Four days ago, Nigerian Tribune was 74 but this isn’t a tribute. It is an acknowledgement of the unsearchable way of the Lord. In almost a quarter of a century now, I have been an eyewitness to an uncommon story of triumph in a business climate where conglomerates, deemed too big to fail, fumbled and crumbled, both home-built and made-in-Nigeria by foreigners. We mock no one. Testimonies, require comparative analysis. Men are usually not thankful, until they see situations worse than theirs.
Last week, some of my ogas grabbed the cymbals, gyrating to the Sound of Music, only the Imalefalafia insiders, can connect to. They were like Moses and the victorious children of Israel, after the famous crossing of the Red Sea, singing, “who is like unto thee O Lord, among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders”?, in Exodus 15:11.
In its October 4, 2020 edition, influential Business Day newspaper lionized “companies that survived 60 years along Nigeria’s unstable journey”. Expectedly African Newspapers of Nigeria (ANN Plc), publishers of the Tribune titles, got no mention. Not even among her 1949 peers like United Bank for Africa (UBA). Of course, Julius Berger, which came a year later in 1950, got a lavish mention and the list was supposed to be considering all sectors.
That wasn’t an isolated treatment. Well before I joined Tribune, I had come into the consciousness that both within the media industry and elsewhere, many tend to sleep on Nigerian Tribune, as a brand name, a product and platform, grossly underestimating her staying power, for three generations running.
I, also, did sleep on Tribune. Infact, I was an accidental hire, who purposed to spend a few years, but now steadily eyeing retirement, with the same newspaper my then-colleagues used to mock in the newsroom of a flamboyant Lagos newspaper I was with, before the Tribune journey began.
That Lagos high-flying newspaper, printed then with a high-end machine, for which I was reluctantly to join Tribune in Ibadan, has long disappeared into the vagueness of time. The one, whose colour printing of then, was roundly mocked as “horror”, when juxtaposed with the one being printed by Heritage Press, supposedly owned by former military ruler, Ibrahim Babangida, is still standing gidigba today, while the “beautyful” one, is long dead.
That is why I pity the Balaks and Balams who want to curse the blessed of God. I worry for the Sanballats, Tobiahs and Geshems (Nehemiah 2:10-19). Mockery won’t stop God from doing what He alone, can do and He has a way of mocking the mockers of His own.
It is too obvious that it isn’t managerial sagacity or entrepreneurial wizardry, that has kept Tribune alive, without discount the perspiration from hardwork and sacrifices of men and women who have kept the torch glowing. A word of advice for those who think only the demise of Tribune would end their insomnia or grow their brand; before you seek to destroy the soul of a man, who isn’t seeking your scalp, check the unusualness of his life. God might just be on his side.
Tribune wasn’t supposed to live, let alone, thrive. She was birthed in adversity, forged in the fire of persecution, but survived and sustained by uncommon grace. There is a way Dr. Festus Adedayo, in his last Sunday’s column, detailed the many “afflictions” of the paper in the hands of colonialism repression and malice of post-independence warlords of the First and Second Republics, which evoked the tribulations of God’s people in the journey to the Promised Land.
But the good news is, they got there and God doesn’t preserve what won’t be useful. The tree, with green leaves but without fruits, withered to the root, at the command of Jesus.
Tribune has nurtured countless destinies. For some, it was the beginning and the end of the most productive of their years. Nobody sows where there isn’t a reaping and existential necessities and fulfillment, are way more, than the material.
Even when she wasn’t (and still not) the highest grossing and paying in the industry, men and women in her employ, were and still, thriving. That couldn’t have been by the acumen of men alone. The bigger factor, is the God of miraculous multiplication, who fed thousands with the lunch of a lad, and has evidently been at work in the company.
Tribune is a spiritual embodiment. When men can’t explain why a supposedly dried-up tree is still standing when the perceived healthier ones are being regularly uprooted by economic vicissitudes and inclement climates, the standing tree, is definitely a miracle, manifesting spiritual interventions.
What Tribune represents in Nigerian journalism is beyond the truth the media owes the society; a responsibility that has become emblematic for her.
In another 26 years, Tribune will, by God’s grace, join the illustrious club of the centenarians. I’m trusting God to be among the alumni, toasting her.
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