The New, Revived Daily Times is Going to be News From the Eyes of History Image Identity
Fedelis Anosike, the Chief Executive of the Daily Times Group, is a stoic investor, who, as the saying goes, has gone through the school of hard knocks. There are a lot of things that did not cross his mind when he decided to buy the beloved ailing Daily
What milestone is worth celebrating since you took over the famed Daily Times of Nigeria?
Next month, June 1st to be precise, it would be 91 years when Daily Times was founded by Sir Demola Alakija and a group of other people. For us, 91 is a critical milestone because it is a countdown to our centenary which will be in nine years’ time. So, I think it is time for us to show the refreshed, the rebranded and the restructured spirit of Daily Times which is very resurgent over the years, and that is basically what we are trying to do. This is the first of the new Daily Times awards, drawing power from the legacies of Daily Times which is a heritage institution in Nigeria not just the media.
So what should we expect?
For us, on that day, between 3p.m and 6p.m, we will be mounting an exhibition at the International Conference Centre because it is a national event so we needed a national venue that is unifying. We are going to have an exhibition titled, ‘Nigeria through the Times.’ How Daily Times has captured Nigeria, if you can remember the stories of the civil war, the likes of those editorials that Daily Times had, the Sunday Times of Jose Ajiboye and co. So, you begin to see what Nigeria used to be; the decisions of the founding fathers through the sands of time. That is what we are going to do first and the plan is to get students from Law School, secondary schools, primary schools to come and appreciate our efforts because this is a very topical issue for us, which is history. In Nigerian schools today, Nigeria’s history isn’t mandatory, but then, go to private schools, public schools, they are teaching history of Mali, Spain, UK and so on but the history of Nigeria is on the back burner. So, out of nothing comes nothing. If we don’t know where we are coming from, we will not know where we are going. For us, the new, revived Daily Times will create a niche on history education and so the content for us is not just going to be news, news, news, it is going to be news from the eyes of history and then match it with education. You have history to educate and build a better nation for tomorrow.
There is this concern about proliferation of media awards, what are the criteria for giving the Daily Times awards?
Let me tell you there is nothing like proliferation of awards; it is for 180 million people and, I think at times, as Nigerians, we think in a very minute way and this is because we have lost confidence in ourselves. We have divisions, we have vested interests, so if you see this person winning an award, the next thing people would say is ‘why is it this person’. Daily Times has its own criteria, ethos, own focus and vision, so when you are giving an award, it ought to be built around what Daily Times represents. It is not a national award, it isn’t a merit award. We are going to have an award from the prism of Daily Times. So, people can ask questions to know what our criteria for the award are, because when you ask those questions it makes you appreciate those we have given the award to. It is not everyone in the media that lies to you, no! Daily Times is a reputable organisation over the past 91 years. We have a legacy, we have founding fathers. I am not the founder of Daily Times, I am just a custodian today. Someone was a custodian 10 years, 20 years ago, so it is a continuous process. So, when we are giving an award, what we do is to follow the ethos of the founding fathers. The last time Daily Times gave an award was 20 years ago. There is nothing like proliferation of awards. We are using this opportunity to create an award system that aligns with the ethos of Daily Times so it is not a political award. That is why you have a governance award; that is why you have a man of the decade and woman of the decade awards. We are trying to look at what these people have done. Award is an inspiration, it is not an exam. If someone gets to be a governor, that’s story already and it is inspiring. If you say someone isn’t paying salaries today, that don’t mean that he isn’t working. It doesn’t mean it is a yardstick for validation because you don’t understand what the person is trying to do but it is right for you to ask questions because that is what the media is all about. People must interrogate anything you do. Now interrogation for me is very critical and interrogation for us at Daily Times shows interest. If it is not Daily Times and you give x, y, z award and people complain, who cares? So, each time I see people question anybody, any media company that is giving awards, it makes me happy because that means that the media is being taken seriously. When THISDAY was doing awards, you can recall how many people were inspired. If you track those things and know the real impact of what THISDAY has done in Nigeria today, you will be amazed that that is why Nduka Obaigbena is getting lifetime performance award. So, you can never have proliferation of awards. We are 180 million people, all the media companies put together, how many awards do they give in one year?
Daily Times can be considered as a leader in its own right, but looking back, can you say that the new management has been doing something to bring it back to expectations?
We have done a fantastic job; we have done very solid work in Daily Times. When you take over an old house for instance, what do you do? You do what they call thorough position assessment to redesign the house to suit the modern means and remember, when you take over a company such as this (we took over this company 12 years ago) you are taking over a legacy enterprise and when you take over a legacy enterprise what you do is you dimension that legacy enterprise to the modern-day environment which is what we call contest. So, it is not only that you are waking up the company, you are also going to try to position it to compete in the new contest. Daily Times was number one before, it used to print 350,000 copies a day, we used 72 reels of newsprint a day and Sunday times was 500,000 but at that time guess what! How many Nigerians were there? There were no diverseness of technology, the literacy level wasn’t as it is today, purchasing power parity wasn’t that strong but today it is a different environment; the media means so many things. News is free so what we build on now is content so you have to dimension this company and understand what you have purchased and then put it as against what you want to build to be able to have the sustainability factor that can create value for the shareholders, the staff and the country because when shareholders invest their money, they have to pay the staff and the staff produce value for the customers and the customers pay for the products and the company makes money and pays its taxes. So, it is a 360 degrees circle, it doesn’t happen in one day so the major thing is to understand what you need to do and understand the competence and the resources to be able to do it. So, it is not a flash to the past where you think Daily Times was number one. What is number one, what doesn’t number one mean? Number one in circulation or number one in return on investment or number one in turnover or so on and so forth. But the most important thing is that we as business people know that no businessman goes into a business not to make money. No business can survive without being run effectively, no business can survive without paying salaries; none! But you have to rebuild the business and give it the right foundations for it to compete and for it to compete, you need the people and when you have the people you need the processes and the system. So business is a science but it takes time, that is why we are still here 12 years after and it isn’t something you do in a second. So we have done what we were supposed to do and we are doing the