Tears Of Nostalgia …As The Tide Tells 40Yr Story

The ominous signs of a very tiresome jet-lag were painted all over her usually adorable personality. Just back from an official trip outside the shores of Nigeria, moving force of the Greater Port Harcourt development Project, Dame Aleruchi Cookey-Gam should naturally have driven straight home into the warm embrace of loved ones and family.

Instead her first stop in the city became the Atlantic Hall of Hotel Presidential, Port Harcourt, venue of The Tide’s 40th Anniversary Gala/Awards Nite, convinced that it was the right thing to do. Her encouraging remarks thereafter, her retrospection into what informed the establishment of the Rivers State Newspaper Corporation, publishers of the then Nigerian Tide (The Tide) by the Diete-Spiff administration 40 years ago and her clarion call to the people and government of the state never to let the newspaper die, as did all others born at the same time like it, betrayed a rare display of patriotism and true love for everything Rivers.

Like Cookey-Gam, the House of Representatives member for Etche/Omuma Federal Constituency, Prince Ogbonna Nwuke, drove to the programme straight from the Port Harcourt International Airport, after unavoidable flight delays from the capital city. Nwuke arrived in time to assume his role as chairman of the occasion.

The duo made a strong statement with their exceptional sacrifice: That true charity begins at home not abroad, and that rather than scamper for patronage of many other media of communication, Rivers people must reason that no one else can love them or champion their cause better than themselves, which to them, The Tide has represented in 40 years and still does today.

Theirs was an emotion soaket reappraisal of the thrills and travails of the state’s newspaper and to highlight the need for all to stand by The Tide if it must make the much desired difference.

Rivers State’s Information and Communications Commissioner, Mrs Ibim Semenitari, who stood in for Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi brought warm felicitations from her boss, whom, she explained would have loved to be physically present but could not due to pressing national engagements.

But the one man who actually raised the ante in the crusade to inspire Rivers people to learn to love and protect their own treasures, was the Director General of the Bureau of Public Procurement, Mr Frankln Ilerum who virtually held back tears while on memory lane. He recalled the past Civil War scenario which presented the need for an identity, a voice for the government of the people of Rivers State and indeed a viable channel to educate, inform and socially engineer the people towards properly appreciating government’s plans, projects and actions, saying, the same challenges that informed the establishment of The Tide 40 years ago, still persist to this day.

Those years still exist and so he said, it will be unwise to think that anyone could let The Tide die,” Ilerum said in a brief remark at the occasion.

The trio of Cookey-Gam, Nwuke and Ilerum thus, became the metaphor of the manner of guests  list that honoured The Tide with their distinguished presence. On the faces of virtually every well-meaning Rivers indigene of note in attendance would be pictured some passion, love and patriotism of state’s creation grounded in the need to help The Tide live and not die like several others like it.

In his lecture earlier in the day, seasoned journalist and former Editor-In-Chief of the Newswatch Magazine, Mr Ray Ekpu, had traced the evolution of the press from Iwe-Irohim, the first newspaper ever to be published in Nigeria to date and said that The Tide is still on the news stand is a great achievement which deserves celebration and total support from the government and people of the state.

Titled, “The Print Media: The Way Forward”, Ekpu recalled, “At independence, the three regional governments  North, East and West felt the need to set-up newspapers of their own. In 1960, the Eastern Nigerian Government upgraded its Eastern Nigeria Outlook into a daily and renamed it the Nigerian Outlook. In 1961, the Federal Government set-up its own paper, the Morning Post. Three years later, the Western Nigerian Government, established The Daily Sketch and just before the January 15, 1966 Coup, the Northern Nigerian Government set-up the New Nigeria.

“As states were created, he further said, more state owned newspapers sprang up.” Ekpo listed the Nigerian Observer in Bendel State, Triumph in Kano, Renaissance in East Central State, Nigerian Standard in Benue Plateau, Chronicle in South Eastern State,” and then The Pointer in Delta, Eko Today in Lagos, Statesman in Imo, The Nigerian Tide in Rivers, the Ambassador in Abia, The Pointer in Akwa Ibom, Hope in Ondo, Bench Mark in Ekiti, The Voice in Benue, Herald in Kwara, Legacy in Zamfara, Trumpeter in Bauchi, Newsline in Niger, The Path in Sokoto, National Light in Anambra and Daily Star in Enugu.

Today, The Tide remains the only vibrant state-owned newspaper on the news stands and being published in colour and in fact now read on the world wide web up till today.

State owned publications, several other private newspapers went the way of their public kind.

“Today,’ Ekpu said, ‘you cannot find at the newsstand such private newspapers as Prime People, Vintage People, Crown Prince, Mr Quality, Akpa’s “Choice, Classique, Thisweek, Viva, President, Newbreed, Finanial Post, Nigerian Economist, Democrat, Today, The Third Eye, The Post Express, Daily Sketch, TNT, Hotline, Citizen, TSM, Sentinel, The Reporter, National Concorde, African Concorde, African Guardian, The Satelite, The Trumpet, Searchlight, The Eagle, The Horn, Daily News, The Outlook, The Sunray, National Post, Guardian Express, etc.

“The universal truth is that for any newspaper, private or public, to survive it must be well capitalized and must be run along professional, commercial lines, and with a keen eye on the bottomline.”

Amidst what former Lagos State Governor, Lateef Jakande, once identified as reasons for newspaper deaths, non-capitalisation by owners, undue interference and poor advert support, Ekpu congratulated The Tide newspaper “for remaining a solitary beacon among state-owned newspapers. “It came, saw and slaughtered the ghost of infant mortality,” Ekpu enthused and cautioned, that next few years will be no less challenging but everyone expects you to rise majestically to that challenge as you have done these past 40 years.

Simply, Ekpu said The Tide requires all the support it can get to tarry on, exactly the same sentiment the trio of Cookey-Gam, Nwuke and Ilerum highlighted, in their separate speeches rather than scamper for and waste huge resources to build other media through lavish advert placements and expect the state’s own media to continue to source water from the rock.

Some Rivers people also believe that it amounts to a status symbol to appear on pages of newspapers published outside the state, while viewing the state’s paper as local, a tacit confession by that minority that charity begins or ought to begin abroad, not at home.

First launched in Lagos December 1, 1971 and established by the Rivers State Newspaper Corporation Edict No 11 of 1971, The Tide has been on circulation since then in spite of daunting challenges of terminal kind, the same that accounted for the death of countless other public and private newspapers in the land.

That The Tide still flows is a testament of the resilience, hardwork, focus, never-say-die spirit and industry of the staff and management on one hand and the support of successive governments on the other, as surmised by the General Manager, Celestine Ogolo, on his welcome address to the lecture session on the weeklong anniversary, which started with a workers’ parliament last Wednesday, November 30, 2011 and peaked with the thanksgiving at the Christ Church Interdenominational, Port Harcourt, yesterday.

My Agony is that many are either consciously or unconsciously encouraging bad press, by demonstrating that a medium is indeed alive only when it thrives in blackmails and criticizes it as total write-off, if for the sole purpose of protecting the government and people of Rivers State it adopts developmental journalism as distinct from its yellow opposite.

Another is the rule, ‘Charity Begins Abroad’, nay home. But my joy is that such minds are a very small minority.

Soye Wilson Jamabo