7 months after take-off mass sack, apprehension rock New Telegraph

As a result of the mass sack, the Deputy Managing Director of the newspaper, Mr Ike Abonyi, resigned from his position on June 23, 2014.Since the mass sack took place the newsroom  has been rocked with fear and apprehension. Workers’ morale is at its lowest ebb and no one can tell whose turn it would […]

As a result of the mass sack, the Deputy Managing Director of the newspaper, Mr Ike Abonyi, resigned from his position on June 23, 2014.
Since the mass sack took place the newsroom  has been rocked with fear and apprehension. Workers’ morale is at its lowest ebb and no one can tell whose turn it would be or what else the publisher has in the offing for them.
Findings have revealed that the publisher wielded the big stick as a result of power tussle among the senior staff of the newspaper.
A source close to the publisher said Dr Kalu became infuriated and worried on hearing what the New Telegraph had turned into in less than seven months of operation. The source explained that he investigated the crisis before taking the decision to sack those found wanting to ensure a united management team.
The mass sack at New Telegraph was the third crisis in the company since it took off in January this year. Sometime in February 2014, when Mr Bolaji Tunji was the Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper, h praised the publisher and management’s preparedness to ensure they produced a different kind of newspaper that would be an envy of all existing newspapers in the country. He said New Telegraph had all what it took to thrive and survive, based on many factors.  He noted that the newspaper won’t suffer financial needs because it was backed by someone who had been in the business for long, adding that he would ensure good welfare packages that would always inspire members of staff.
Unfortunately,  few weeks after Tunji spoke glowingly about New Telegraph, its management team and backbone,  he was the first casualty of the power-play in the company. It was gathered that he was first redeployed to SLOK Holdings, one of the companies owned by the publisher, where he could not put his professionalism into practice. When Kalu realised that the redeployed Editor-in-Chief was not on a familiar terrain Tunji was moved again to Daily Sun where he now works as Executive Director, Special Projects.  
In March, 2014, when New Telegraph  had only appeared for few weeks on the newsstands, its editorial staff was shocked by a pay cut of between 40% and 50% ordered by the publisher.
The affected workers accepted the condition as laid down by the publisher with the hope that by the time the newspaper stabilized in the market, it would be revisited. “That is yet to happen before the mass sack,” one of the affected journalists revealed. He said the publisher came up with the policy while staff were waiting to be paid their salary for the month of February 2014.  
“The publisher told us to abide by his directive or be sacked,” he said, adding that the pay cut destabilized  his financial programme and immediate future plan. He regretted leaving the newspaper where he was writing for to accept a job offer at the New Telegraph.
A staff manager, who requested anonymity, said they told Dr Kalu it would be ridiculous to start sacking people when the newspaper was just few weeks in the market: “We asked him to come with his pay cut mechanism and that has been worked out. I can tell you that  the morale of  workers here is low, compared with when they crossed from their former jobs and joined New Telegraph,” he said.
Dr Kalu the publisher of New Telegraph newspapers,  is also the publisher of Daily Sun newspapers located at Kirikiri area of Apapa, Lagos. When he floated the newspaper in 2013, the aim was to produce a different kind of newspaper that would target the upper and middle class as against Daily Sun that focuses on lower class of the society. He attracted many top editors and reporters to the newspaper with the promise of fat salaries, allowances and new cars.
He also succeeded in poaching workers from leading newspapers in the country and, by the time New Telegraph was about to hit the newsstands, expectations were high within the newspaper industry and among the reading public.
It’s  first Managing Director and Editor -In-Chief, Mr. Bolaji Tunji, when giving an insight into why the paper was established, said New Telegraph is a newspaper coming into the market to change the concept of newspapering in the country. He added that it was meant to change and re-focus Nigerian journalism especially about how they report stories. “It is not as if there are no newspapers in the industry as we are coming in but what appears to be so pervasive in the industry is the absence of investigative journalism and we would focus more on this area,” he said then.
He said he was confident that the publisher, being a businessman, would not interfere in running of the newspaper. However, within few weeks after the New Telegraph appeared on the newsstands, its workers started grumbling over what they called unfulfilled promises by the publisher. They said some of the workers who were promised cars were yet to reeive any.