass appeal among Nigerian ardent newspaper readers.
But The Punch story cannot be complete without mentioning the role of Chief Ajibola Ogunshola, an actuary-turned publisher, and my own equivalent of ‘an actualiser’. His elder brother, Chief James Olu Aboderin and his friend, Sam Amuka (then known as ‘Sad Sam’) might have founded The Punch, it was Ogunshola that God used to bring the paper back to life from the valley of the shadow of death that it was, especially after Olu Aboderin`s demise in 1984. It would be a disservice not to acknowledge the roles of Chief Moyo Aboderin who succeeded Olu Aboderin as chairman of the company’s board of directors. He was also able to keep the company alive until Ogunshola took over. Likewise a personality like the Late Dr Lekan Are, among others. But it was Ogunshola that brought the knife and other tools for the surgical operation that saw the once popular tabloid gone comatose, The Punch, back from the brink of death, to its enviable position today. Ogunshola was on the hot seat for about 25 years.
I am competent to tell at least a part of the Ogunshola success story at The Punch because I was secretary of The Punch Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) when he became chairman of the company’s board of directors. I later became chairman. So we had to relate one way or the other. One thing that must be conceded to him is the fact that he knew there was no alternative to his mission to revive the company. His name, his reputation were at stake and he put in everything to ensure the company did not sink. I have always said it, that in the process of sanitising a place that was dying as The Punch, some collateral damage would occur. People inevitably had to be sacked because the company was carrying more luggage than it could afford.
One of the things that keep ringing in my ears in the course of some meetings we had with Ogunshola was his statement that he wanted to make Punch one of the highest salary-paying newspapers in the country, if not the highest. This was at a time the company was owing backlog of salaries. It was like squeezing bread out of stone, a miracle of sorts.
If Ogunshola was able to achieve that, it was because he is not a typical Nigerian publisher. On assumption of office, he realised that the salary was poor and he left no stone unturned in his attempt to continually improve on it. Every imaginable opportunity was seized to raise salaries. Sometimes by incredibly high percentages. Indeed, salary review almost became a regular feature in the company.
That he was able to fulfill his promise on salaries is one of the reasons he has remained my idol. He is an unconventional financial expert who believes people must be well remunerated to enable them deliver. I remember one of the ways he improved productivity was by deliberately encouraging the company to attract good hands from some other media houses that the newspaper would otherwise not have dreamt of poaching because of paucity of funds. I remember protesting one such instance when my friends in the accounts department called my attention to the fact that someone newly recruited on the sub-desk was given a salary higher than mine. I guess that was at a time I was even the only person left on the sub-desk. I was then referred to as ‘one man riot squad’. I met Osinubi who was then either general manager/editor-in-chief or managing director/ editor-in-chief, who assured that it was only an interim measure primarily aimed at raising staff salaries generally and that things would normalise after the next board meeting. And that was what actually followed.
One can go on and on writing about the odyssey of The Punch, both from a personal and global perspectives. But this is not supposed to be a book on The Punch. The good news is that today, the family feud that almost tore the company apart has since been resolved. Moreover, contrary to fears that The Punch would die if Ogunshola stepped down as chairman, the paper has continued to wax strong. Wale Aboderin, Olu Aboderin’s eldest child took over from him and left his mark before the cold hands of death snatched him on May 30, 2018. Still, the paper has continued to progress under the chairmanship of his junior sister, Angela Emuwa.
One can go on and on but this is not intended to be a book on The Punch. It is just to felicitate with my ‘alma mater’ that has produced several other ‘alumni’ holding very important positions in virtually all newspapers of note in the country today. Happy 50th birthday to a company that has executed projects worth billions (The Punch Place, an ultra-modern printing press, etc.) without borrowing a dime from any bank. A company that banks may not like for this but still cannot afford to hate, especially if they have the privilege of having its money in their vaults.
