Happy birthday to Blueprint and our publisher

I could not pen this piece for May 2, 2019 because I had been on the road, in the train and beyond the clouds before that date, the reason being that I was junketing between Kaduna and Kano axis on personal engagements.

It was in Kaduna that I got a message from my Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Alhaji Mohammed Idris, requesting me to be in Ilorin to attend the 3rd Annual Registry Lecture of the University of Ilorin, billed for Tuesday, April 30, 2019. He had been invited to the occasion as the Special Guest of Honour but owing to some unforeseen circumstances, he could not honour the invitation. So, he asked me to stand in for him. And I had just 48 hours to prepare for the trip to the land of Afonja.

I returned to Abuja by rail on Saturday, April 27. I had only a day’s rest and headed for Ilorin on the eve of the occasion. I was fortunate to get a booking with the Overland Airways, the only sure banker flight to Ilorin. It was my first time of patronising the airline. The propeller-driven aircraft first caught my attention a couple of years ago at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, during one of my trips to Lagos. Compared to other big jetliners at the airport, the Overland planes look like an AK 47 rifle in the face of a heavy machine gun.

I must confess here that I settled for the Overland aircraft because I had no choice. The last time I flew in a propeller plane was in the 70s. The Nigeria Airways Fokker Friendship aircraft was very popular in the fleet of the airline especially along the Jos-Lagos route. The planes had a way of landing awkwardly like a weather-beaten vulture descending to feast on carcass.

We took off from the airport at about 4.30 pm, with me sitting by the window. The plane lumbered to the runway and I watched how the propellers gathered speed as the plane prepared for a takeoff. Eventually it did and I began to gain confidence as I watched the earth thin away from my sight. Our ascending was as smooth as a jet-driven aircraft. Our flight lasted for about 55 minutes and the landing was very smooth for the medium-sized plane. The return trip was even smoother even though we spent an hour behind the clouds.

Every May 2 is significant in the life of Blueprint. It debuted on May 2, 2011 as a weekly tabloid to measure swords with forerunners like the Daily Trust, LEADERSHIP and People’s Daily, all domiciled in Abuja. May 2 is also the birthday of Alhaji Mohammed Idris, the founder of the paper. At 45, he did not consider himself “too young to run” a newspaper outfit, predominated by older publishers like Malam Kabiru Yusuf of the Daily Trust, Mr. Sam Nda Isaiah of the LEADERSHIP and Alhaji Wada Maida of the People’s Daily. Interestingly, Malam Yusuf and Alhaji Maida are from Katsina state, while Mr. Isaiah and Alhaji Idris are from Niger state. The latter has a maternal root in Katsina.

I was an external member of the LEADERSHIP Editorial Board when Alhaji Idris conceived the idea of setting up the Blueprint. Malam Ibrahim Sheme was the editor of the LEADERSHIP when Mr. Isaiah invited me to join the board in December, 2008. I had visited him in his office when I learnt that he was the son of my immediate boss on the sports desk of the New Nigerian Newspapers in Kaduna. I wanted to link up with his old man through him. By the time my visit ended, he pleaded with me to come on board. I had a plan to column for the Daily Trust. It was a day or so after committing myself to the LEADERSHIP that Mr. Theophilus Abah, the editor of the Sunday title of the Trust was asked to get in touch with me for discussion. But the Isaiah sentiments got the better part of me.

One afternoon in the month of February, 2011, Malam Sheme hinted me about the Blueprint and that he was going to edit the paper. Two months earlier, Mr. Isaiah invited me to Malam Sheme’s office with Mr. Aniebo Nwamu in attendance. The issue of making me the chairman of the paper’s editorial board was tabled. Declining the offer was not easy for me. One of my late uncles was the cause. He once told me that when you genuflect before a father and you find yourself having to genuflect before the son, then it is time for you to quit the scene. I was comfortable sitting on the board as a part-time member than working full time. It was on the editorial board that I met my old, cerebral buddy, Comrade Wole Olaoye. Wole now columns for the Daily Trust on Mondays.

Malam Sheme got me interested in Blueprint even though I wanted my spouse to pioneer for the paper because of her specialty in editing and penchant in catching errors. I turned in my application as editor-at-large with sports as my main focus. Before then, I was introduced to Alhaji Idris. From the picture Malam Sheme painted of him, I was expecting an encounter with a Godzilla. But the 45-year-old publisher turned out to be a medium built, likable young man, light-skinned, suave and articulate.

I was also introduced to Malam Salisu Umar, the pioneer Executive Director (Operations) who was excited to see me. Malam Umar was a course mate of one of my senior features writers in the Nigeria Standard Newspapers of Jos in the 80s. He was a regular visitor to the premises. We both shared a laugh when he told me that he used to admire me from afar whenever he came to visit his friend.

Eventually, the Blueprint did not only debut on May 2, 2011 as a weekly but also took the media space by storm. The design and editorial contents of the paper were professionally packaged in such a way that you would think the paper had existed for decades. Many newspaper houses in the country panicked because of the way it was breaking stories. Many of them were forced to race back to the drawing board to survive the tsunami that the Blueprint had become!

Owing to pressure from readers across the country, the management was forced to turn daily after just four months of weekly production. That decision in turn put a lot of financial pressure on the publisher who is the sole financier of the paper at a time the economy of the country was mired in the woods. He also turned down the requests from moneybags join the board for fear that the paper might be highjacked by people who might not share the same vision with him.

The paper was at its nadir between 2013 and 2015 but the resilience of the non-fair weather staff who refused to jump ship because they believed in the publisher, whose disposition towards them was unique compared to other high-handed media promoters around, kept the paper afloat. Some of the ship-jumpers soon returned to the fold in October, 2017 when the paper added a weekend title to its stable… a proof that we had bounced back!

The full story of Blueprint at eight cannot be told in this limited space. The modest successes recorded by the paper so far are attributable to Alhaji Idris’ doggedness and never-say-die spirit. I have worked closely with a handful of publishers and chief executive officers in my career as a journalist, becoming one in the 80s. But I find Alhaji Idris pleasant to work with. He is such a complete gentleman who cannot hurt a fly. But when provoked, he can go after the insect with an AK 47 rifle.

Happy birthday to Blueprint and happy birthday to our publisher at 53. Wishing him and the Blueprint family many happy returns of the day.

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