I am a regular reader of the Daily Trust. I have been with this paper since it made its debut some few years ago. Before I left the service last year, my organization had adopted the Daily Trust in preference to the New Nigerian in the placement of adve-rtisements. The quality, objectivity and credibility of the Daily Trust motivated me to insist on this laudable departmental policy, which met no resistance at all.
Of recent, I have observed with concern and dismay that you had wittingly or unwittingly allowed your paper to be used by some self-seeking faceless persons to turn the Daily Trust into malicious and unwarranted attacks on the person and office of Engr. A. A. Kure, Governor of Niger state. I have made clippings of such vicious disparaging of Engr. Kure for the record. The latest of such extracts was a publication by a so-called Yahaya Yaba Yusuf of 42 Amiza Street, Ekogya Close, Minna, Niger state. His letter appeared in your edition of Monday, October 25, 2004. For your information the words “Ekogya Close” which formed part of the above non-existent address, literally means “Bad Road Close” in the Nupe language. All addresses borne in the previous attacks on Engr. Kure which were carried by your paper manifested the same fiction.
Since you are not and cannot be expected to be experts on addresses for purposes of ascertaining their genuineness or otherwise, I think your paper has a moral and social responsibility to verify the truth or falsity of the numerous allegations being made by faceless writers against Engr. Kure in your newspaper. You are the practitioners and I am only a layman who cannot tutor you (or any body for that matter in the print media) on how to cross-check your facts before going to press as required by the principle of fair play. My initial perception of the long silence maintained by Engr. Kure in the face of running adverse write-ups carried by the Daily Trust to discredit him was that your paper was not worth being taken seriously. I would personally feel very sad if my favourite paper would be held in such a low esteem by a personality of the status of a state governor. This is precisely the moving spirit behind my addressing this letter to you but not to give a rejoinder to the letter of “Yahaya Yaba Yusuf”. Furthermore, my relationship with Engr. A. A. Kure is simply by accident of birth or history (or both), I happen to hail from Niger state of which Engr. Kure is today the governor. No more, no less. If not that Engr. Kure has only contempt for your esteemed paper, I believe that his relevant aides or officials ought to have reacted to some of the false and distasteful stories being featured in your paper from time to time. I would like to urge you to kindly reflect once on the import of a rejoinder by the respected elder statesman, Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi (Marafan Sokoto) which appeared in the Daily Trust a few days ago. Such publications have the potential of undermining the “reputational” credibility of your nascent but very promising paper.
Alhaji U. A Sadiq
NEXT.......
