Pioneering Editors Celebrate 20 Years Of LEADERSHIP’s Impact

LEADERSHIP Has Carved A Niche In Media Landscape

Simon Reef Musa, Pioneer Editor, LEADERSHIP Sunday

LEADERSHIP was birthed in the fifth year of Nigeria’s unbroken democracy. Rising beyond the womb of LEADERSHIP Confidential, a newsletter that had garnered wide readership across the spectrum of Nigerians for some years, the reputation of the founder and ‘Kakaki Nupe’, Mr Sam Nda-Isaiah, through his column, ‘The Last Word’ then published every Monday in the ‘Daily Trust’, provided an additional mileage for the new news platform.

The take-off of the paper in October 2004, first as a weekly publication, proved unnerving and was not spared the usual teething problems often associated with new platforms. While still swimming in the flood of overwhelming difficulties in producing the weekly edition, the founder announced plans to commence daily production. The decision to commence daily production of the newspaper was not without consequences, as the then editor of the weekly edition resigned, insisting he wouldn’t spearhead a daily newspaper that was doomed to fail.

Less than three months after the commencement of the daily, there were the additions of both the Weekend and Sunday editions.

LEADERSHIP, 20 years after, has indisputably carved its niche in the media landscape. Its presence as a media brand has broadened the frontiers in creating a market of ideas, deepening democracy and holding leaders to accountability. It was engaged in an open war of attrition against anti-democratic forces at the forefront of realising tenure elongation for former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

In the years that followed, the newspaper has continued providing employment opportunities to professionals, and playing an irreplaceable role in shaping national discourse.

Even after the death of the founding chairman, the LEADERSHIP brand has become a strong platform whose ever-present influence was never imagined at its establishment. I can confidently state that 20 years after its debut, now under the leadership of the chairman, Mrs Zainab Nda-Isaiah, and editor-in-chief, Azubuike Ishiekwene, the newspaper remains one of the nation’s strongest media brands that is constantly innovating in confronting challenges militating against the Nigerian media.