Concord, The Man Child
“Seeing the Concord come alive was an experience worth a lifetime for one obsessed with journalism, yet one would be glad to observe that the maturity of the two Concord papers to full adulthood in just one year was a miracle yet unparalleled anywhere in the world.”
The whole thing still seemed to be a miracle. A child born a year ago grown to full manhood. The story being the quintessential success story, a typical Horatio Alger story, and a success story that would probably be the most amazing feat that Moshood Abiola has achieved in his incredible actionist young life. As the story goes, the idea for starting a Daily and a Sunday newspaper occurred to Chief Abiola in November 1979. And a month later, he had succeeded in luring away Doyin Aboaba from her editorial board position in the Daily Times, and by the end of January 1980, the chief had succeeded in putting together a talented bunch that now constituted the editorial staff of the Concord newspapers. Seeing come alive was an experience worth that of a lifetime for one obsessed with journalism. Meetings held into the small hours of the morning. Jet hops into the far reaches of the country at 30-minute notices to lay the ground for the selling of the Concord. And the birth. Chief Abiola didn’t want to hear the stories of impossibilities. All he wanted to hear was that the two Concords would appear on March 2 of 1980. He, too, was not sleeping, bitten as he was by the journalism bug. It didn’t matter what hurdles had to be scaled, they must be scaled, he was there round the clock to lend a hand. Since the man wouldn’t take a no for an answer, Henry Odukomaiya, the Managing Director – a journalist to his marrows – Doyin Aboaba, the editor of the National Concord, and my humble self, set about scraping, and so we and hundreds of dedicated souls put out the two Concord papers.
The beginning was like a journey into the wilderness: half-finished offices, ill-prepared staff and nothing else to go on but brilliant ideas and what the days ahead would look like. But what of the first day, and the second day. Well, the rest was now history, for those two papers appeared, nothing really to write home about, but they presented the nuclei to build on. And today, the Concord newspapers can look back and see the beginning as nostalgic days of glory. The maturity of the two Concord papers to full adulthood in just one year was a miracle yet unparalleled anywhere in the world. A rich government can decide to spend millions to put out a paper and flush the market with it by free distribution. But newspaper has yet been published that has enjoyed the acceptability that the two Concords have enjoyed in just one year of life. It was all that more important because this was the age of newspaper deaths: the London Times just escaped the slide into receivership, and the Trip that tried to come alive in New York in 1978 died so suddenly. The Observer in London was running at a loss. And here at home, such things as the Daily Service, Daily Express and the Morning Post group, among others, saw morbid days. With all this to scare the daylight out of an investor, Chief Abiola decided almost coldly to go into the uncertain world of newspaper publishing. And it was the young entrepreneur’s fearlessness that had given the two Concord newspapers its character. Next to Chief Abiola’s characteristic daring was his wisdom in assembling the best journalists he could lay his hands on. He didn’t call those journalist he was familiar with. He charged his managing director to find the best.
Mr. Odukomsiya then worked the phone like a frantic Hollywood film producer, and most of the people he spoke to, those whom he cajoled, were people that he, Mr. Odukomaiya, and Chief Abiola and never met before. And these were people, including the two editors, that Chief Abiola was asking to run for him his most ambitious undertaking ever. These journalists made it clear that they were coming to do nothing but practice journalism in as free as possible an environment, and Chief Abiola said that he agreed and that was the way it would be. In as much as possible, that has been the case. At the beginning, Chief Abiola was simply flabbergasted by the swaggering mannerism of his charge, but he soon got used to their unceremonious way of disagreeing on matters of principle. But the task has just begun. The two papers have settled down while the editors are looking ahead to a bright future, to innovations, challenges and ideas that will better distinguish them.
©Sunday Concord, March 1, 1981
(Pp.116-118)
