In 2004 when LEADERSHIP debuted, it was illogical to think that a newly established news outfit, founded by a non-professional, would survive the competition of becoming a media brand of tremendous reckoning. The New Nigerian newspaper was then in the throes of death, with its owners, the governors of 19 Northern States, constantly engaged in meetings to pull the pride of Arewa’s mouthpiece from the inferno of death. Despite various palliatives administered on the ailing media giant, it went under, with some of its promising staff dispersing to other platforms to ply their trade.
Northern Media Landscape
At the time the New Nigerian newspaper was experiencing pangs of imminent demise due to financial paucity and needless interference from some northern governors, a broadcast journalist and an ace reporter, Mallam Kabiru Yusuf, was spearheading the stability of his newly founded “Daily Trust” in the nation’s turbulent media skies. With the voice of the North faced with imminent death, it was clear that a new newspaper was urgently needed to replace the “New Nigeria”. Thus, Yusuf’s new media platform was staffed with the region’s best media professionals, thus setting the stage for the beginning of a new era devoid of the dominance of “New Nigerian”.
The founding of “Daily Trust” by Yusuf served as a prologue to reshaping the northern media landscape that facilitated an increase in the number of publications, with some of them crawling into the media cemetery. With the military defeated and thrown out of power, the North became a fertile ground for growing the seed of media vibrancy in the defence of the newly inaugurated democracy.
Compared with the South, the North was far behind in the number of thriving publications. The southern media became too powerful as some people referred to them as Lagos-Ibadan press. After waging a war of attrition against the military, it was time for those who had held the flame of opposition against the military regimes in demanding for the return of democracy that was truncated in the dying hours of 1983. LEADERSHIP was born upon the winter of a growing quest for the emergence of a vibrant and liberal media in defence of democracy.
Trying Times
If the birth of the newspaper in the fifth year of Nigeria’s unbroken democracy held no much significance, the reputation of the founding chairman and “Kakaki Nupe”, Mr Sam Nda-Isaiah, proved a defining moment. His column, “The Last Word”, then published every Monday in the “Daily Trust” had provided the new news entrant a cult followership, and would further avail the paper an additional mileage.
Nda-Isaiah was not an easy pushover and was fully prepared to make a success of his media project. His previous news medium and newsletter, “Leadership Confidential”, had prepared him for the task ahead, and demonstrated early that success goes with determination. Efforts were made by his media competitors to undermine and discourage Sam in continuing with his new publication. The success and popularity of LEADERSHIP was a subject of intense gossip and “bad belle” when opponents engaged in a bellicose act of alleging that Sam was simply a front for some nebulous persons with certain intentions. The pharmacist-turned-publisher steadily rose to the occasion by silencing his traducers whose claims were only anchored on their innate desire to truncate the rise of a promising newspaper. In the end, Sam was the sole owner of his newspaper.
Riding on the popularity he had garnered for many years, and with the support of some of his strong backers who were former heads of state, including top emirs, Sam took the wind out of their sails and put a lie to the claim that the newspaper was the voice of Jacob, with the hand of Esau.
The debut of LEADERSHIP in October 2004 was a product of grit and irresistible courage possessed by one man who refused to be stopped by the myriads of forces that worked hard to truncate his dream. He was a friend to many persons across social, political, ethnic and religious divides. Just as he was persuasive and friendly in attracting the best of hands to advance his newspaper, the founder of the newspaper was sometimes prone to embracing the Shakespearean quote, “the firstlings of my heart shall be the firstlings of my hand” in deployment of human resources.
20 Gun Salutes
LEADERSHIP was bound to survive the harshest of all conditions after enduring years of perseverance under its founder who never had a “no” for an answer. To Sam, there was no word like “impossibility”. All things are possible, only if the mind wills it. After his death, the newspaper he founded 20 years ago remains a solid munition in the inspiring act of not giving up, no matter the odds.
The leadership qualities being demonstrated by the current chairman and widow of the founding chairman, Mrs. Zainab Nda-Isaiah, and the editorial proficiency of the editor-in-chief, Mr. Azubuike Ishiekwene, including the devotion of workers, are pointers to better years ahead. LEADERSHIP is now stable and cruising at an altitude that is bringing out the best of professionalism and embracing new innovation in meeting media exigencies.
More than any other time after the stormy weather of initial hiccups, the newspaper has become a high flier of a news brand whose place in the media firmaments cannot be disputed. Two decades after its debut, the newspaper that was once confronted with death is an inspiring story in resilience and creating a platform for the promotion of national discourse for unity and development.
