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HRM Oba Sunday Ekundayo with his new subject, Chief Seye Kehinde |
The Prologue
journalism industry in Nigeria, CITY
PEOPLE as a
brand is a household name. The magazine which currently circulates the
highest numbers of copies across the nation on a weekly basis is adjudged to be
Nigeria’s highest circulating soft-sell magazine with print run running into
maximum of eighteen thousand copies weekly. CITY PEOPLE also has four other bye-products on its stable namely;
City People Quarterly, City People Fashion and Style Digest, Today’s Fashion and a specific periodic magazine, City People Extra all under the
umbrella of City People Media Group.
The man behind the conglomerate of high society journals is Dr. Seye Kehinde, a very shy but
energetic young man who has sunk a whole 18 years into the development of media
business in Nigeria. Born on April 24th 1965, Seye Kehinde is the third and last child of his parent’s three kids
(2boys and a girl); he had his educational influence at various institutions like Mayhill Convent School, Ibadan-Oyo state; Remo Secondary School, Sagamu in Ogun state and Ogun state Polytechnic in Abeokuta. He
later graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in History and Political Science from
the famous Obafemi Awolowo University
(OAU) Ile-Ife in Osun state. At many other times, the publisher of Nigeria’s
Most Circulated Celebrity magazine had professional courses at both the
national and international school levels. One of such is a Post Graduate
Diploma from the Daily Times institute of Journalism in Lagos
and a Certificate in Political
Reporting and International Journalism
from the famous Center for Foreign
Journalism, USA. A winner of the Sunny Odogwu Prize for Business Reporter of the Year (1994), Seye Kehinde who is also a honorary doctorate degree holder from a
Republic of Ireland based University has come a long way in the profession of
journalism. Unknown to friends and foes; politics beckoned on him during the
regime of former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as SK as fondly
called by friends and associates was to be named a minister under the regime, a
gesture he humbly declined preferring to face his real call as a journalist.
of August 2014, the sleepy town of Iroko
Ekiti in Ekiti state-South West Nigeria witnessed the influx of dignitaries
from all walks of life who had come around to celebrate with the celebrated
publisher as he was honored with the traditional title of the Aare Onigege-Ara of Iroko Ekiti by His
Royal Majesty, Oba Sunday Ekundayo
the Oluroye of Iroko Ekiti land.
other eminent Nigerians with several traditional titles in honor of his 10th year coronation on his father’s throne
said the decision to honor the City
People publisher was something beyond the fact that SK is a friend of his
community “We in Iroko Ekiti believe that Dr. Seye Kehinde is one of the few Nigerians
who have changed the face of the media business in Nigeria and for his love for
culture, people and humanity we deem it
fit to honor him with the title of the Aare
Onigege Ara of Iroko Ekiti” confirmed the monarch in a speech granted at
the venue.
was the first one the City People
publisher would be taking a traditional title publicly. Few days later, your
number 1 Celebrity encounter blog asabeafrika
paid him a special visit inside his Gbagada, Lagos South West Nigeria CITY PEOPLE MEDIA PLAZA office where he told
us for the firsts time reasons behind his decision to take a traditional title
at age 49. The publisher who will now be addressed as “Chief (Dr.) Seye Kehinde”
also told us the unpublished story of how he once turned down a ministerial
appointment offer from former President, Chief Olusegun
Obasanjo’s government. In his office, you will
equally find a very old and out of fashion type-writer
kept at a vantage corner of the office, the publisher told us the secret behind
the antique object. Here we bring you some of the issues the publisher shared
with us inside his Lagos office. Enjoy the excerpts.
always seen the publisher as one person who is power-shy and equally loves to
keep to himself a lot with no iota of love for such razzmatazz? Asabeafrika
asked him why he decided to take a new stance this time around “Well I have so many
Kabiyesis (Kings) as friends and this will be my third title. In Joga
Orile (Ogun state) I have a title there as Otunba where Bob
Dee (Ovation Magazine Publisher, Chief Dele Momodu) is also a title
holder (Onigege-Ara of Joga land). I am actually an Otunba
to (TV Host) Bisi Olatilo’s title in Joga-Orile. Then Oba Abdul-Fatai Akamo,
the Onitori
of Itori land in Abeokuta also gave me a title. I am also a chief in
Itori land, so I have a few of them but for me, I just think if they choose to
honor you, there is nothing wrong in accepting. Like you said, I am not the
kind of person that carries it about or talks about it. I just take it as fine,
if it comes then it has come. We just collect it and let it be there. There is
nothing bad in taking a king’s honor”.
“Initially there was a fear but now I don’t think there is any fear anymore. I guess it is something we have to live with. It is like somebody the doctor pronounced to be suffering from an ailment, it is just something you have to live with; there is nothing you can do about it. It started off as a fear but it is no longer a fear it is much of a reality.”
perception among local people in Nigeria is that anyone that takes such a title
must belong to a secret cult or some arcane assemblage; is Dr. Seye Kehinde in that
stead? Hear his defense “Maybe you are talking of the traditional ones. Maybe;
this one is an honorary title. So, there is nothing as such that warrant one to
be doing anything like that. You just go in there and you will bedecorated and
you leave. But I think you actually mean the real traditional indigenous one;
this one is basically for celebrities and friends of the Kabiyesi but not the
real traditional indigenous titles”.
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Dr Seye Kehinde with First Lady of Lagos state, Dame Emmanuella Abimbola Fashola |
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Dr. Seye Kehinde being decorated as the New Aare Onigege-Ara of Iroko Ekiti |
24th the publisher clocked 49, so what has life taught him at 49 and
how is he preparing for 50? “It is just for you to keep at what you are doing,
try and make your mark and coast along as life comes. 50 years is a major
landmark but I have not really given it a taught on what to do and what not to
do. But I guess I will mark it, I will mark it. And for me, it is really a time
for reflection”. This blog went forward to ask Dr. Kehinde how life has fared
with him at 49. “Oh, very fair, more than fair” The publisher answered with lots of enthusiasm
on his face and continued “Very, very
fair; very, very fair in the sense that I told God what I wanted to do in life
and He granted it. Right from when I was in school I knew I was going to be a
journalist. I told God how I want it and it was given to me. Even the City
People idea was something that I came up with when I was in school; I
mean the template of what it will look like I did when I was in my part 3. So,
when you have that kind of dream and the dream comes to materialize I don’t
think there is another thing that I need to ask God to do for me than for Him
to give me long life and prosperity”.
to be the fairer leader among his peers in terms of tangible leadership
development. It is on record that he is the only publisher in that genre of
journalism that has single handedly produced 15 younger entrepreneurs who are
today successful in their endeavors; we asked him how he handles such
leadership flights from his organization? “From books” the publisher snapped
his response and continued “I read all sorts of books. I like management books,
I like motivational books. So, I read them from books, I read up biographies of
people. I learn from them. I have many role models, so many people’s books I
have read. So many people I have interacted with and I look at templates
elsewhere and try to see what I can pick from there and lessons I can learn
from there and I learn it. I learn everyday because that is the real essence of
life”.
old fashioned type-writer that occupies a vantage position in the office but
no journalist had ever cared to ask the publisher where he got the antique-like
object until asabeafrika asked him and he was magnanimous enough to tell us
the story behind the antique type-writer “That is the last type-writer that my
dad used” SK as fondly addressed began like a lecturer trying to convince his
student on a point “His own area of
specialization was confidential secretary. He was a confidential secretary and
he was actually training confidential secretaries in the old western states.
That was the last type-writer he used and of course it is no longer in use and
of course we are now in an age of computer and I just felt let me keep it and
show younger people who actually missed that type-writer generation”. Why is SK
not submitting it to a museum as a mark of honor to the memory of his late dad?
“Well, since it is also related to what
I do, I also look at it from the point of view that I can also use it to
decorate my office because it is actually in line with the same media thing
that I am doing. I just felt it makes a lot of sense for me to keep it here and
each time I look at it, it is also very symbolic for me and the fact that I see
it as my dad’s inspiration. I just felt it is good I keep it in my office. It
is like a heritage”.
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Dr. Seye Kehinde taking his royal blessings from HRM Sunday Ekundayo |
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The GDA with the antique type-writer Dr. Seye Kehinde inherited from Dad |
famous publisher to the personality of his late father and he did with an
uncommon passion “My father Gilbert Ademolu Kehinde was a very
hard working and much focused man; in his own way he brought us up well. He had three of us (Two boys and a girl) I am
the last child. He was a disciplinarian like most men of his generation. He
won’t take nonsense from you, he start up as a confidential secretary and of
course he became the man who trained all the confidential secretaries in the
old western states at that time, he was the head of the training school for
Civil Servants and the entire civil service of the old western region. So, a
lot of civil servants know him and of course he guided his name jealously and
today of course we are beneficiaries of the legacies he left behind”.
know what his other siblings do and why they are not as rich as the publisher
but Mr. SK quickly corrected the notion
that he is the richest among his siblings; hear him “They are all successful in
their own right. My elder brother is an engineer it is just because my father
brought all of us up to be quite. We are very laid back, very quite doing our
thing. It is just because of what I do that I get reported all the time and if
I have the option I will still keep the low profile because that is the way we
were brought up and that explains why people say I am humble and I keep to my
self a lot. I like to just sit down in my office and do my work I don’t believe
in the razzmatazz that comes with the job. So, I have to balance my real self
with the kind of life I have to live as somebody who produces City
People. My sister is a civil servant. She just retired from the civil
service”
SK’s dad liberally or sparingly uses the rod on his children and the answer
came almost swiftly “Of course it was beating all the way, he would beat us. He
kept on beating me until I left the university. I mean like I told you earlier
he is a disciplinarian and he doesn’t spare the rod and he always drum it into
our ears that we should read our books, that we should be hardworking and the
only gift he could give us is education. So, one learnt a lot of things from
him, that you don’t need to give a child material things and all that. Once you
send the child to a very good school and you educate the child, the child will
sought self out. That is one lesson I learnt from my dad who is now late”.
about his mum as well, “My mum too was a civil servant but she is retired now.
She is in Ibadan, she is in her 80s and she is just living her life quietly. Of
course they were both hard. I mean I thank them for that because they both
complimented each other and it wasn’t the case with some children, if Daddy is
tough, Mummy is soft. In our own case, they were both tough but they were tough
for a reason and in later years I realized that it was a nice thing that they
were actually tough on us because one was able to benefit the gains of that
toughness. When we now grew up and decided to sort ourselves out it was easy
for us to leave a disciplined life”.
internet journalism bane
magazine publisher must have planned to answer with lots of enthusiasm was the
one relating to the survival strategy of traditional print media practitioners
in the face of a blighting internet media spree, does the publisher nurse the
fear that the e-journalism era has come to swallow up the traditional media
industry in Nigeria? His answer strikes confidence “Initially there was a fear
but now I don’t think there is any fear anymore. I guess it is something we
have to live with. It is like somebody the doctor pronounced to be suffering
from an ailment, it is just something you have to live with; there is nothing
you can do about it. It started off as a fear but it is no longer a fear it is
much of a reality. So what we are trying to do is just to balance it out;
maintain the online presence and at the same time dig deep and come up with
stories that you won’t get online in the flagship of the group which is City
People Weekly”
me
define what it means to be the publisher of Nigeria’s number one soft sell
magazine brand and he say “A lot of hard work, a lot of hard work and a lot of
stress”. He continues “It is not easy. A lot of entrepreneurs when you put in
place a business you have to keep to it and of course if you also want to keep
faith with your readers because publishing a magazine or newspaper is a kind of
a very emotional thing because a lot of
people are looking up to you. A lot of readers are glued to you, I mean I go to
some places and some people come to you and tell you they have not miss a copy
since you started publishing and some will tell you that even if they miss at
all, maybe two or three editions. It simply means some people are taking you
seriously and that means you have to take your self seriously. And of course,
each time you look at it from the point of view of ‘oh, maybe I should relax,
maybe I should rest, you now realize again that the whole world is waiting for
you to continue to come out and keep the tradition going. So, that really is
what gives one the kick and the fact that you must come out weather you like it
or not”.
the allegation to the publisher suggesting that he doesn’t like travelling
because of his work load as the publisher of Nigeria’s highest circulating
Magazine, he quickly refuted the notion like this “I travel, I travel. I travelled recently for
about five days or so. I find time to travel, It is all about planning. It is
like you are doing two, three things at the same time you have to plan it. I
travel to America everywhere, Dubai etc. there was a time I spent a week in Dubai.
This last trip I made to the Gambia I spent about four days or five days, so I
travel. It is just that I am somebody who doesn’t like travelling and I don’t
believe in frivolous things. If I have to travel I have to ask myself ‘what am
I going there to do there?, so if it is not for a seminar or not for work
related I can’t take off from office and go and sit down and be looking at the
sky for no reason when I know that I have serious work to do here”.
OBJ’s appointment” on this blog next tomorrow)
Chief Dr. Seye Kehinde is a brazen epitome of hard work and humility. He deserves the title because indeed, he is the unbeatable Aare Onigege-Ara of the Universe.
SK is not just a journalist's delight on the job, he is equally a pioneer on his own right. He started the best and biggest Nigerian Society Magazine. I think he is the Aare Onigege Ara of the Nigerian Celebrity Magazine industry.