In your twentieth anniversary version dated Saturday, October 5, 2024 (web page 14), by which I featured with my account of my pioneering work there, a former Editor of LEADERSHIP WEEKEND, Mr. Musa Simon Reef, misquoted me. He wrote: “The choice to begin every day manufacturing of the newspaper was not with out penalties, because the then editor of the weekly version resigned, insisting he wouldn’t spearhead a every day newspaper that was doomed to fail.”
This remark was a shock to me as a result of there was nowhere that I ever stated I resigned from the corporate as a result of I didn’t wish to “spearhead a every day newspaper that was doomed to fail”.
Within the first place, Musa was not even working there when the choice was made and, although I interacted with him carefully in later years, he by no means interviewed me on why I resigned from LEADERSHIP in December 2005. As I’ve all the time stated throughout the years, LEADERSHIP was an amazing startup that gave its opponents a run for his or her cash. It by no means appeared doomed to fail. In reality, it had quite a bit going for it to succeed as a every day.
Additionally, as I said in my write-up on your anniversary version, I used to be the one who crafted all of the pages of the every day earlier than I left. If I felt that it will fail, why ought to I do this?
My resignation had nothing to do with the Chairman/Editor-in-Chief, Mr Sam Nda-Isaiah’s resolution to start out every day manufacturing. My resolution predated his personal. I resigned solely as a result of Garba Deen Muhammad, the then Editor of the Weekly Belief, and I had determined to drift our personal newspaper, which we finally did in Kaduna. It was known as The Companion. We noticed a possibility at the moment to start out the newspaper, however the undertaking didn’t fly as deliberate as a consequence of some circumstances.
I returned to LEADERSHIP in early 2007 after one yr of absence, first because the chairman of the Editorial Board for some weeks after which because the editor of the every day, the place I served the longest time within the historical past of the corporate to this point.
Now, Musa is a level-headed gentleman not recognized for such indiscretions. I’ve since contacted him over his quip and he has apologised to me, saying he had heard that unsuitable bit about my resignation from one other editor, who’s now late. And that was anyone I neither met nor labored with, so he was not competent to say why I resigned.
I’m solely penning this in order that you possibly can avail me the house to place it on the report since you are documenting an amazing historical past.
Yours faithfully,
– Ibrahim Sheme Abuja
