IN about three years from now, precisely May 29, 2018, our darling newspaper, The Nigerian Observer will be marking the golden anniversary of its existence on the newsstand. Fifty years in the life of a newspaper is no mean achievement, especially in climes like ours noted for short life span of newspapers. The longest surviving newspaper in the history of the print industry in Nigeria has been The Daily Times of Nigeria, (DTN). Please, I don’t mean the modern day Daily Times which is more visible on net than on the newsstand. Again, for the purpose of clarity, i mean The Daily Times of Nigeria and not the modern day Daily Times of the Anosike brothers. The former, the authentic Daily Times is own by Nigerians, the first Nigerian medium of information whose shares were traded on the floor of the Nigerain Stock Exchange! At the zenith of its glory, the newspaper coglomerate had 13 publications in its stable. The flagship, Daily Times, was a household name then, to an average Nigerian, every newspaper was Daily Times. It was that popular. In fact, during the editorship of Achike Okafor, the Sunday Times hit a print run of over 500, 000, I doubt if any newspaper has been able to come close to that feat let alone erasing that record. With all sense of modest, I must say that i was privileged to be part of that glorious era of the Daily Times. I am also proud to say that cut my journalism teeth in that citadel in the mid 80s as an Editorial Reader.
Well, The Daily Times is a story for another day. Back to our own Observer. Some of the celebrated journalists in Nigeria today started off in The Observer, aside the Tribune owned by the great family of the Awolowo, The Observer is about the oldest surviving newspaper in Nigeria today. It has out lived all manner of administrations from the highly authocratic military to the benevolent civilian right from the days of Midwest Region to Bendel State and now Edo State. Unfortunately, sadly too, The Observer is now a shadow of itself, having suffered neglect in the hands of successive administrations in the state. The worst times being the locusts years of the People Democratic Party, PDP where some consultants were hired to breathe life into the decaying newspaper. Sadly, in the PDP tradition, they saw the assignment as their own gold mine, they chose to help themselves with the fund. They were said to have brought in some refurbished printing press and outdated equipment, leaving our dear Observer bare! The toiling staff are the worst for it today, They have to make do with antiquated equipment in this internet age.

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They operate these equipment with frustration to produce modern day Observer in this competitive world of newspapering. It’s therefore not surprising that the print run is about 3,000 daily and not circulating beyond the 18 council areas in the state. The situation in the Observer is akin to a boxer sent into the ring to fight with bare knuckles. Or a footballer sent into the pitch bare footed. You don’t expect either of them to perform miracles.. But I must say that present workforce in The Observer are miracle workers, given the hard condition under which they churn out the newspaper daily coupled with the weeklies.
We are in the change era, the wind of change must be felt in the Observer. Things must not remain the same. The company must have a feel of the change. The Oshiomhole administration has touched virtually every facet of life of the Edo people in the last seven years. From roads to schools, menace of gully erosion to healthcare delivery, fiscal discipline to human capital development. Need I say more? His footprints are everywhere even on the rocks! He has refurbished the Edo Broadcasting Service after many years of criminal neglect by past administrations. With the provision of new transmitters coupled with state of the art broadcast equipment, the station’s signals now get to the nook and crannies of the state with good reception. The government is now winding down, with less than one year to go, I believe it is high time it looked the way of The Observer with a view to breathing life into it.
If well equipped, The Observer is in a position to compete favourably with any of the national newspapers on the newsstand. The government of the day should also see it as the main organ to reach the people in terms of propagating its policies and achievements. This will help created jobs for our legion of youths roaming the streets and of course, reduce the patronage of other media. Well, if really government has no business running business but to provide the enabling environment, the present government may decide to privatise it. Nigerians who are well grounded in media management are abound. Even businessmen who appreciate the power of the media will readily come in because The Observer is a popular brand in the Nigerian media industry, its present travails notwithstanding. The privatisation could be partial so as not to sell off our cherished common patrimony. That is, the government of the day will still have a say in the affairs of the company. Another option open to government is to make it fully self sustaining, without any subvention from government. The management and board have to operate purely as a profit making outfit and not to be seen as an arm of the information ministry. To do this, government must first make it viable by carrying out a holistic refurbishing of the organisation, given the modern trend in the industry. Although, it has less than one year to go, the present government of Adams Oshiomhole must take one of these bitter pills before it leaves office. Otherwise, it will be leaving behind a wound in the minds of the people as did the PDP in its years of locust. The dreams of the founding fathers of The Observer Newspaper must not be allowed to fade away in our time.