daily times

The rise and fall of daily times

Indeed there was a rise, a fall, and another rise of daily times Nigeria. Daily times Nigeria was first started on 6^th June 1925 as the Nigerian Printing & Publishing Company Limited by V. R. Osborne, L. A. Archer, R. Burrow and Adeyemo Alakija among whom all but Alakija represented European interest groups in the Lagos chamber of commerce. The company started printing on June 1, 1926 with the publication title, ‘The Nigerian Daily Times and Ernest okoli as its first editor

The paper soon became a major voice of the nationalist cries but soon the ownership of DTN changed hands in 1935 when it was bought over by Mr. R. B. Paul, a Liverpool businessman but soon, the company ran into problems again - with the advent of the Ziks’ press another nationalist oriented group of papers, the daily times lost much readership but bounced back by 1945 after the world war two when it became vicious in its fit against colonial rule

Despite these setbacks of ownership change, daily times still had very relevant contributions to the Nigerian press; the first privately-owned rotary printing press,  photo-engraving, typesetting and typecasting plants in Nigeria were introduced through daily times when it was bought over by Cecil king in 1947. The daily mirror group also introduced things like short paragraphs and sentences, many illustrations and photos, and human interest stories The paper's circulation rose from 25,000 daily in 1950 to 95,000 in 1959. During the 1950s the Nigerian Daily Times played an important role in the process that led to independence in 1960

Ismail Babatunde José, regarded as the best editor daily times had also introduced a lot of changes which affected the landscape of Nigerian press positively e.g. he raised the bar of qualification for journalists from mere school certificate to advanced level general certificate akinfeleye and okoye (2003) quote José as saying  “when we found the school certificate intakes inadequate, In English language and we raised the minimum entry to higher school certificate or advanced level general certificate of education……..”

In 1963, the gradual transfer of ownership of DTN to Nigerians commenced and by May 30, 1963, the name of the company was changed to The Daily Times of Nigeria Limited (“DTN”). By March 31 1974, following the promulgation of the Nigerian Enterprises Promotion Decree, DTN became a wholly owned Nigerian company.  

On September 1, 1975, the Federal Government of Nigeria through the National Insurance Corporation of Nigeria (NICON) acquired sixty percent (60%) equity holding of DTN. By the 70s, DTN had become household name and a toast of the Nigerian public. It dominated the Nigerian Publishing industry with its newspapers and publications circulating in all major cities and towns in the country including neighbouring West African countries of Ghana and Cameroun. It also had offices in London, New York and East Africa.

It is on record that DTN is the only Nigerian newspaper to attain a 500,000 copy circulation. It was at the peak of its success that the Federal Government in 1977, took over total ownership and control of the company. Though the company prospered for some time, it soon had a bad reputation like most government owned organizations and when its public perception became negative the result was declining business.

In 2004, the Bureau of Public Enterprises under the Obasanjo administration, slated The Daily Times of Nigeria for privatization and Folio Communications Limited acquired 96.5% controlling shares of the Daily Times at the price of One Billion, Two Hundred & Fifty Million Naira.

The falls

The first major blow given to the existence of daily times Nigeria was the government ownership of the paper. At first it promised that the paper will retain its freedom but starting from the government of Olusegun Obasanjo under who daily times was completely taken over, down to the interim government of Abdulsalam Abubakar under which the company workers embarked on an indefinite strike to protest the non-payment of their salaries for five months, there was constant infringement on the rights of not just daily times but also the press in general at that time

Even after it was revived and privatized, the selling process was not properly done and so this has led to endless suites and though there is a daily time and even with a website seemingly functional, the company is yet to recover from the many suites it has encountered and it finally closed down again in 2007 and since then not much has been heard about it

Flaws that led to its falls apart from military/government control

Within itself, the board of daily times was seen as a biased one which gave up professionalism for trivial issues such as nationality, tribe e.t.c. for example name(20..) quotes José as saying that the reason why he(name) wasn’t given much authoritative posts at the time due was due to his nationality as a Cameroonian.

Also, daily times after independence decided to turn itself into a voice for politicians who wanted to rule one sector of the country or the other by all means Chris (2004) lists daily time as one of the once nationalist newspapers that turned into praise instruments for politicians.

Thirdly, during its time under government control, it was used as an instrument to do the bidding of the government Chris (2004) said “both newspapers (Biafran sun and daily times) involved each other to the highest point of propaganda and counter propaganda”.

REFERENCE

chris, o. o. (2004). Nigerian press review Trends and Prospects. portharcort: pen power communications.