It is celebration galore as PUNCH Nigeria Limited, publishers of the most widely read The PUNCH, Saturday PUNCH, Sunday PUNCH and PUNCH Online clocks 50.
The firm clocked 50 on March 18, 2023, but the celebration was moved to this year because 2023 was an election year in the country.
On Saturday, the celebration started with a colourful novelty football match held at the Mobolaji Johnson Arena (formerly Onikan Stadium), Onikan, Lagos Island. It was fun as we turned out in PUNCH’s traditional red and white to watch the match and cheer our team, PUNCHERS FC.
Our opponent in the match was the Media Amalgamated FC which was populated by our colleagues from The Nation, ThisDay, Leadership, The Guardian, Telegraph, Business Day, and Tribune.
The attempt by the Media Amalgamated FC to spoil our show with their slim 2-1 win did not succeed. We took the outcome of the match in its stride, and we moved on.
As you read this, a three-day photo exhibition would have kicked off at the Alliance Francaise de Lagos/Mike Adenuga Centre, Osborne Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, to afford our readers and other Nigerians opportunities to view the best photographs from our extensive pictorial archive of the biggest news events in the nation’s history.
On Thursday, a distinguished public lecture will be held at the Civic Centre, Ozumba Mbadiwe Road, Victoria Island, Lagos. The lecture, to be delivered by the Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, will be graced by leaders from the public and private sectors.
On Saturday, March 2, 2024, at Eko Hotels and Suites in Lagos, PUNCH will host a black-tie dinner to acknowledge the contributions of its stakeholders to its success.
The anniversary’s grand finale is a staff party on March 9 at which current and former staff will be feted for their contributions to PUNCH’s successes.
I am one of those looking forward to this party, having contributed 23 years out of the 50 years of the firm’s existence. I joined the company in February 2001. It is worth celebrating and we are going to party hard just as we have been working hard.
I started my journalism career in PUNCH from scratch. I started from what was known then as the communication desk where one was saddled with taking stories from reporters outside the head office via fax machine. That experience was different from what is obtainable now that stories are sent via email or even WhatsApp as the case may be. It was an era when reporters, having written their stories in long hands, would go and queue possibly at the defunct Nigerian Telecommunications Limited office closest to them to send their stories to the head office. They would call in through the office landline and demand a fax tone. Let me stop here before I begin to sound like an old man that I am not.
From the communication desk, I moved to the field. I covered different beats such as crime/police, general beat, and religion, among others, before I was transferred outside the head office. That missionary journey started with me becoming the Oyo State correspondent from where I was transferred to Abuja to cover the Presidential Villa. After the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari expelled me from the Presidential Villa for doing my job (a story for another day), I have since returned to the head office.
Last year, former staff members of PUNCH Newspapers unveiled a book titled “OUR PUNCH YEARS,” said to be the “reminiscences and insider accounts by former editors and staff of Nigeria’s most widely read newspaper at 50.” The over 400-page book was written by 38 ex-PUNCHERS who gave accounts of their memorable experiences while working at The PUNCH. I have a copy of the book. I worked with or under many of those who contributed to that book, so, I could relate well with some of their accounts.
I also have a lot of fond memories of my over two decades stay at PUNCH where many believe that there is no job security.
There was a case that happened when I was still PUNCH’s Oyo State correspondent that I keep remembering. It was an encounter I had with the then-chairman of the company, Chief Ajibola Ogunshola.
I was on my way to the headquarters of the Oyo State Police Command in Eleyele, Ibadan for a press conference when my phone rang and the caller introduced himself as “Chief Ogunshola, PUNCH chairman.” Before then, I had never had any personal encounter with Chief Ogunshola beyond seeing him once in a while in the office. The first thing that came to my mind after his self-introduction was that one of my colleagues must have made the call to prank me. So, my first instinct was to prove to the person that I didn’t fall for his prank.
I had the opportunity to make this point when Chief Ogunshola said he called because he had an assignment for me. It was at that point that I responded with confidence, “But you said you are PUNCH’s chairman. In that case, you can pass the assignment you have for me through my editor.”
I guess Chief Ogunshola realised that I genuinely was not convinced that he was the one on the telephone with me. He took his time to explain the steps he had taken to reach my editor and how he got my telephone number. At that point, I realised that the highly revered Chief Ogunshola was the one talking to me truly. I felt sweat all over me like somebody just coming out from a swimming pool. I apologised to him. Surprisingly, he was not angry. His response in his soft voice was “No, you have not done anything wrong.” He said anybody could have called to claim he was Chief Ogunshola.
Chief Ogunshola was meant to deliver a lecture in Ibadan then and he needed to confirm particular information that he wanted to include in his speech. He gave me the task of confirming the information. He dictated his email address to me and gave me a three-day deadline to send the message to him. I ensured that I carried out that assignment that same day!
At the end of our conversation, I called my bosses in the head office to report myself. They all laughed at me, but all concluded that I had nothing to worry about.
The day Chief Ogunshola came to deliver the lecture in Ibadan, one of the PUNCH’s directors then, the late Dr Lalekan Are, held my hand, took me to where Chief Ogunshola was seated and introduced me (a reporter) to him as “PUNCH editor in Ibadan.”
Dr Are was like that. He introduced me in that same way to many influential persons including the late Senator Abiola Ajimobi, the then governor of Oyo State. I had a fantastic relationship with him. May his soul continue to rest in peace.
So, for PUNCH, it is celebration time. This is a toast to another 50 years!
