When impossible becomes a daily routine miracle

The very day BusinessDay began, the words of our founding chairman, Pat Utomi, graced our front page. Today he returns, 25 years later, looking back to those early days.

Twenty six years ago, they said a daily business newspaper in Nigeria could not be sustained. Those who heard the idea of BusinessDay whispered, actually mocked the people who dared imagine this ‘pipe dream.’

My track to being put to this test of recall after 25 years started with my moonlighting. My day job had the title of Deputy Managing Director of Volkswagen of Nigeria. But my restless nature led to my moonlighting without pay as a weekly columnist for Vanguard Newspaper. My column, which appeared on Tuesdays, was titled ‘Thinking Aloud.’ To get some oxygen into my brain after a long day at the VWN factory on Badagry Highway, I often stopped over at the Vanguard offices on my way home to banter with the newsroom gang. Frank Aigbogun was a sharp young Editor at the Vanguard back then, and I enjoyed exploring issues with him. In those days, Editorial Chairs were like swivel chairs in a barber shop.

Editors came and left in quick succession. Aigbogun was soon to become former editor. When I asked what he planned to do with his life thereafter he told me about investing in a printing machine. He and his wife then invited me to serve as Chairman of the board of the printing company, Wordsmiths. I was pleased to accept but teased him about shortchanging the reach of his talent if he would spend the rest of his life printing call cards and calendars. From those jokes came the idea of a daily business newspaper. Most of those who first heard of the initiative said the idea was not sustainable, especially as the Business Times from the stable of publishing giant, Daily Times of Nigeria, was struggling as a weekly. I kept assuring Frank that when I got to the US for grad school in 1978, only a few businessmen read the Wall Street Journal, but the revolution of economic democracy through the stock markets made ordinary people keen to understand the political, economic and social trends affecting the value of their investments. I was sure that trend was around the corner. He had enough faith to believe me.

Iterations of the Business Confidential business model supported by CAN, struggled and sent signals that my optimism may have been overrated. We persisted anyway. Then came ‘external shocks.’ A content subscription with London’s FT had been a part of the Business Plan. But FT management had a challenge with contractual tardiness from a Nigerian newspaper and had decided it would not deal with Nigerian newspapers. I was on my way to London and promised a charm offensive to persuade the FT to overrule itself. I went to see Michael Holman, then Africa Editor of the Financial Times. We matched to the office of the Managing Editor, whom he persuaded that he knew us enough to vouch for us. FT reversed itself more elegantly than the Lokoja Judge that changed his judgement on the registration of NDC by INEC. Meetings on strategy to build BusinessDay to last were almost a daily tedium. This was garnished with a quest to find investors and to build content.

A good friend of mine, Mallam Bello Gwandu, would become one of the early investors, as did Maneesh Garg whose Board at Nagode Industries I also served as Chairman. I also decided to write a column in the newspaper in the hope that those who followed me in Vanguard, Guardian and Business Concord would cross over. If strategy as stretch was at the core of overcoming perceived obstacles in the start-up days, negotiating a private equity stake with Capital Alliance Nigeria was not a walk in the park. Looking back 25 years to when I juggled the roles of Chairman, columnist and motivator with being an LBS faculty member, producer and host of the TV talk show Patito’s Gang and a few other things suggests that commitment can move mountains.

But seeing how the newspaper, thought of as surely to die within a few years, has survived for 25 years and become part of Nigerian media legend, is to celebrate the triumph of the human spirit and entrepreneurship as quantum leaps in value creation.

Patrick Okedinachi Utomi, founding Chairman of BusinessDay, is a professor at the Lagos Business School.