Daily Trust - the online edition

Alhaji Salihu Tanko Yakasai is former special adviser to the former president, Alhaji Shehu Aliyu Shagari and scribe to Arewa Consultative Forum. His views:   

Well, my assessment is that the company has succeeded where many people have tried and failed. But first and famous, I will like to congratulate the leadership of the company, directors and management as well as the entire staff of Media Trust Limited for sustaining the tempo of good journalism for the last 10 years. I would like to congratulate them on that achievement and also congratulate them on the fact that previously there were many attempts made here in the north to have newspapers that is privately-owned and credible that will command the respect of many Nigerians without success. 

However, the management of Media Trust Limited did not only set up a newspaper, that is respected and regarded as the authentic view of the North, but also for sustaining that position continuously for 10 years. It started around 1949 when the publishers of Daily Comet from Zik’s group of newspapers was transferred from Lagos to Kano state where the Daily Comet played a significant role in re-kindling the spirit of nationalism in the North and it had played a vital role in leading the North to catch up with the South politically, but unfortunately the paper died a natural death around 1966.  

Before then there were several attempts to establish a northern-based private newspaper such as The Daily Star, The Daily Mail, The Standard, The Democrat, The Reporter and many others and yet all of them eventually died. I therefore see the success of the Daily Trust publishers to sustain the tempo for the period of 10 years to be an achievement, and the management deserves to be given a pass mark and I hope the management will maintain the tempo for the good of all.

"Well, the news paper I mean Daily Trust and others are known to be sympathetic to the views of a particular political party that is the All Nigeria Peoples Party ANPP. Although there is nothing wrong in that, but I will advice this support should be restricted to the editorial commentary or column of the news paper, but when it comes to reporting, the news paper should be unbiased.

The company is entitled to its comment, but when it comes to reporting they should try as much as they could to be balanced and fair to all political parties. I think there is need for the editorial staff, the management of the news papers to double their efforts to see that political reporting is always balanced before going to the general public. In commentary, the company can say whatever they want. 

There is also another area, which I think the Media Trust needs to double its efforts. The leaders should always be encouraged by the company to do their utmost to improve the economic situation of the northern region. We are really backward and we are poor, the reason of our backwardness and poverty is lack of development in our agricultural sector.

We have more than 75% of the land mass of Nigeria and therefore agriculture is essentially a northern issue, but we are not receiving the desired support we supposed to receive from both federal and state governments for us to develop the sector.

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