A 33-year-old Nnamdi Azikiwe in his office as the founder editor of the West African Pilot newspaper, 1937.
Today we have 33 years old men who will cut off and sell their mother’s left breast to make money so they can pay a jobless person to do Oke Ite for them.
See, young Nnamdi Azikiwe wearing a shirt and bow tie, sitting at a desk holding a pen or stylus on a document; copy of West African pilot at one side.
Circa: 1940s
The West African Pilot was a newspaper launched in Nigeria by Nnamdi Azikiwe (“Zik”) on the 22nd of November, 1937, dedicated to fighting for independence from British colonial rule. It was known for introducing popular journalism within Nigeria.
The paper led the way for enterprising black journalism. The paper tied together the sport of soccer with social justice. Azikiwe’s paper used soccer to increase the growing unpopularity of colonization in Nigeria. The paper was extremely popular, and it had a circulation of around 25,000 and a lot more readers. This paper brought fought the start of popular journalism in Nigeria.
The West African Pilot gave birth to a chain of newspapers that were positioned as city newspapers in such places as Port Harcourt, Warri, Enugu, Ibadan, and Kano. All the titles were then owned by “Zik’s Press Limited”.
Titles included the Eastern Nigerian Guardian launched in 1940 in Port Harcourt, the Nigerian Spokesman in Onitsha (1943) and the Southern Defender in Warri, the “Sentinel” in Enugu.
The West African Pilot folded in 1967 following the outbreak of the Nigerian Civil War (1967-70). At the end of the war, there were two attempts to resuscitate the newspaper, both of which failed. The last attempt (1993) was promoted by a group of Azikiwe’s political and professional allies, including Chief Adeniran Ogunsanya, Chief Matthew Tawo Mbu, and Chief Duro Onabule who was then spokesman for military president Ibrahim Babangida. It was edited by Ogbuagu Anikwe but could not survive the skyrocketing printing materials costs after the country was embroiled in a violent election dispute over Chief MKO Abiola’s victory on the presidential elections of that year.
Source: Nigeriahistory
