A New Tabloid On The Horizon: The
Business World's New Nigerian National Accord
06 June 2012
By Abdul-Warees Solanke
A new newspaper is coming on board. From its
advertorial in the Business World, its name shall be
National Accord. A look at its masthead and logo
design shows it will be a clone of the defunct
National Concord. To make a success of the arriving
tabloid, here is wishing its promoters wisdom from
God.
The newspaper business is of cause a robust and
enchanting one, but it is also challenging and risky,
and so requires careful planning, rigorous market
research, scientific audience survey, strategic human
resource management, aggressive recruitment drive to
headhunt the best in the industry and tap unknown
potentials waiting to explode with their basket of
fresh fruits of thoughts and ideas. It also requires
critical engagement with all segments in the market
who will dictate its success or failure. To arrive
with a bang and deliver with a punch, its proprietors
must come with a loaded chest, a hefty purse and an
intimidating clout to weather initial teething season
and advert drought period. It must come to chart a new
course, thread a fresh path, do what those in the
market have never done, or outdo what its competitors
are best at.
My one decade plus experience at Concord gives me an
insight into what a true national newspaper is. I came
to Concord in its tenth year anniversary and met on
ground the cream of its foundation staff and belong to
the second or third generation that thrived for the
next ten years until the curtain fell on its stage. As
national Concord closed shops in at the turn of the
new millennium, it still burnishes in gold, as it
promoted concord and harmony in Nigeria. In its two
decade of sojourn in Nigeria, and as it bestrode the
nation's polity, it presented a fine example of a
national newspaper not merely in distribution and
reach but also in terms of national ownership.
Therefore, in National Concord are some lessons for
National Accord and other dailies that will come to
flaunt a 'national' credential.
National concord was an enigma. It was not just a
newspaper platform. It was an institution that
manifested the Nigerian diversity, our national
character. Yes, it was established by MKO Abiola, but
it was an establishment for all Nigerians, a voice for
all Nigerians. Concord was a symbol of our nationhood,
our oneness. Yes, MKO established the national
Concord, but he left it as a platform for contest and
competition in our diverging national interest. Every
part of Nigeria had a say, had a representative. In
staff recruitment, it was a hall mark of the federal
character; in leadership selection and appointment, it
was an example of national spread and representation;
in management composition, it was merit at its best
with consideration for learning and growth; in giving
voice to the minorities and the under-represented in
our national polity, concord was a case study in
accommodation; in advancing the messages of spiritual
succour, the concord titles offered the platform for
all faiths and denominations.
Its publisher was a Muslim but he gave freedom and
protection to adherents of other faiths. Abiola was a
Yoruba, an Egba of Gbagura stock, but his core
lieutenants came from all axis of Nigeria. The list of
its board of directors and senior editors read like a
typical Nigerian Federal cabinet; the composition of
its middle and lower management resembled the roll
call of the Nigerian national assembly. Concord was an
army that allowed its foot soldiers to rapidly rise in
rank to generals without any previous or primordial
relationship with the publisher; an institution that
speedily tapped and rewarded talents even from day one
on the job without allowing them to grey before they
are recognized and positioned. It was an example of
innovation and dynamism, investment in new technology
and capacity building.
It believed and advanced the pan Nigerian and pan
African projects. Its editorial board was not a school
of theories or arm chair criticisms; it took its
debates beyond the cosy conference room to the public
and international arena, not to make money for the
publisher but to the cause of Nigerian and African
development. Three examples stood out: The editorial
board was the engine room of the reparation struggle
for Africa and Africans in the Diaspora. Abiola
spearheaded the cause though the concord. The
Editorial board staged the national Conference on the
Stability of the Third Republic. The success of that
confab cannot be rivalled by what some national
governments and international agencies would put
together. Concord did not need co-sponsors or
advertisers and state resources to launch these
ambitious but patriotic projects on national and
global discourses.
As the tide of privatization of public enterprises,
was sweeping through the world in the eighties, Abiola
bought into the idea of studying how the programme was
conceptualized and implemented in all regions of the
world. Many senior editors and young but insightful
analysts were sponsored on study trips to places as
Brazil, Venezuela, the United Kingdom and other
countries in Europe, the South America and East Asia.
Tunji Bello, Dele Alake and Rose Umoren, Late Chike
Akabogu and Nnamdi Obasi were among the lot that did
case studies on privatization, serialized in the
Concord titles and later published as a book. Their
experience could have served as a blueprint in
crafting our privatization and commercialization
programme.
If Concord had this tradition, then it ought not to
die. In truth, Concord is not dead. It only perished
in flesh as its spirit resurrected in so many
publications now in circulation. The children Concord
sired are today fathers, voices and faces of many
newspapers on the newsstands. The vacuum its demise
created was soon filled by pillars it built in
journalism in two decades; the benchmark it set is
being elevated by the army who graduated from the
concord school and tradition.
Ordinarily therefore, I would have written off the
National Accord as having no chance in the market glut
of newspapers or coming too late to replace the
Concord or make an impact.But experimentation is the
true test of validity. Will national Accord share in
the glow and glory of the defunct concord? My concern
is that so many irokos have taken root and are
flourishing on the land fertilized by the remains of
national Concord. For a venture as newspaper, it is
not a one year experiment. Time is the essence. So
only Time will Tell as Now is not The Moment to give a
verdict of death to the Accord. The Nation waits how
it will Mirror Nigeria. This day, Nigeria looks
forward to what Compass the coming national Accord
will provide to chart the course of our National Life,
whether it will demonstrate Leadership in the
newspaper industry as it promises or whether it will
not go as the Next victim among publications that
blazed forth like a comet, pledging to serve as the
pointer, the champion, the defender, the vanguard, the
guardian of our national interest but soon slumbered
to become ordinary news watchers, observers and
spectators at a time journalism practice needed a
standard to herald a new age.
For national Accord to etch its name in gold like
national Concord, it must hit the newsstand with poise
and penetrate the national conscience in the finest
tradition of journalism, promote national interest and
canvass the new Nigeria of our dream. It must anchor
its reportage on everything that sustains the unity
and faith, peace and progress of our fatherland. While
expecting it to borrow some light from the ray of the
Sun provided by the defunct Concord, its success will
depend on the culture and tradition it adheres to, the
structure it is built on, the future it envisages for
Nigeria, the ideals it promotes and the interest it
protects. Here is giving the national Accord a loud
ovation as it enters the wrestling ring of other
barrel chested and beefy national tabloids.
Abdul-Warees is the Head of Training, Voice of
Nigeria, Ikoyi, Lagos,
(korewarith@yahoo.com
korewarith@voiceofnigeria.org ,
abdulwarees01@gmail.com ) 08090585723
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