NUPPRO Holds Obaigbena ‘s THISDAY to Ransom over salary arrears

Emmanuel Thomas, Lagos

June 23, 2015 – THISDAY Newspapers, one of the most successful newspapers in Nigeria has been shut down temporarily by workers for unpaid salaries for a period of 9 months.

We gathered that the workers were aggrieved that the publisher, Mr. Nduka Obaigbena was not paying salaries and yet he was using proceeds from the newspapers to fund Arise Broadcasting Ltd., which is domiciled in the UK.

We gathered that those championing the strikes are junior staff, who are in charge of printing with the name NUPPRO.

THISDAY source told our reporter that the newspaper makes what is required to pay salaries for one year in the first quarter of every year and yet the newspaper leads others when it comes to owing worker’s salaries.

We gathered that Obaigbena who also floated THISDAY international in South Africa was forced to close shop after hiring some of the best hands in the media some from New York Times when he started owing salaries.

“He left South Africa shamefully but continued owning salaries in Nigeria, only recently he floated Arise Broadcasting in London. The television station is not making much money at present, so to prevent it from suffering the same feet that THISDAY international suffered in South Africa, he is now using the money made from THISDAY to fund the television station to our own peril because British laws do not permit any organisation to owe salaries”, a staff of THISDAY alleged.

Arise TV is a 24-hour news and entertainment channel brought to you by a diverse team of over 500 world-class journalists, and broadcasters.

The publisher is also alleged to have recently purchased a private jet and lives large like celebrities.

We gathered that management of this has just paid one month to the printers with promise to clear backlog by Friday just as NUPPRO has vowed to resume the strike if he fails to live up to his promise.

The payment we gathered was perhaps to enable management to print the newspaper. We gathered that three weeks ago, page planners embarked on strikes forcing Obaigbena to pay the page planners 3 month salary and promised to start paying editorial staff by Friday about three weeks ago. We gathered that nothing has happened as at the time of going to press.