I’m ready to defend Daily Times with my life – Anosike
…I lost everything during DTN’s property destruction by Sen Obiora – Patrick Oke
The Chairman of Folio Media Group (FMG), publisher of The Daily Times, Mr. Fidelis Anosike, has said that he is ready to use everything at his disposal to defend The Daily Times and ensure that the heritage newspaper is on the newsstand everyday.
Anosike said that despite the charade and attempts by some individuals to truncate the publishing of the newspaper and run it out of business for the sole purpose of stripping its assets, he is ready to put his life on the line to not only to ensure that they fail, but to ensure that the DTN remains a success story.
Speaking to journalists at the premises of the newspaper house in Ikeja-Lagos on Monday when he briefed the media on the recent invasion of the DTN premises and large scale vandalisation and destruction of the company properties by agents of former lawmaker, Senator Ikechukwu Obiora and Chairman of DSTV, Mr. Adewunmi Ogunsanya, among others, Anosike insisted that no amount of intimidation will make him relinquish the ownership of the company which his company rightly acquired from the Federal Government to anyone.
He said: “Nobody is above the law. If I can go to prison, anybody can go to prison. I am ready to die for The Daily Times to be alive, it doesn’t matter, so nobody is going to scare me, The Daily Times will continue publishing.”
This is even as veteran journalist and broadcaster, Mr. Patrick Oke, who is the company’s tenant at its 13 Cooper Road, Ikoyi, that was completely destroyed by Obiora and his hoodlums, said he has lost everything that he ever worked for all his life.
According to Anosike, “Daily Times was sold wholly to Folio Communications Ltd. It was not a consortium sale, but somewhere along the line, some of these people came and they wanted to buy some of the properties that Daily Times had and we agreed to sell one or two of the properties to them and they gave us cheques and some of the cheques bounced and we are currently in court with them over dud cheques.
“But, the current issues we are facing now is that Daily Times had an invasion with a purported Magistrates’ Court order. That also tells us how Nigeria is and how dangerous doing business in Nigeria is. Imagine a situation where a publisher like me is taken to a police station and the next day he is bundled to a magistrates’ court in Mpape, an outskirt of Abuja and the next day, I found myself in prison, what will you do? But, I had to follow the due process to come out.
“More importantly is that a certain DIG (Deputy Inspector General of Police), Hyacinth Dagala obviously colluded with these people and did what they did. It was a well orchestrated subterfuge well funded by the DSTV chairman, Mr. Adewunmi Ogunsanya. He was the one that funded it.”
Showing the team of journalist round the premises, Anosike showed them a heap of disconnected air conditioners that the invaders attempted to cart away before they were stopped. He also showed them the several television stands from where televisions sets were removed including computers, and a 100 KVA generating set.
He alleged that the DSTV boss was “a property magnate and this is what he does. He sees where there is conflict, he moves in there, provides the weaker party or so to speak money and in this case he gave them N700million to prosecute this because he targeted Daily Times properties. But, what I am trying to do here now is to do my best to let Nigerians understand what happened. We have it under control, so to speak. We hope to show you the people who call themselves Senior Advocates and lawyers of standing, what they can do in the name of the law, so that everybody understands and the young people understand how difficult it is to do business in Nigeria.
“We have been trying to turn around this company. I think we have been doing a good job of it, the paper is on the street every single day in the last five years, but all they are targeting is the assets. The Daily Times have had many people who have died working there, so many journalists have not been paid over time, so what if the assets go, what happens to them?
“In a company you have assets and liabilities, that is what makes up the enterprise value of a company, but you see people sitting down waiting using the magistrates’ courts. This is a case where the Court of Appeal has said they have no locus in the matter, because there is a final out of court settlement in all issues regarding Daily Times in 2006 and entered as a court judgement. So this is really very scary, but it is our country, that is the situation we found ourselves. But we are not going to rest as there are people that call themselves money bags and politicians in disguise, they sit down and do all sorts of things”.
He however expressed joy that the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr. Ibrahim Idris, has taken serious action on the matter.
He said: “I am very happy to report that the IGP rose to the occasion and has handed the case over to his monitoring team. This same mastermind of all, this Senator Ikechwuku Obiorah has eight riot policemen in his house, and when we went to arrest him, he ran away and all his policemen were taken back to the station. They are on his trail and I am sure by now they would have formaly invited him. The same thing with the DSTV boss Ogunsanya. Nobody is above the law, you can’t take the laws into your hands. If you have a court order, you enter a premises, you take inventory of what is there, but I will take you around so that you will see what these guys did here.
“It is amazing. For me, I believe it is something that should make all Nigerians rise up to the occasion to say enough is enough, because that is why we are in a country where with so much resources, so much good people, we are still not moving forward, because this kind of thing is allowed to happen. With 300,000 policemen policing 180 million people, but one person has eight policemen to himself in one house. So you can imagine that, why won’t he take the laws into his hands?
“When they came in, they carted away all our computers, Ikechukwu Obiora and his procured policemen. They came into this premises last week, they took over this premises, chased all the workers away, took all the computers, took money, broke down the entire place, all in a bid to invade and take over this place.
“He took the case to court on January 15, 2018, it was not even a court order. He claimed that he is Daily Times, then sued another of his company and said The Daily Times is owing his other company N2 million and that there is a consent judgement between The Daily Times and his other company and that for the N2 million they have agreed to give up all The Daily Times assets in excess of N9 billion. It was based on that that he moved in, it was not even an order.”
Anosike also took the journalists to see the company’s property at 13 Cooper Road Ikoyi Lagos occupied by veteran journalist and broadcaster, Mr. Patrick Oke, which was completely brought down.
Speaking on his arrest, Anosike said: “When we got to court, they said they have first information report about we stealing Daily Times money, that we are not Daily Times, but they are Daily Times and the prosecutor also said the investigation is still ongoing, so they just wanted a remand order, but I am also happy that it happened because for me, I will fight for The Daily Times with my life. I have spent 14 years of my life trying to make sure the heritage newspaper works.
“There is no partner in The Daily Times. The Daily Times was bought by Folio Communications. It is only The Daily Times that can give anybody shares. It was only Daily Times that entered into out of court settlement in 2006 when the Hallmark Bank people tried to take over Daily Times. There was a comprehensive out of court settlement including a company called DSV that we also borrowed money from. Everything was filed in court. That was why he was going around procuring orders. By the time we went to Appeal Court, the Appeal Court analysed it and said you have no locus, go and try the case of locus from the lower court up to the Appeal Court, it is only when your locus is established at the Supreme Court that you can even begin to talk about Daily Times because it is a closed issue, but we all can’t continue to complain because we are all members of this community, we know what goes on.”
On the DSTV boss, he said: “We have done a formal petition to the President, the Senate President, the Speaker, the IGP and the IGP has ordered a full investigation. We have petitioned the Senate Committee on Police Affairs because of DIG Hyacinth Dagala, the mastermind, the DSTV boss is the person that funded it in exchange of getting the properties. It is just like terrorism, somebody funds it and somebody gets something in return.
“Nobody is above the law. If I can go to prison, anybody can go to prison. I am ready to die for Daily Times to be alive, it doesn’t matter, so nobody is going to scare me. Daily Times will continue publishing. What we are going to do is that we are going to call the credible creditors of The Daily Times to take over Daily Times assets so that it is not dissipated, because most of the tenants have lost several millions and they may sue The Daily Times, not another person. They will sue Fidelis Anosike and at the end of the day, the liability mounts and the assets becomes worthless and money is lost and the money for the journalists is lost.”
