Story: Daily Times Newspaper

The Daily Times previously known as Nigeria Printing and Publishing Company, is a print and online newspaper with its headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria. The Daily Times was incorporated on 6th June, 1925 by Adeyemo Alakija, Osbourne and Richard Barrow and others, and has since grown to become one of Africa’s renowned and successful newspaper organization.  At the earliest stage of its operation and business, Adeyemo Alakija, an African Barrister became the Chairman of the Board while Ernest Ikoli was the first editor of Daily Times. On the 1st of June 1926, the first copy of the Daily Times was published as The Nigerian Dailytimes.  The Daily Times has published a wide range of news report on topics such as politics, entertainment, business, sports, among others.

On 1st September 1975, The Federal Government of Nigeria took over the corporation and its main rival, the New Nigerian Newspaper with a 60% stake in both corporation. The take -over by The Federal Government of Nigeria was intended to deflect criticism aimed at the Military government. As the controlling shareholders, the Nigerian government in March 1976, drove existing members of the corporation out of their position and installed a new management team to oversee the company.  Unfortunately, the government’s control resulted in the newspaper’s demise, as hundreds of the Daily Times employees went on indefinite strike for several months over unpaid salaries

In 2003, under the civilian administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo, the Daily Times was bided out but no tangible response was received. Through the Bureau of Public Enterprises, in 2004, attempts was made by listing the company for private ownership. Offers were rigorously scrutinized and the whole process was televised nationally for transparency reasons and Folio Communications Limited emerged as the winner of the bid gaining control of 96.5% of the Daily Times shares.   

Folio Communications paid it’s bided offer of ₦1.25 billion to the government on the 16th of June 2004 while assuming office of the Daily Times of Nigeria Plc on September 3, 2004 in an handing over ceremony aired nationally. However, Folio Communications faced numerous challenges while the Daily Times Nigeria was worth 2billion asset, it had over ₦1.5 billion worth of liabilities which led to the closure of the company in 2007. 

In December 2014, the Daily Times resumed and efforts is been made towards returning viable titles, majorly the Weekend Times, Sunday Times and Lagos Weekend, to the Nigerian audience.

                                      Objective of Daily Times Nigeria  

1. Working towards becoming Africa’s most preferred and reliable information provider.
2. Have an exceptional portfolio of media assets.
3. Attaining measurable growth in the media world.
4. Dissemination of information across multiple delivery platforms.

                              Achievement of Daily Times Nigeria  

Since its inception in 1925, the Daily Times has made impact in numerous ways:

1. The Daily Times in 1957 was the first to sponsor Beauty Pageant in Nigeria and run it for a number of years without competition. The Beauty Pageant brought Rosemary Anieze, Nigeria’s most renowned beauty queens into limelight as Anieze was named Miss Nigeria in 1960.
2. The Daily Times launched a magazine called Modern Woman and the Flamingo
3. In 1975, the Daily Times printed over 275, copies and no other newspaper in Nigeria has attained such height apart from Daily Concord of the 1990s own by MkO Abiola.
4. The Daily Times played a vital role in the process that led to Nigerian independence.
5. The Daily Times archive and library is the largest collection of journalism materials in south of Sahara, Africa. In 2012, digitization of this journalism archive began.