DAILY TIMES NG JULY 2014
26
pictures from archives The first 2,000 copies of the Nigerian Daily Times were on sale on the streets of Lagos on June 1, 1926, but the incorporation of the Company took place a year earlier on 6thJune 1925. There have been varied accounts of the early beginnings of the Nigerian Daily Times written by various people and writers. Some said the paper took over from where Earnest Ikoli's African Messenger stopped, while others have given different versions. The story can now be told from the authentic records of the founding fathers in the Archives of the Company. Early in June 1925, four gentlemen met in Lagos and resolved to launch a daily newspaper to be known as the “Nigerian Daily Times”. That meeting was attended by Mr V. R. Osborne, Mr Adeyemo Alakija, Mr L. A. Archer and Mr R. Barrow and the meeting took the following resolutions: · That Mr Earnest Ikoli be appointed as editor of the Nigerian Daily Times. (At that time he was the founder-editor of the weekly African Messenger founded in 1921). · That the registered office of the company (The Nigerian Printing and Publishing Company) incorporated on June 6, 1925, be at 16 Labinjoh Lane, Lagos. · That the Printing House of the company be at 172 Broad Street, Lagos. The building was described in the records as the
property of Mr Shitta to be leased by the company for five years with an option to renew for another 10 years and at an annual renewal of N300. · That the Nigerian Daily Times be a four-page daily morning newspaper of “demy size”. · That Mr Osborne, in whose house the meeting was held be the chairman of the Board of Directors. (The Board met very frequently and rotated the Chairmanship for some time.) The meeting also authorised Mr Townley to purchase printing plant “sufficient to set up a printing house capable of publishing the Nigerian Daily Times and the African Messenger and local job work... ...” It is clear from that Board Resolution that there was no question to Mr Ikoli's African Messenger being bought over to become the Nigerian Daily Times, as some writers have claimed. The founding of the Daily times was a completely new venture prompted by the decision of the Colonial Government at the time to stop publishing its official news bulletin of Reuters news which it had initiated as a service to the business community in Lagos during the World war 1 years. The Government news bulletin continued after the war, and when the decision to stop it was announced, some European and African members of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce came up with the idea of
taking over the Reuters News Service and launching a daily newspaper therefrom. That was how the idea of the Nigerian Daily Times was born.
was growing steadily. In 1922, he said, a scheme was mooted for a private company to be floated with a capital of N10,000 for the purpose of running the African Messenger.
Having however resolved to appoint Mr Ikoli as Editor of the Nigerian Daily Times, and knowing fully well that Mr Ikoli was publisher and editor of his own weekly, the African Messenger, the Directors decided right from the beginning that the African Messenger should be taken over by the company so that Mr Ikoli's attention would not be divided. Accordingly, negotiations for the take-over were begun at a meeting of the Board on 24th July, 1925, to which Mr Ikoli was invited. Mr Ikoli agreed with the Directors that it would be unfair to the Company if he, as paid editor to the Daily Times, were also to have outside newspaper interests in the form of the African Messenger. It was therefore in the interest of both the Company and himself that the two papers should come under one roof so that he might devote his entire efforts to making the proposed daily newspaper a success.
In 1923, Mr Ikoli went on, he was offered N2,400 for the copyright of the paper and since then he was convinced that the paper had made progress. Then there was the problem of absorbing his sub-editor and manager, Mr Omololu, who was reluctant to support the proposed change of proprietorship. Mr Ikoli then gave the directors his terms for the sale of the paper. He put the goodwill at N5,000. Of this amount, he asked for N1,000 to be paid to him when the Company was ready to take over the paper and a further N1,000 out of the profits if and when made by the African Messenger. The balance was to be paid in such instalments as the directors might determine.
The African Messenger, in any case, had not been a success because of the exorbitant cost of printing and production. In his opinion, with reasonable rates for printing chargeable against the p ro fi t s o f t h e A f r i c a n Messenger, the paper would show a good net profit. Mr Ikoli said the African Messenger had built a valuable goodwill which
At later meetings of the Board, the African Messenger was discussed and it was agreed finally on 28th August 1925, that the African Messenger be taken over by the Company on, among the following terms: 1. That the first N1, 000 demanded by Mr. Ikoli be paid to him within one year. Earlier, on 19th August, the company had a p p rov e d p a y m e n t o f N800 in respect of Mr. Ikoli's mortgaged property. 2. That N1, 000 be paid to Mr. Ikoli within three years
from profits of the African messenger.
3. That the African Messenger be taken over with effect from January 1, 1926. 4. That for five years after taking over the African messenger, Mr. Ikoli would not establish another paper to compete with the company's publications. In February, 1926, after the company had taken over the Africa Messenger, the format of the Nigeria daily Time was discussed. The paper, it was decided, would be a 4-column p a p e r w i t h advertisements divided up over the pages. No one page was to be solely d e d i c a t e d t o advertisements. On May 6, 1926, a trial run of the paper was undertaken, and on June 1, 1926, the first issue of the paper was on sale. The excitement of the history that was being made by the publication of the long planned Nigeria dairy was so much that this must have been responsible for the omission of the year of publication from the masthead. The front page was crowded with as many as 13 news stories, the four main ones taking pride of place at the top of each of the four columns left to right. Though there was the report of a continuing coal cries, a more sensational story was the news that an aeroplane flew over Lagos