A NEWSPAPER FULL OF QUERIES: My EXPERIENCE WITH SUNRISE     

A NEWSPAPER FULL OF QUERIES: My EXPERIENCE WITH SUNRISE     

By: Balami Lazarus     

For a long time I had wanted to write on this issue which has to do with the media. The title of this write- up quickly reminds me of a novel I read: “Quiver Full of Arrows” by one Jeffery Archer; a master storyteller.     Why I decided to captioned this piece; A Newspaper Full of Queries is in order to share my experience with readers and to also put forward my observations and suggestions for better journalism.

Journalism being the fourth realm of the estate, a vital part of our national development that cannot be made nonsense of no matter that ox is gore. I can vividly recall my interactions with Mr. Abdulhamid Babatunde of defunct Democrat Newspapers who treated me as one of his staff calling my attention from time to time on some of my writings. I was only a contributor to this paper.

Professor Ahmad Gausu, Mr. Dahiru Commaise these gentlemen at one time or the other were editors par excellence. Mr. Abdulhamid Babatunde and Professor Ahmad Gusau whom I have once had a close contact and dealings purely on the basis of journalism which I will hereby say with all sincerity of purpose that they are journalists of excellent reputation and good media house administrators. Mr. Abba Jato Malah and Mr. David Mamza who also made popular as poets with the poetry column of their news magazine (The Mobilizer) one of the best magazines that once emerged in the Northeast geo- political zone.

Mr. Simon  Ochai Okewu of National Impression Magazine. My respect for you all and thank you for being my able editors some years back.     Unlike Bakoji Sukoji, Nigeria Sunrise Newspaper which was a weekly paper owned by Taraba State Government based in Jalingo with her operational office in Abuja. The future was good for this paper because it was then managed by experienced veteran journalists – Mr. Danjuma Adamu and Mr. Haruna Izah.

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Permit me to introduce Mr. Bakoji Sukoji. He was my editor at the Nigeria Sunrise Newspaper. I came to know Bakoji from his queries to me; the context therein tells me the kind of person he is. Query being a two- way traffic; my replies to him might have told him in a hard way the kind of person I am also.     

My experience with the newspaper was a bitter one. In-as-much as the editor Sukoji was killing the paper by making it a newspaper full of queries. Do you know that within my stay in a span of one year June 2011 to August 2012, I was issued with three (3) worthless nasty queries that are porous? Two were from him and one from late Stevin Adikwu the news editor. Some readers might ask why? Good question. But let the sleeping dog lie.

However, the context of those queries which saw me marching out of the paper house was really annoying and stymied. The use of language and its words by both Bakoji and Steven were connotative and militarized clearly showing how some media houses are when it comes to appointing or recruiting an editor.     I am not in whatever way undermining my erstwhile editor. But what I am attempting to say in this work is without any iota of malice to Nigeria Sunrise or her management as the case may be, but mere observations and my personal experience on the one hand and as a keen watcher of the happenings in the print media on the other.     

According to the late Pastor Dimgba Igwe, former vice chairman of the Sun Newspaper says a good editor…should be a good manager….good motivator because a good editor is driving a team of people.’  I strongly believe editors should have some administrative training to enable them to inject such knowledge in running their team of journalists and other material resources to attract young people who are aspiring to be journalists or media entrepreneurs of print or electronic for the progress of the journalism profession in Nigeria.   

Balami, a Publisher/ Columnist.    08036779290

A NEWSPAPER FULL OF QUERIES: My EXPERIENCE WITH SUNRISE