My journey with Trust

...also published in Daily Trust

Though the emergence of the Daily Trust newspaper as the 2016 winner of the prestigious Nigeria Media Merit Awards (NNMA) is a remarkable milestone in its pursuit for unrivalled journalistic excellence, it isn’t unexpected. After all, since its establishment in 2001, its potential to grow more competitive at the national level was already quite evident, especially in view of the phenomenal popularity of its sister paper across northern Nigeria i.e. the Weekly Trust, which had been launched in 1998, albeit its title is now discarded in favour of the Daily Trust.

Also, though I am not in a position to shed light on the dynamics behind the Daily Trust ‘s attainment of this feat, yet, inasmuch as nothing good materializes in a vacuum, it’s obvious that its management and editorial team have conceived and pursued polices that enabled the paper to achieve its potential, earn and maintain this enviable level of credibility, which suggests that they are particularly committed to the ethical and professional values in journalism that also explains why the paper outdoes other major national dailies that had dominated the scene for decades in the past.

Groaning from afar

Also published in Daily Trust

In light of the elaborate myths woven around living abroad, there is a common, albeit erroneous, assumption among many home-based-Nigerians that their foreign-based countrymen living in some rich and efficiently managed countries are simply spared the “frustration” associated with being Nigerians.

This longstanding assumption further takes root as the country’s socio-economic crisis gets worse that explains why an increasing number of people subscribe to it as Nigerians go through, perhaps, the worst ever economic hardship in the country, which is rightly or wrongly nicknamed Buhariyya.

 President Buhari

Also, it’s quite easy to perceive this assumption particularly in conversations involving home-based-Nigerians and their foreign-based countrymen, where it’s often quite difficult for the latter to convince the former over the erroneousness of this assumption. After all, with the alarming rate at which poverty ravages lives and unleashes despair throughout the country, on the one hand, and the obvious disparity in the quality of life between Nigeria and elsewhere, on the other, one can understand why the largely poverty-stricken Nigerians cling to this assumption.