In the early hours of Saturday, August 28, 2021, various social media had news item purported to have been published by This Day edition of Friday, August 27, 2021. The title of that lead story was “Shocking: Uzodinma declares Free Marriage between Fulani settlers and Imo Ladies” whereas the original headline was “Buhari Elated as NNPC Breaks Jinx, Declares N287bn Profit, First in 44 Years”. Checks by AbingMO3 Marketing Management Consultancy revealed that the digital edition was clonned. ThisDay is not even the market leader in Imo State although it circulates an average of 100 copies per day with less than 50 per cent sales.
Clonning of newspapers has been with us for the time past and may not leave so soon. Specifically, Tempo magazine was clonned during the brutal regime of the late goggled army general, Sanni Abacha. Based on serieal violation of human rights that characterised the regime which the management of The News magazine kicked against, the magazine was proscribed. The News magazine management ably led by Bayo Onanuga, Kunle Ajibade, Femi Ojudu and others embarked on guerilla journalism and this led to the birth of a tabloid newspape named The Tempo magazine
The government of the day was not comfortable with the “continuous scrutiny” of its policies; agents of the state used a government facility in Ikeja area of Lagos state to clone the magazine and offered same into the market thereby having two different publications of the same magazine on the newsstands. One of those who played a prominent role in the “clonning exercise” is now a lawmaker in one of the state house of assemblies in the South West hence the earlier submission that “newspaper’s clonning” may linger for a while.
Expectedly, this generated a lot of tension and it aggravated the already tensed situation in the country occasioned by killings suspected to be orchestrated by the Fulani herdsmen. In order to douse the tension, Imo State Government and management of This Day newspapers issued statements almost simultaneously.
Oguwike Nwachuku, Chief Press Secretary/Media Adviser to Governor issued a Press Release on August 28, 2021. It was titled: Cloned THISDAY publication on Uzodimma hand work of desperate elements.
The content was: Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State has nothing to do with the purported report on a cloned publication of THISDAY of Friday, August 27, 2021 with headline: Shocking: Uzodimma Declares Free Marriage Between Fulani Settlers and Imo Ladies ….Promises to pay bride price for herders who choose to marry Imo ladies… Imposes N1m fine to any father who refuses to give consent.
The originators of the fake publication has two things in mind: to tarnish the image of the Governor and to destroy the credibility of THISDAY as a brand.
The ill conceived publication shows how desperate individuals and groups can get in trying to destroy the society, thinking that Governor Uzodimma is the issue.
For the avoidance of doubt, the real headline of THISDAY the same Friday, August 27 reads : Buhari Elated as NNPC Breaks Jinx, Declares N287bn Profit First In 44 Years.
It is pertinent to note that THISDAY management confirmed that the publication was cloned and we are confident that they will not allow their hard earned brand and efforts of many years to be basdardised by criminal minded fellows.
Governor Uzodimma is conscious of the efforts being made by some individuals and groups to tarnish his image and discredit his government but will not be deterred in his determination to provide good governance to the good people of Imo State.
He is mindful of the enormity of work to do in Imo State after many years of neglect of critical infrastructure due to poor governance and will stop at nothing to change the narrative for good in the interest of the people.
He concluded by advising the public to disregard the cloned publication as coming from depraved minds and enemies of the people and the society.
On the same day, the management of This Day newspapers also issued a press statement. It was signed by Eniola Bello, the Managing Director of the media outfit. The title was: Fake Digital Edition of THISDAY Friday, 27 August 2021 in Circulation on Social Media.
He wrote further: the attention of the Management of THISDAY has been drawn to a fake version of our digital edition making the rounds on some social media platforms.
With the headline: “Shocking: Uzodinma declares Free Marriage Between Fulani Settlers and Imo Ladies”, this fake version of our digital edition is being circulated on WhatsApp, Facebook and other social media platforms.
We wish to state that THISDAY at no time published the said story. Our lead story on Friday, August 27 was, “Buhari Elated as NNPC Breaks Jinx, Declares N287bn Profit, First in 44 Years”.
Sadly, these merchants of fake news have chosen to leverage on the credibility and integrity of THISDAY to ply their trade.
We completely reject this poor attempt by some unscrupulous people at impersonating our brand and identity in pursuit of whatever agenda they may have, by seeking to disseminate fake news to members of the public as emanating from THISDAY.
For the avoidance of doubt, readers can easily verify our Friday publication from the print edition, or online (www.thisdaylive.com). We therefore call on members of the public who may have unwittingly fell for the cloned digital copy to disregard it and treat it with the utmost contempt it deserves.
He concluded: we also use this opportunity to call on security agencies to help unmask the counterfeiters behind this forgery and bring them to book.
Almost two months after the act, culprits are yet to be identified. It is the view of this writer that the management of This Day newspapers should be more interested in identifying the brains behind the cloned publication having known that what the company does is an integrated set of functions that are designed to price, promote and place its want-satisfying newspaper at the disposal of ths readers, at a profit.
Getting to the root of the matter in record’s time shouldn’t be a rocket science especially when there are technological devices that can expose the culprit who first posted the cloned newspaper on the internet. The management has indirectly under estimated the impulse of “risk bearing” in managing an enterprise. Room has therefore been given to speculations. A correct analysis of risk anticipation always results in profit while a bad anticipation would only result in loss. This incident is enough to cause disequilibrium in the company’s system.
It is a statement of fact that This Day newspaper is popular & respected, and most sought after by politicians and business moguls because of its in depth analysis of both political and economic developments in the country. This is why the management should be concerned about who are bent on damaging its hard earned brand reputation as this is capable of influencing negatively, the perception of the newspaper in the readers’ minds. Nevertheless, the publisher needs to maintain devices for knowing how its newspaper is performing in the market at a time like this as to device means of improving it from time to time
Conclusively, media managers should ensure scanning of public or target market opinion by collecting vital boundary information, interpreting it, processing it and then making appropriate and timely adaptive responses.
……………… Ayankunbi is MD/CEO at AbingMO3 Marketing Management Consultancy
0802 305 1315
abiolaayankunbi@yahoo.com
