Newspaper Ruffles Feathers in Kwara State
It ranks highg amongg the hottest titles on the newsstands across the Kwara state capital.p With alluring g penchance for exclusive stories, National Pilot newspaperpp with headquartersq in Ilorin, the state capital ruffles feathers at will, especiallypy
With the addition to rich editorial ppackageg of the newspaper,pp that makes it a fififirst choice of most members of the Kwara state ppopulacep ,includingg toppggovernment functionaries and teemingg members of the ppublic in the State of Harmonyy called, Kwara, National Pilot Newspaper began its climb to pprominence about fififive yyears ago,g yyet this regionalg pppaper had been in circulation for about a decade and half. As the title indicated, the vision behind its set-upp then was to reportp the nation as most newspaperspp in this ppart of the world ppreferred to do. The motive, however was ppurelyyppolitical. The succession ggubernatoorial battle of 2003 in Kwara created the need for alternative pplatform for opposingppg views and opinions,p ggiven the blatant partisanship of state owned Media.
National Pilot stepped in to meet this need and instantly became popular. It’s circulation spread across South West and North- central states including Lagos and Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. Post 2003 election period however saw the paper taking a downward slide.
For about a decade, the paper tottered, losing readership and relevance until a new helmsman was brought in to restore its bounce and vitality.
In repositioning National Pilot, the new kid on the block, the new Managing Director/ Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper, Alhaji Billy Adedamola took over the mantle of leadership in the year 2007 and changed the focus of the paper from national to regional.
Adedamola, a veteran journalist who had made its distinct in the journalism profession decided that for the paper to make the desired impact it has to move away from the national traffifific which has already become congested, and explore the less traveled roads of community, metropolitan and regional reporting.
According to him, , “the propensity for national focus by most Nigeria newspapers has left the communities and most of the states grossly under reported”.
“I believe every city or town should have it’s own publication to cater for the information needs of the hosting community as obtained in developed and most of the developing countries,” he said. With the repositioning, Adedamola has successfully restored National Pilot’s lost glory.
Today, the paper is widely accepted as far as this part of the world is concerned and one of the most popular newspapers doing very well.
In a chat with our correspondent, the MD/ Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper, Alhaji Adedamola identififified some of the challenges the paper has had to surmount.
Said he , “Although, there is no business enterprise without its own challenges, the fififirst challenge that confronted National Pilot and almost brought it down to it’s knees was when it suffered bomb attack in the year 2002 ,few months after it was set up. A panel of inquiry was set up to probe the bomb attack, but not unexpectedly nothing came out of the probe.”
According to him, “With the repositioning of the paper and the single minded pursuit of truth in line with the motto of the paper which seeks truth and justice, we have faced lots of issues”.
He said, “The environment we operate in Kwara is more or less a conservative one and there is no way you want to pursue truth in this part of the world that you will not step on toes.
“We have stepped on a lot of toes because most of people are not comfortable with what we are doing and they are those that have the power of patronage in terms of advert. Some have tried to stiflflfle us with needed funds in this regard by refusing us adverts. We have had instances where we were threatened, intimidated and encountered lot of hostilities.
“We are not pointing any fififinger at any direction, but it’s been there. It is the same in every society both in Nigeria and the rest of Africa which says a lot about our level of development. Some have even tried to intimidate us through court actions and many other means”.
Adedamola stressed that, “But we have remained undaunted because we know a newspaper is held in public trust. The good thing about all these it is that our reading public appreciates what we are doing and they have stood solidly behind us.
“We have received a lot of awards of recognition from newspaper distribution association, state correspondents chapel, student unions and other numerous organization attesting to the fact that it’s the people’s paper”..
He added that, “It is the number one grassroots paper around here today. No paper reports Kwara like National pilot. “When we took over in 2012, we tried to resuscitate our presence in places like Ekiti, Osun and the north central states of Kogi, Plateau and the likes. When the present governor of Benue state, Samuel Ortom was gunning for the offififice during the 2015 election, he was faced with the incumbent and he needed a platform. National Pilot was one of platforms used then.
“There was a story we did on him and one thousand copies were booked and sent to Markudi. Another personality there also booked 700 copies and about 100 copies were ordered from Ekiti in reaction to one of our reports. For a long while now people will always book copies ahead of our editions up to fififive, six hundred copies”.
Adedamola noted further that, “There was a time we did a story and somebody there in government in Kwara ordered for 2000 copies that were distributed at the stadium. We can go on and on. Part of the reasons why this is so is that we have adopted a policy where our lead stories and 70 percent of our news content are exclusive stories you can’t read anywhere else. It has helped the paper to be so loved and accepted by the people”.
On the way out to address some of these challenges, Adedamola said, “We have been working hard and we all know that the downturn being experienced across the nation today is affecting all the facets of the economy and the publishing sector is not exempted”
He said, “The cost of production has gone astronomically high and we have been struggling.
“We wanted to increase our cover price like many other papers did recently in the country but was stuck to the amount we have been selling over fififive years ago because Kwara is not one of the rich states. But in terms of sales, there is no paper that is selling like us especially in our area of coverage”.
Adedamola added that, ‘I must say the future is very bright because we are not resting on our oars and we continued to explore all possible avenues to take the paper to the next level.