By Steve Osuji
The Punch is faltering. It had been so for quite a while but only keen watchers would have seen the signs about a year ago.
My concern for The Punch’s gradual loss of sheen and glory prompted this piece.
This was to be titled: The Punch: A troubling trajectory. But upon further reflection and checks I had found that its glorious maiden Sunday title hit the newsstands about this period 50 years ago. It was edited by the inimitable Sam Amuka Pemu (now simply Sam Amuka), co-founder of The Punch Newspapers with late Chief Olu Aboderin.
Amuka was to break away to found Vanguard, the zesty, light-hearted newspaper.
Fifty years on, Punch has swum high seas and turbulent waters. In a country that has become the undisputed graveyard of newspapers and indeed intellectual enterprises, Punch has not done badly at all. And it is due to the fact that it transformed and metamorphosed into something of note that one bothers to expend this volume of verbiage on it.
Since its inception in 1971 as a human interest tabloid (probably inspired by a rested namesake in London), it has of course, waded through the peculiar storms independence and freedom encounter in developing environments. It has been particularly so because our space remains stunted and indeed retrograde. Such is the story of Nigeria that hardly anything thrives here for a long time. Show me a business that has survived for a century in Nigeria!
For a newspaper which seeks mainly to propagate independent views and help shape opinions for a better society, it has been shut down three times in 50 years – 1990, 1993 and 1994. No marks for guessing that marching down on a legal business entity and summarily foreclosing it was the handiwork of Nigeria’s woe begotten era of the military junta that equally distorted our national dynamics and indeed shutdown the country while they reigned.
PHASES OF A TURBULENT LIFE:
Like most newspapers of its time, it started as a flight of fancy. A successful businessman and a damn good columnist had been taken in by the novelty of newspapering business of that age. There was also the razzmatazz, and the incipient power of newspaper ownership. These factors may have lured these two friends to venture into it.
It was successful – in a sense. In 1971, apart from Daily Times which had become staid, there weren’t any other notable newspapers. So Sunday Punch with soft stories and bold illustrations was quite refreshing. But even a new moon shines only for a while before it becomes part of the celestial landscape.
For the first 30 years, The Punch suffered and passed through the tryst newspapers suffer in Nigeria. It didn’t even achieve half the business and emotional successes of Daily Times.
BRINGING THE PUNCH BACK FROM THE BRINKS:
It was more like back from the morgue for by mid to late 1990s, the newspaper was as good as dead. The tell-tale signs were writ large all over it: irregular production, dwindling print run and salaries in arrears. The newspaper’s woes, like most others in the country, were half self-inflicted and half environmental. As noted above, newspapers in Nigeria are mainly ego tripping and emotional investments. One is yet to find a newspaper raised on the strong, strict foundation of a business and economic venture.
It took the coming of a certain Chief Ajibola Ogunsola to rewire the traditional template of Nigeria’s newspapering business.
A first rate Actuary who had enjoyed enormous success in Nigeria’s corporate world, upon ascendancy as chairman of the board of The Punch when it was at the nadir of its existence, he must have simply decided to run the paper like a proper business.
Unlike a newspaper man who would pander first to editorial integrity and grammatical structure, Ogunsola prioritised the bottom-line and built everything else around it.
For instance, no excuses for missing deadlines – that is, a bad story that made the markets was better than an excellent story that missed the vendor. And of course, story was told of how stiff penalties and prompt termination of jobs met those who shirked responsibilities.
So with Ogunsola, it was no longer newspapering as usual.
THE GREAT RESURGENCE:
He didn’t only straighten up the lackadaisical and bumbling journalist, Ogunsola evidently reworked the business processes. The Punch was to leave its crummy, old abode in Onipetesi to an expansive and entirely new place along the Lagos-Sagamu highway. A modern Goss community press which was about two-storey high and which could print about 48000 copies per hour was installed. A state of the art IT and full process digital pre-press was introduced.
The new Punch office environment was as good as the best corporate workplace anywhere. Ergonomics was no longer a word used only in top banking halls.
Staff emoluments became almost commensurate with what obtains anywhere in Nigeria – training (both local and foreign), holiday allowance, generous car and housing loans became standard fare at The Punch under the great Ogunsola.
The Punch rose to its peak for over two decades Ogunsola held sway from 1987. Economic success naturally imbued excellence and attendant editorial independence. Apart from managerial acumen, Ogunsola is noted as a man of high ideals.
During his time, The Punch shed any iota of proprietary shackles. The editorial team, therefore, enjoyed a new found courage which only economic success can confer. The paper delved into special investigations and eye-balled the powers that be when it had to.
In a particular instance, its management refused to receive a Governor who had missed an appointment to see them regardless that the man had travelled all the way from his state to the Punch Place at Magboro! It didn’t matter that it was a powerful South West Governor. Such was the power and glory of the paper…
BACK TO NOW:
One doesn’t know whether Punch built on its roaring success. For instance, did the company diversify? Recall that Daily Times (DT) in the late 60s, at the peak of its boom, diversified, owning prime property across the country including the highrise Nigerian Stock Exchange building. It may be argued that DT’s buoyancy has not saved it from ruins, but there was also the military factor, with its warts and all.
The story is that The Punch, the last bastion of Nigeria’s free press, is currently floundering. Production errors are getting rampant by the day; reports are now ordinary and pedestrian even, and production quality has dropped noticeably, with the paper smudging your fingers these days.
If you still read hard copy regularly, you would have noticed that adverts now subsume matter, perhaps as a deliberate, untutored policy. Even regular columns are now often yanked to allow for adverts. One is not unaware of the torrid times newspapering is going through, compounded by the COVID-19 scourge but one wagers that the faltering of The Punch may be more human problems than environmental.
For instance, the print quality suggests that its once state of the art Goss Community may now be outmodelled, needing a smart replacement instead of an upgrade. But more importantly, what may save the great newspaper founded by Aboderin and built by Ogunsola may be a driver that would lead it into a NEW DIGITAL AGE!
▪︎ OSUJI is a senior journalist and newspaper columnist.