BEVERLY HILLS, March 22, (THEWILL) – When you talk about soft-sell magazines in Nigeria today, two names quickly register – City People Magazine, the brand and Seye Kehinde, the founder and publisher of the brand. Not only is City People behind the success stories of many entertainers, the magazine is responsible for the visibility most businesses and important personalities across banking, politics, etc. enjoy today. At a time when all soft-sell magazine in Nigeria have either gone under or embraced online publishing fully, Seye Kehinde has managed to remain dogged with his vision to serve never-before-heard quality gossips and jists that make toes curl. As the magazine clocks 25 years, Seye Kehinde speaks to The Will’s Entertainment and Society Editor, Ivory Ukonu, about some of the things that have kept him going and helped him to stay afloat.
City People magazine is 25 years old this year. When do you hope to hold the grand celebration?
It’s going to be a one-year celebration. It began on January 1st and we’re going to be having different activities to celebrate it till December. It is basically a way of helping the product because if we decide to just pick a date to celebrate, once the party is over, that’s the end of it. I didn’t want that. You realize that with the challenges of publishing these days and all that, you need to look for something to use to galvanize interest around the product. So, I felt that republishing our old editions, looking back at celebrities, where they are now, what they are doing now, is enough content for one year if done properly. So, for me if the product takes some positive vibe from the celebration, I think I’m fulfilled.
How does it feel being the only soft-sell magazine still in the publishing business?
I can only say it is the grace of God actually. I don’t want to lay claim to one strategy or one principle. That we’re still in business, it’s just the grace of God and the fact that one has remained focused on what we’re are doing and all that. Definitely, challenges will come but I try to find ways around.
City People is like a school of journalism of some sort for the entertainment and society beat. A lot of great journalists have passed through this brand and have gone on to do great things.
Yes, that’s the good thing about it. I never even knew of it until one day when I went for a program and comedian, Gbenga Adeyinka, who was the anchor of the event said I should stand up for recognition. He came up with something similar to what you said and it just dawned on me that so many people of note today have passed through City People. He mentioned specific names and I was like haaa! So, that humbled me. I was like if this is the situation then one has to keep at it and do things that will continue to make the product to stay afloat.
With this in mind, are you thinking of setting up a school of journalism specializing in that beat?
I’ve actually been thinking of it for a while now and there’s a friend of mine who keeps stressing me about it. It is prophetic that you’re raising it again. It’s something I want to do because I also realize that there’s a need for it right now and there are basic things that we know that we need to pass on to the younger generation and the new generation coming in which they don’t teach at Harvard Business School.
How would you describe your job as a journalist?
It has become a way of life. I remember in those days, before Dele Giwa died, he used to call NewsWatch a way of life. With this kind of job, your whole life is attached to it.
How did journalism start for you?
My dad made me become interested in it because he was a civil servant and, in those days, senior civil servants usually come home with newspapers and I realized that he used to pay so much attention to reading the papers. So, it got me wondering, what’s this thing all about. So, I picked an interest and started reading. Then near where we lived in Ibadan, Tribune Newspaper was there just like in our neighborhood. So, one day, I took a walk there and I met the editor and told him I wanted to be contributing opinion articles. He agreed. I was studying History and Political Science at that time. I’d pick topics and just write about them. When the first and second article got published, I was so excited because Tribune for me was like a power house in the South West. If you got published in Tribune, then, it means you’re doing something great. So, that was how my interest developed. Then of course, the next phase was when I met the likes of Dele Giwa when he started Newswatch. At that time, I just knew that journalism was it for me. When I asked to do my internship with Newswatch, I was nearly sent back. All I wanted to do was hang around because Newswatch was really hot then. After Newswatch, I went back to school. I was hoping to come and work with them but Dele Giwa’s death changed all of that for me. I went back to Ilorin to serve. Immediately I landed in Ilorin, I went straight to Herald. That was the only paper they had at that time there and it was a government paper. So, I walked in there again, introduced myself to the guys there and I started writing opinion articles for them every Tuesday. But my real primary assignment was at Kwara Polytechnic where I got a lecturing job to lecture History and once I finished with them, I’ll go to Herald. After that, I came back to Lagos and joined African Confidential. After a year, I left for District, stayed there for three years. While I was there, my friends who were in African Concord said I should join them especially with my profile. So, I went to African concord where I met a lot of brilliant guys and became a part of them. Then, of course, came the big issue of when African Concord was shut down because of a story we wrote and the fact that the Head of State at that time, Ibrahim Babangida, said we should apologise for the story.
What was the story?
It was a special edition we did on Nigeria. IBB had made a remark, something like, he doesn’t know why Nigeria is still working, Nigeria is on auto drive or something and we ran with it. We examined it economically, politically etc. He didn’t like the article and so he shut African Concord down. So the owner of Concord at that time, Chief MKO Abiola, went to meet him and he said that unless we beg him and we all write letters of apology, he wouldn’t reopen African Concord. MKO told the leader of our team, Bayo Onanuga, what IBB said and Bayo said, there’s no way we were going to apologise as most of what we wrote had statistics to back up our article on how the economy has been going down and all of that. The businessman in Abiola was like, ‘let’s just beg him and let them open it.’ But we refused. Eventually, all nine of us resigned since we weren’t ready to apologise.
And this is despite Abiola being IBB’s friend, ironically
Yes, ironically. He went to Aso Rock and asked IBB, “your guys have closed Concord, what is the problem?” He said he wasn’t aware but will find out and get back to him. Abiola was like, “How can your guys close down African Concord and you’re not aware?’ It was after applying a bit of pressure on IBB he now said unless a written apology was given to him by us, he wasn’t going to reopen it. Abiola told him he doesn’t work in Concord, he just owns it and he can’t determine what his employees write.
After we left Concord, a few of us, to keep body and soul together, had to work with African Guardian. After a while, we left and started TheNews Magazine. Immediately, it came on the street, the same government banned it and wanted us arrested because they felt we were radicals and we didn’t want to listen to government instructions and all that. So, we went underground. Thereafter came Tempo and from Tempo, I left to set up City People. So, it’s been a lot of moving from one media house to another.
You got tired from moving from one media house to another and decided to set up City People?
No. City People’s idea came while I was still in school. Because of History and Political Science which I was studying I had to read a lot of books about very prominent people. I found them very interesting and that also fired something in me. At some point, I used to have a friend in school then who sort of nudged me in that direction. Also, I found interesting, the stories in the existing soft sell magazines at that time. I started developing interest in them. So, one day, I brought out a sheet of paper and designed how City People will look like, taking a cue from the existing soft sells at that time. After designing, I now asked myself, what next? I just folded the paper and kept it, hoping that someday, it will be useful.
After school, when I hanged out with that my friend for drinks, I’ll be the one to tell him about what’s going on in his own sector, banking, things about Fola Adeola, Tayo Aderinokun…. and he was like, ‘you’re not in my sector, how come you know so much?’ I realised that I have a knack for knowing about things happening around. My friend asked me to put something together. But I knew that to set up a paper in Nigeria is expensive. I didn’t have the resources and to raise money from people is stressful. So, I let it slide again. My friend kept pushing me, saying I’m cut out for this thing. I started thinking about it seriously and to take care of the no resources issue, I decided to start with a 16-page black and white. This is despite the fact that other papers were now introducing colour.
How was the black and white received?
Instant success. Initially, we thought that the market might not receive it well and we did 500 copies with just Lagos market in mind and it got exhausted. We increased it to 1000 and by the third edition, we had vendors coming in from Ibadan to come carry papers themselves. It was then clear that we needed to expand our scope and we extended it to South West and then Port Harcourt and Abuja. It was actually the market that drove us to those areas. The initial concept was just a Lagos based weekly that’ll talk about people.
Have you been tempted to call it quits in 25 years?
I won’t say yes and I won’t say no. Why I won’t say yes is that from day one, I had it at the back of my mind that there was no going back. I knew that failure is not an option and that I would rather drown with my vision. So, each challenge that I had, I always see it as a stepping stone to the next level. There have been frustrating times and I started with little funding and that made it a little difficult. It’s like eating from hand to mouth. In all of this, it’s been the grace of God and some personalities that came my way. Some of them will give me a token and say, ‘you can add this to whatever you have.’ We came in when Abacha was the Head of State and things were tough and tight and we were also scared of the stories to write. That has been the story.
City People organizes several award ceremonies. What’s the idea behind having all of these awards?
When we started City People, some people came to us to say, ‘you guys are always criticizing us, can’t you also applaud and identify people who are doing well and celebrate them?’ It was actually the second year of City People coming on. So, the first thing we did was to set up City People’s Award for Excellence and that was like the major thing and after a while, I just realized that it couldn’t take care of certain sectors like the entertainment industry, the fashion industry, the beauty industry, real estate etc. So we came up with these awards to accommodate them.
So far, what would you say has been your greatest achievement running City People?
The fact that it started as a dream or passion and how I’ve been able to turn it to a reality and it has continued to be a reality. Everything was like an experiment. So, we were moving from one phase to another and that gives me a lot of satisfaction.
Journalism is no longer what it used to be. Things have changed. The younger ones are not ready to put in the work. Why do you think this is so and what do you think should be done to rectify this?
Taking it back to schools, most of the courses that used to be taught at that time are no longer being taught. History for instance got removed from the curriculum and with the larger society, everybody began to chase money and the aspiring journalist who is still in school is thinking, ‘how do I drive this car by the time I leave school?’ and attention stopped being paid to hard work. Also, the fact that Rome was not built in a day, you have to pay your dues. I must admit that journalism has suffered a draught. All the good journalists are now outside journalism and the corporate world benefitted from that. Suddenly, there’s a big vacuum and how do you fill out with the new set of people who are coming in and not ready to work? There’s a crisis facing the media. To that extent, there’s no gatekeeping. I think the professionals should pay attention to rebuilding the media. It’s going to be a conscious thing and not just hoping that it will change. The practitioners, gatekeepers, editors and even the owners of existing publications must consciously find a way to bring back good hands and ensure that structures are built and those coming in are encouraged to do proper journalism because these days, a lot of people get carried away with frivolities and everybody is now a journalist with a phone without paying attention to the rudiments of journalism. That’s the right thing we can do about it.
Even practicing journalists are part of this problem
Yes. Some of them also don’t show good examples because if you call yourself a professional journalist and you’re doing a thousand and one things, the ones coming after will want to live the same lifestyle by paying more attention to themselves than the job. Perhaps it’s because we are old school I guess, because as journalists, you are not supposed to promote yourself, celebrate yourself. But all of that has changed now and it is the new way of doing things that the new generations see and they’re trying to be like.
If you have to do it all over again, journalism, publishing, would you tow this same path?
Of course, I will. For me, I still don’t see what I do as a job, I see it as a past time. In the first instance, I don’t have a working schedule. Once I wake up, I start work and when I’m tired, I close. For me, it’s like a way of life. To that extent, I don’t get frustrated if I don’t get things. done or when I’m faced with challenges. So, I don’t have any regret and I’ll do it all over again. If I had set out to do it because of money, I’ll probably leave it for something else that will bring me bigger money except if what you do is borne out of interest and passion. I can work for two days and not get tired because I enjoy what I do and what I do has become part of me.
Your children are not particular about journalism. Do you have a succession plan?
Well, I’m hoping one of them will be interested in…
You are hoping?
Yes, because I know it’s difficult and when they see what I go through, they get discouraged because they’ve also read about how difficult it is to sustain a publication in Nigeria and of course they belong to the new generation of sit down and be ‘taken kiaroff’. It’s not even about them, it’s about their generation. They believe there’s no money in journalism. So, they would rather go the advertising or Public Relations way. I found that out when they were still in school when I ask some of their friends if they are coming into journalism, they say no and I ask why, they say there’s no money in journalism. And that’s also part of the problem. Journalism has, to be able to attract the young people sufficiently enough to want to build a career in it.
Being a workaholic, how do you let off steam?
Well, three things. One, when I’m at home I just gist about other things. That helps me a bit to get my mind off work. When I go for parties and events, I love to go to parties and gist with people and just let off steam. I am also trying to add exercise because I know it’s very important in this day and age. You need to work out, engage in sports. For me, it’s the ultimate way of letting off stress.
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