Special Report: Steve Omanufeme’s untruth and deafening silence

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By Charles Okogene

Is there anything Mr. Steve Omanufeme, the newly appointed managing director of Independent Newspapers Limited (INL) knows about the mounting salary arrears the newspapers conglomerate is owing its staff members that he is afraid to tell journalists. Is he protecting his publisher and by extension his job?

ALSO READ: Ibori’s interference rocks Independent Newspapers Limited


This writer is worried by his recent attitude at resorting to telling us half truth whenever he is confronted with facts about goings on in the company or keeping silent when asked what the company is doing to offset the debt it is owing staff members especially, those who are dead even before he (Omanufeme) assumed office last year.
The latest in his silence, which is assuming the toga of ‘silent means consent,’ is a question posed to him through sms by this medium as to what his company is doing to pay the long list of some of the company’s former staff  members that died in active service.
Rather than respond to the message, which read,  “Good morning sir. I write for Newdawnngr. I like to know what plan the company has for some staff of the newspapers who died but were owed salaries. Is there any plan in place to pay their families their outstanding salaries and entitlements?,”
Omanufeme chose to ignore it. He took the path of ‘silence is the best answer for a f..l.’ However, we are no f..ls and will not give up until INL pays all it is owing its past and present workers to the last kobo like the Bible says. After all, a labourer deserves his wage! And till date, he has refused to say something about the injustice done to the dead,
Aside the silence, Omanufeme also  told us that he did not travel to Asaba, the capital of Delta State to supervise, the printing job the publisher of the newspapers, Chief James Onanefe Ibori, facilitated for the company from Delta State Ministry of Education (Basic) headed by Akatakpo Enyi1 of Okpanami Kingdom, Chief Patrick Ukah. The job was to print the questions and answers papers for JSS111 pupils in the state.
Omanufeme acting on the directives of Ibori, made the trip during the first phase of COVID-19 induced inter-state travel lock down by the Federal Government, thereby, putting his health, that of his loved ones, his staff members and others that come in contact with him regularly, in trouble.
Then INL was owing and still workers not less than 10 months’ in salary arrears and only managed to pay the one month, especially to those at the company’s press hall in Okpanam area of the state just one month the second since he became the MD.
 Again, when asked if he was stopped from paying salary with the little money the company had made after the award he (Omanufeme) took an IOU from a bank, name withheld,  to organise and which has become a yearly extra source of income aside sales copy and advert for the company, he said, “Where did you get that one from. I don’t know about that. It is not true.”’
Meanwhile our multiple sources both in Asaba and Lagos not only told us how Ibori asked him to use the money to make sure the Delta State job was delivered as and when due,  but how he travelled to Asaba, how long he stayed there and where he put up.
It is baffling that Omanufeme who as a fresh graduate straight from his Isoko ethnic nationality joined the the Daily Times in the 1990s  and was seconded as a business reporter to Timesweek, a publication of the then oldest newspaper and who enjoyed all privileges a staff of a company including regular and prompt payment of salary enjoys imbibed the culture of owing.
Though, he has worked in notorious salary owing newspapers like ThisDay, had a stint with Bussinessday when he left FirstBank Nigeria Limited before berthing at INL in the days of Mr. Ted Iwere. He joined INL in 2015/16 as deputy editor to Olisa Egbunike and eventually took over from Egbunike when he (Egbunike) left for the Daily Times in 2016.

As the editor, Omanufeme was vocal in asking for workers’ pay, a stance that pitched him against Iwere who eventually sacked him and made Don Okere, one of his deputies, the new editor. How and when Omanufeme became a yes man to the extent that he has now become a slave driver that does not want to pay workers’ is still a mystery to those who know him.

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