Daily Trust - the online edition

The decision to do a special edition to mark our 10th anniversary came naturally and almost compellingly, for obvious reasons. A decade in the life of any organization is such a landmark event that it is hardly ignored. For us especially there is really something to cheer about. It marks a historical break from the past. A past characterized by newspaper failures, by disappointment and dejection.

However this is more than nostalgic reminiscences. It is the triumph of a people with a shared history of pride in their unity but, who unfortunately were unable to sustain a newspaper to tell their own story. This is the essence of the publication. Besides the recollections of our humble past, the profile of the Trust of today to show the marked distinction from the past is here presented by the Managing Director.

In a nutshell, this special publication from the Trust stable is a compendium of articles from the archives. As witnesses to history, we are today relieving the past with gusto. In this collection we have for you, our esteemed readers, headline news from Daily Trust, cover headlines from Weekly Trust, Sunday Trust and Aminiya. For those that missed an opportunity to read such juicy stories, when they were first published, here is a chance to read and refresh your memory.

Dreams, they say, are the seedlings of reality. It is also the reason why readers are given this opportunity to know how the seedling of Trust was planted. This package therefore includes interviews with pioneer executive directors and some pioneer staff.

This is a rare opportunity for readers to have a peep into the mindset of the people behind your favourite papers. First is the first editor, Editor-in Chief, Managing Director, Chief Executive Officer and now chairman, Kabiru A. Yusuf and first General Manager, Executive Director, and now Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer, Isiaq Ajibola. They spoke on how they conceptualized a paper from the scratch, without strong financial resources, and how they had to practically squeeze water out of stone to survive the unpredictability of the media market.

Others are first columnist and Magazine editor, Aisha Umar Yusuf, first production editor, (my humble self) Zainab Okino Suleiman, first accountant, Muhammad Rayyan, and first junior staff Ismaila Tanko; all of who relieved their sweet (and and not so sweet), memories of the past in form of write ups or interviews.

In her own interview, Aisha Umar Yusuf talked on the gender challenge of a working journalist and what the management could do to retain the loyalty and commitment of its pioneer staff. Aisha for the first time revealed how she contributed to the coinage of the newspaper name, TRUST. She also spoke on her popular and reality- based fictionalised romance series, Al-Bint.

Rayyan was his usual hilarious and blunt self. Bringing to bear, his meticulous accounting antecedents, he was able to retrieve from his picture collection, a portrait of the chairman and himself during the first launch of the paper 10 years ago.

This package is further enriched by the comments and contributions of readers such as Malam Turi Muhammadu, Dr. Lateef Adegbite, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and Vicar-General Mathew Hassan Kukah. At our 5th Trust Annual Dialogue held on January 17, 2008, our research department issued out a set of questionnaire on our activities, to participants, among whom were past heads of states, ex and serving governors, ministers, senators, reps, ordinary Nigerians and the business community. Suleiman Mohammed dissected their responses and their verdict is hereby presented. There is also our internet-based assessment which readers also impressively responded to.

It is a 32- page pull-out spiced up with a good dose of colour pages. The interviews and write ups are sandwiched between top stories that made headlines in the past; beginning with the Weekly Trust and followed in that order by Daily Trust, Sunday Trust and Aminiya. It’s what you can safely call a collector’s item.

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