In Nasarawa, local newspapers struggle to survive

Unlike the neighbouring Benue and Plateau states where publishing has become an all comers’ affairs – with every person who has the ability to shift paper and pen turning into a publisher – the business is yet to attract mushrooms in Nasarawa. Here, Mathew Kuju and Joel Ogapa, publishers of Eggon News, and The Thinker, […]

Unlike the neighbouring Benue and Plateau states where publishing has become an all comers’ affairs – with every person who has the ability to shift paper and pen turning into a publisher – the business is yet to attract mushrooms in Nasarawa. Here, Mathew Kuju and Joel Ogapa, publishers of Eggon News, and The Thinker, respectively, are holding sway, and have enjoyed monopoly for over a decade.

The two publisher, once reporters in their early days in journalism – have achieved fame in the business. They have sustained their local publications – monthly – and have maintained the frequency, keeping a tab on the local affairs of the people: politics, crime, festivals, farming, petty business, markets, hunting and rural gossip. They are on top of the affairs in the state, and have become like authorities such that daily newspapers and the broadcast media have often associate with them to get news clues.

The two have remained steadfast to professionalism, and have refused to rely on anniversaries like a governor’s birthday, Independence Day, or Democracy Day, to sell. They are on newsstands, competing for space with national dailies. They are well above junk, and have remained so from their first editions till date.

Kuju resigned from the Plateau State-owned National Standard in 1996, and joined Labaran Maku (Information Minister), then a reporter in Lagos, and tried his hands on national reporting before he resigned again and began publishing on April 1, 1999. He has been steady since then, except for a brief period when he missed some editions in pursuit of other businesses.

Ogapa worked as an information officer in the old Plateau State, but resigned to report as a journalist in 1985, from where he decided to try his hands on publishing. His first edition hit the newsstand in 2007.

The two gave their motivations, all sounding same: “My research showed that rural areas were not receiving attention. The so-called national media hardly gave them attention; but I discovered they have good news information, competitive with the urban centres. That motivated me to start up something. It worked. It sustained me because sales in the rural areas are excellent. They love to pick up a copy and read about happenings around them. I can’t imagine stopping publishing; the rural dwellers know when Eggon News comes out, and most of them have always kept a date with us”, Kuju said.

For Ogapa, the barrier between urban centres and rural areas was yawning. “So I decided to cash in. It worked perfectly. I have no regret that I resigned my job to start publishing. Sales are perfect. My readers compete in making purchases of The Thinker. They love reading news about themselves; their trading, farming, marriages, the crimes around them, the politics in their areas and so on.”

The two said sustaining publishing in an environment made highly competitive by national publications. “When you have Daily Trust and the rest on the newsstand, it is difficult for a local paper to make it”, said Kuju, adding “adverts hardly come; when they do, the advertisers hardly pay.”

Ogapa is experiencing same. “We get adverts from our readers; and who are they, if not the same Nigerians at the rural level, whose lives are daily witnessing neglect. How do they pay anyway, if not from their meager resources? The local government councils are the biggest advertisers, and they often complain of shortfall from their allocations.”

Kuju has four permanent reporters on his payroll, but still requires contributions from freelance reporters who get paid per story. Ogapa has none on his payroll but a chain of freelancers cutting across Nasarawa, Benue, Kogi, Plateau, Taraba and Abuja.