How Voice newspaper battles to find its voice

It is the beginning of a new dawn for Benue State Printing and Publishing Corporation (BPPC), publishers of The Voice as the media outfit gradually bounces back to life. The bid to resuscitate the newspaper has reached its crescendo. The General Manager of the corporation, Mr Anza Phillips, who took Daily Trust on Sunday round […]

It is the beginning of a new dawn for Benue State Printing and Publishing Corporation (BPPC), publishers of The Voice as the media outfit gradually bounces back to life.

The bid to resuscitate the newspaper has reached its crescendo. The General Manager of the corporation, Mr Anza Phillips, who took Daily Trust on Sunday round the premises of the establishment situated along Jonah Jang Crescent in Makurdi, said that the reconstruction of 2-blocks of offices had passed 90 percent completion while the newspaper itself wears a new look.

The Voice was established in 1979 by the first civilian Governor of Benue State, the late Aper Aku and was officially commissioned in 1982 by then President Shehu Shagari. It was first called Nigerian Voice. The newspaper was then producing between 12, 000 to 14, 000 copies daily and circulated nationwide particularly in northern states. It was also running northern and southern editions. 

A former General Manager of the newspaper, Mr Ben Ebe recalled that the newspaper was well received nationwide at inception because of the caliber of editorial staff and content. He said it was like a market place of professionals.

Ebe said it was very vibrant and professional and the contributions of the staff was not restricted for the interest of Benue but that of Nigeria, particularly the north.

But the current General Manager told Daily Trust on Sunday that the newspaper presently produces 5, 000 copies weekly while plans have been concluded to commence production at least thrice in a week before the end of the year.

Phillips added: “Generally, the establishment has received a boost since I came on board. The newspaper itself has been repackaged. We get a lot of patronage now and sales highly impressive.

He said the newspaper is produced weekly because machines are waiting for the completion of the ongoing construction of the buildings to be installed.

The General Manager expressed confidence that, there would be a perfect change before the end of the year. “The construction should be completed soon and lots of activities would spring up. We will do commercial printing because of machines are the latest in technology with a capacity to do 45, 000 printing per hour.”

However, he noted that the online edition of the newspaper would commence by the end of this month as the staff whom he said were archaic and in the state of apathy have been trained to blend with modern journalism and trends in the media industry.

He said more hands were going to be required when the newspaper bounces back fully because the current staff strength of over 50 would not be enough to man the press, given the fact that those on ground are ageing and over the years, many retired or resigned.

A regular reader of the newspaper, Mr Denen Achussa, said there had been a significant improvement of the newspaper from what it used to be in terms of content and coverage. “The current outlook of the newspaper is good. The quality too has improved and I love most especially the back page comment,” Achussa opined.

Our correspondent also gathered that since inception, the buildings of the newspaper have never undergone any renovation or changes of its machineries which were earlier inherited from the defunct Benue-Plateau State.

It was further learnt that fortune almost smiled on the media house when the immediate past administration of Governor Gabriel Suswam in 2008 supplied BPPC materials worth N49million cutting across plates, newsprints, inks and stationeries and also awarded a contract worth almost N200million to do a total renovation and construction of the main building that houses the press, editorial, commercial, new GM’s office marketing and production as well as a contract to construct new administrative blocks for finance and administration.

The Suswam’s administration also acquired the digital web offset machine that would give full colour production with capacity of printing 23,000 copies per hour now awaiting installation. The idea was to make sure that The Voice is put back in the news stand daily and to circulate within the North-Central states, Lagos and Abuja.

Sadly, according to Daily Trust on Sunday findings, these efforts could not see the light of the day until the assumption of incumbent Governor Ortom who paid on the spot assessment visit to the media house in his first few days in office and began to give it needed attention.

The state Commissioner of Information and Orientation, Lawrence Onoja (jnr) told our correspondent that the resuscitation of the newspaper was among one of the government’s priority as his ministry is eager to grow the publication into a national daily.

Onoja said over N100 million had so far been released by the Ortom’s government for the reconstruction of the buildings and that his counterpart of the Ministry of Housing has just asked for another tranche of payment to be made available to the contractor for completion of the job.

“We wanted the building completed before end of this year. We had hoped that it should have been completed by now but due to financial constraints occasioned by the national recession. We want the place to start running as quickly as possible and the machines boxed and warehoused in the premises to be installed in good time. So we can start making money and increase the revenue base of the state,” the commissioner said.