It said damage to its printing machines in Abuja made it difficult to print there, while it also has to make repayment of loans used to purchase the said printing machines. Nonetheless, it said it was poised to start the payment of the salary arrears shortly.

For Obaigbena who is currently the President of The Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria, NPAN, the recent staff protest could not have been more embarrassing. The issue of unpaid salaries by media house is a key issue that has been put forward by stakeholders and was expected to be addressed NPAN. The Union of Nigerian Journalists,NUJ had also warned that it would begin to picket media houses that are used to owing accumulated staff salaries.The NUJ move was supported the Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC.

Some say, ThisDay has had it coming for a long time, saying that it has a bad record of being a chronic non-payer of staff salaries. ThisDay publisher, Nduka Obaigbena is notorious for not wanting to pay staff salaries. It has been like that for years. Even when the company is making a lot of money, he still doesn’t want to pay his staff,” says one industry insider who does not want to be named.

“That ThisDay has not been meeting its obligations to staff is an open secret in the industry,” says one journalist. But until now, ThisDay’s little secret had not been blown open to the Nigerian public .The recent protest achieved that.

 What is the Nigerian public’s reaction to the statement from ThisDay’s management giving reasons why it has not been paying staff salaries?

Many in the industry lay the blame at the doorstep of ThisDay Chairman, publisher and chief motivator, Nduka Obaigbena. They say that his ”cavalier” attitude to running the newspaper house has resulted in frustration and anger of majority of his staff which ,in turn, resulted in the recent staff protest. They say that Obaigbena took the same untoward attitude to South Africa in the early 2000s when he sought to establish a branch of his newspaper in Johannesburg. But when he began owing staff salaries there the authorities allegedly, sent him packing.

The National Assembly has recently announced that they would amend the country’s labour laws to stipulate jail terms for business owners who do not pay or do not wish to pay salaries of their staff.

Some ThisDay staff allege that non-payment of salaries is a longstanding tradition at the media house. Some allege that the Thisday chairman sees payment of salaries as a ‘bonus’ to his employees. He is alleged to have said on several occasions that he has given them a meal ticket by employing them and they should put the ‘meal ticket’ to good use.

Some industry insiders who are familiar with the situation at ThisDay say that this (staff ID card) ‘meal ticket’ mentality has severely affected the reputation of journalists at ThisDay who are often accused of ‘cash-and carry’ journalism. But despite all this, the newspaper’s chairman has carried on as if nothing was amiss.

 The fact that Obaigbena is the current chairman of Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria a position that suggests that he shows a good example to others in the same association but obviously did not, is believed to have further incensed his protesting staff, long frustrated and distraught over their unpaid salaries.

Latest reports say that the NUJ along with staff have sealed off The champion Newspapers owned by businessman, Emmanuel Iwuayanwu over unpaid staff salaries. The NUJ has vowed to keep the newspaper’s premises at Ilasamaja area of Lagos sealed until the company starts paying backlog of staff salaries.