The rise and fall of Zamfara Weekly Legacy
The Weekly Legacy newspaper was established by the administration of former Governor Ahmad Sani Yarima to provide jobs for the teeming unemployed youths of Zamfara State. In addition to publicising government programmes and activities, the media outfit was also expected to make printing works easy for the people.
Unfortunately, the company, which employed over 115 members of staff, is now a shadow of its former self. It stopped operations in 2013. Findings by Daily Trust on Sunday revealed that one its major setbacks is funding.
A source who is familiar with the situation said, “Funding from the government stopped. You know that the operations of a newspaper revolve around adequate funding, so when this stopped, everything ceased to operate.
“Another issue is outdated machines. The printing machines in the company are somewhat outfashioned. However, a digitised printing machine capable of producing up to 30,000 copies in an hour was installed long ago, but it has not been working. There is also a dearth of manpower that can operate this machine.
“Between 3,000 and 5,000 copies of newspapers were produced weekly. The organisation focused mainly on local stories but with very good contents. Their stories were so credible that reporters of bigger print media organisations relied on them.”
This media organisation, which had reporters across the NorthWest, parts of the North-East and North Central, had a good coverage of the entire North. There are about 30 staff in the editorial department.
Another challenge the organisation is facing, our correspondent learnt, is incompetence among its staff, especially those in the editorial department. An insider told our correspondent that most members of staff in the editorial department lacked the basic journalism skills. And this is a major issue of concern for management.
Our source continued, “The editorial department is the soul of any newspaper organisation; hence it must be taken seriously. Members of staff in that department must be competent enough to do the job so that people would want to read the paper. If there is poor content in the paper, then readers won’t bother to buy copies, and this will seriously affect its the image.
“Most members of staff in the department were employed based on political and filial considerations while competence was overlooked. If a newspaper company does not have good reporters and other writers, what do you think would happen?
“Let me go back to the issue of good printing machines. It is a very important aspect of newspaper production. Good machines will make your production easier. If a machine develops technical hitches when printing is in progress, the whole production will be stalled or delayed.
“Also, if the organisation lacks qualified manpower to manage or handle such situations, it would be a source of great concern to the stakeholders. Therefore, qualified manpower is another very important issue in newspaper production.’’
A staff member of the company who didn’t want his name mentioned, advised management to consider training and retraining its staff in order to build capacity and improve performance.
“They are always talking about competence; but how many times did they send staff on capacity building workshops? Whenever such opportunities arose, those at the management cadre would be the ones to go, and they are not the only ones doing the job,’’ he said.
A reporter said one of the major problems of the organisation was indifference to staff welfare, which he said impacted negatively on their output and the general wellbeing of the company.
However, the state Commissioner for Information Alhaji Umar Jibo Bukkyum, said plans were underway to reopen the ailing organisation. He said the plan for its revival had been captured in the 2017 budget appropriation.
“When I came on board, the company was closed. But I cannot tell you some of the reasons for its closure. I know that funding is one of our major issues of interest. Whenever we get funds, the newspaper will bounce back,” he said.
Asked about the issue of insignificant revenue generation, which is said to be one of the reasons for lack of government’s commitment to the survival of the company, Bukkyum said the little revenue generated by the newspaper was remitted to government’s coffers.
“The generated revenue was remitted to government treasury. Remember that the revenue is not large and not even enough for the upkeep of the company,’’ he added.
He further said the company’s scope of work would be broadened to include commercial printing works, adding that this would go a long way in boosting its revenue generation. He, however, ruled out the possibility of acquiring new machines, saying that for the meantime, they would maintain what the company has.