Ex-students gives voice to students through newspapering

24 year-old David Agu is a graduate of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, UNIZIK, Anambra State. He studied Law where he graduated with 3.3 grade point in 2013. He saw the need for a campus paper during his time as PRO of the student Union Government, SUG in 2012 and started a campus paper called The Giant.

Agu who says he never wanted to graduate with a first class but just wanted a good result has started another Campus paper called The Aluta last year after The Giant was banned in the university.

In an interview with MedMETRO, he talks to Medinat Kanabe about his old and new papers and a reality television show for Mass communication students that he is about to start.

What inspired you?

I have always wanted to make impact wherever I find myself. Wherever I am I look for something to do that will touch the lives of people. I was the Public Relations Officer, PRO from 2011-2012 in UNIZIK. Before I became the PRO there were things I saw that was going wrong and needed correction but I couldn’t do anything just like many students in Nigeria Universities.

Some students in most universities in Nigeria don’t have a voice and need someone or a tool to be their voice. Nobody is bold enough to voice out the issues they are facing. So I decided that being the PRO, I am the voice and needs to help the students so I decided that I must do something that will give the students the platform to let their voices be heard that was how a newspaper came to my mind before then there wasn’t anything like a newspaper in UNIZIK.

I introduced the first newspaper in the school called The Giant Newspaper in February 2012. The paper took care of information dissemination in the school because prior to that time rumour was all we had.

Another reason was to give the students a platform to air their voice especially on issues going on the school that is of concern to them. They had a platform to talk about things that were going wrong. They spoke against it and the management listened.

What happened to The Giant Newspaper?

After a while some toes felt they were being stepped on and the paper was eventually banned in the university because the management felt it was working against their interest.

Was that why you started The Aluta?

After it was banned, I decided to come up with my personal campus paper because the passion was still there. That was how I came up with The Aluta Newspaper. The paper was born out of a passion to create a change. Apart from that, I have always being interested in writing. I use writing to reduce stress and take my mind away from many things. Even other people who are like me will get a chance through the newspaper to express themselves.

Why Newspapers?

The culture of intimidation against students is an aged long thing in Nigerian Universities and one of the most powerful tool that masses can use to fight this is the media. If they have it they can cause damage to the powers that be.

The management will rather have the papers in their hands than in the hands of students so they prefer to have a bulletin that is published by the school’s director of information and circulated only within the staff administrative block and doesn’t get to the students. So, they try as much as possible to make sure that the students are not close to any platform that gives them a chance to voice out their issues.

When did you realise you have a calling for this?

From my secondary school day, I have always loved writing. I studied law because it is the mother of all profession. I also went for law because I have passion in the defence of human right. I went for law because I felt it will give me the legal backing fight for human right. My other passion which is writing too had to be given attention. I will do a short course in Mass communication or journalism later in future.

How did you get money to fund The Giant and Aluta papers?

When I wanted to start The Giant, because they didn’t want the paper to fly, the school didn’t fund it. The VC then, Prof Boniface Ebuka told me that the school didn’t have the funds to sponsor such a publication.

In order to make sure the paper stays, I told them not to worry that I would find a way. They actually thought the paper was dead on arrival but I reached out to people even in the office of the PRO of The institution so some people who actually have the welfare of the paper at heart helped by providing fund. All these with the help of God, the paper stayed.   

For the Aluta, since it is my own business as an entrepreneur, and as an entrepreneur I must know how to get money to fund my business, I am funding it myself. I have the gift of making people buy into my vision even the corporate organisations buy into my business so that is what has been happening.

How do you pay everyone that works with you?

When I was about starting the paper, I told myself that it wasn’t going to be easy and the gains will not come fast. I also know that making gains will not come unless I spend first and since this is a students’ paper I don’t have a choice but to sell it N50 each even though I print N100 each.

The reporters are volunteers. They are all students who have passion for writing and are from the mass communications department.

For the production, we reach out to people in the university community especially the business people and they advertise. They know that once they have their businesses in the paper, students and other people around the community will patronise them. The advert we get is enough to cover up for production. We also circulate to all universities in Anambra state and the universities communities.

So far...?

So far, the story is a good one even though we are not there yet because when I started this paper, I didn’t have only Anambra in mind but the country as a whole. So our focus is to get Nigerian campuses up and doing in terms of journalism because we have seen what other people are doing. With the success we have recorded in UNIZIK, if other universities subscribe to The Aluta, it will make our country a better place because they will have a place to make their voices heard and it is a daily paper.

What is unique about The Aluta

The media platform here isn’t giving them enough space to air their views and it education in many papers comes out once in a week and we have over 100 universities, polytechnics and other institutions in the country. Also just a few papers have Campus News pages which isn’t enough as a whole lot of things are happening in the university environment. A lot of corruption and many other good and bad things and because they are not given good coverage people don’t hear about them. This paper is dedicated to taking care of these campuses and we believe that with these, the campuses will be brought to the limelight and Nigeria will benefit more from it.

Where do you see The Aluta in five years?

I see it becoming a household name in the country because it will be causing a lot of controversies.

How balanced are your reports?

We try as much as possible to be balanced. Students are the most objective people you can find. They are not sentimental; they are not politicians so we try to be very objective. We have had leaders in the community giving us money to kill stories but we didn’t accept. I don’t know how they get to know that we are going to publish the stories but they come to us asking that we kill the story for a sum of money.

Journalism is risky, aren’t you afraid that you may become a target some day?

Death will eventually happen to everyone. It is even when you are scared of it that it happens to you. I personally have stepped on a lot of toes in the process of doing what I am doing. I believe now is not the time to be scared. Right now I am getting a lot of encouragements so I am not scared and if God have prepared you to do something, you must do it. I believe God has prepared me for this. I have also been experiencing goodwill from everyone, even the boys in campus that people are scared of have supported me and encouraged me to continue with what I am doing because they know that I am on the side of truth and they support truth.

What is your advice to young people who want to be entrepreneurs?

No matter what you want to do or become as a young person, the first thing you should do is sit back and think. Ask yourself if that is where your calling is or where you are gifted or else you will keep on struggling but when you are sure that this is your calling, you shall succeed in it.

How much richer have you become since you started this magazine?

I have become even poorer, I must say the truth. For more than a year that I have been doing journalism and publishing, I have not added anything to my pocket. I put all I make back into the business for it to grow. Every of my money even as a student my pocket money went into the business.

What are the challenges you faced when you started?

The first was the challenge of funding. Journalism is not a small budget project and because of deadline you must find a way to come up with the money fast so that we can print. The other challenge was the issue of stepping on toes but all of these things have fallen in place now. We have learnt to manage them.

Tell us about your reality Television Show?

In order to achieve our bigger focus which is to rejuvenate campus journalism, we are coming up with a very big project. It is a reality show called ‘Next Star Journalist.’ The idea is to bring together students of Mass communication departments or students that have passion for writing together from different parts of the country to compete in a contest. They can register on www.alutanews.com from this month. By the third week in November, we will start the auditioning. At the end of the competition, the ones that succeeded will go into the Aluta mansion where they will stay for three weeks undergoing training and putting their writing skill in practise. The winner at the end of the three weeks will go home with a car and fund to start up their own campus paper. The second and third place winner will also get funds to start up their campus paper.