Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of ThisDay, Nduka Obaigbena is currently owing his staff five months salaries.
The workers are currently groaning over non-payment of salaries and have been lamenting that despite working so hard for the company that is making huge money, they had not been paid since August, 2022.
Sources said the money generated by ThisDay was being used to pay Arise TV workers, who earn bogus pay while even the peanuts being paid ThisDay workers were still being owed.
They accused their employer of being notorious in owing salaries of workers, saying that he just trying to pay two months out of the five months he is owing.
Obaigbena is used to owing workers salaries for months and later pay them in bits. This has been happening for over a decade.
It was gathered that the publisher has not been paying the contributory pensions scheme of the workers since 2009.
The publisher has been in the eyes of the storm in recent time, accused of using his Arise TV to hunt down political opponents, especially the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
He has been accused of trying to cow the APC presidential candidate and his media team to submission, but they have fought back and opened cans of worms.
the Boards of Editors of THISDAY and The ARISE News Channel had on Monday accused the Presidential Campaign Council of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of demanding the sack of its journalists over “unfavourable reportage”.
The boards, in a joint editorial published in the December 12 edition of THISDAY newspaper, accused the PCC Special Adviser on Media and Strategic Communication, Dele Alake, and Director of Media and Publicity, Bayo Onanuga, of instigating the sack of Arise TV broadcaster, Rufai Oseni, and columnist, Shaka Momodu of THISDAY.
But the APC Media and Communication Directorate of the PCC, in a statement on Monday said it is laughably tragic that Obaigbena, has the temerity to pretend to be a guardian of public morality in contemporary Nigerian media practice.
The statement issued and signed by Dele Alake and Bayo Onanuga on behalf of the APC Media and Communication Directorate, stated that hiding under his media houses so-called Boards of Editors, Obaigbena, who is one of the most irresponsible media owners in the country, with scant regard for corporate good governance and ethics, issued a statement Monday accusing the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) Director of Media and Publicity, Onanuga, and Adviser, Media and Communication, Alake of attempting to silence independent media and bully the press ahead of next year’s general election.
“This allegation is baseless. The statement published on the front page of THISDAY is illustrative of the penchant of the two media houses under Obaigbena’s corrupting influence to peddle falsehood and engage in brazen political partisanship, contrary to the ethics of journalism practice.
“It is instructive that Obaigbena’s media group is isolated in making this frivolous allegation against the duo. Not only does THISDAY newspaper publish unfounded rumours masquerading as truth, many of its columnists substitute vile and vulgar abuse for sound logic and informed analyses while its television anchors heckle and harass their guests, particularly those of the APC in their jaundiced, flagrantly unprofessional programmes.
“We recall that both THISDAY and ARISE Television sought to bully and compel the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, into attending its Town Hall meetings with presidential candidates, despite the media team’s explanation that it would not attend such programmes organised in a haphazard and uncoordinated manner by individual media houses.
“Each candidate’s campaign team has the right to adopt its own strategies for reaching out to and interacting with Nigerians. As we have repeatedly said, the Tinubu campaign will not succumb to the blackmail, intimidation and harassment of Obaigbena and his media group,” it said.
