Covert Plans on to
Revive Concord Newspapers Underway
An unnamed former governor in Nigeria is reportedly making covert moves
to purchase the defunct private daily: Concord Newspapers Limited, he is
also reported to have commissioned a former employer of the Newspaper
and an ex-commissioner in Lagos to help recruit tested hands for the
proposed new look Concord Newspapers.
However, reports also have it that the
ex-governor’s plans are likely to meet with some resistance from
ex-staff of the defunct newspaper, mostly journalists, who are set to
play the spoiler except the new buyer is prepared to pay them their
outstanding remuneration before the media house closed shop.
Concord Newspapers Ltd, one of the privately-owned national newspaper
ceased to publish in 2001, years after, and as a result of the death of
its publisher, the late Chief M. K. O. Abiola, in detention in 1998.
The fear of the new buyer not paying the entitlements of former
employees of the medium has led some of them to inform the Lagos State
Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) about the development
and seek its assistance.
An ex-staff of the paper said: “We want the council to be kept abreast
of the development. Though we are already in court on the issue of our
entitlements and we are also aware that in civilized countries the new
buyer will buy both the assets and liabilities, this is Nigeria and
things do not work the way they work in other countries.
“We also want to remind the new buyer that as at the time the newspaper
closed shop seven years ago, it owed us 24 months salary.” |
