Social Media Threatens Our Job, Newspapers Vendors Cry Out

From Tom Garba, Yola

The National Association of Newspaper’s Vendors, Adamawa State Branch has cried out over what they described as “social media threat” to their job.
Mallam Abdurrahman Mumini, state chairman of the association raised the alarm in an interview with the media in Yola.
Mumini expressed worry that in spite of the advantages of the Internet, its advent poised a big business challenge on their job.
He explained that he has been in the newspapers business for 20 years. According to the chairman, he lost 90 per cent of his customers who now shift to internet to read newspapers online.

“Before the advent of the Internet I used to sell about 1,000 copies of newspapers daily. Now that the internet services is available everywhere, I found it difficult to sell between 20 to 30 copies daily.” Abdurrahman complained
He pointed out that the poor market situation has pushed almost 90 per cent of their members out of the business.
He also worried that in Adamawa vendors sell “a day old newspapers due to lack of delivery in time, unlike the situation in neighbouring states of Bauchi and Gombe where our colleagues sell the papers on same day they are published.”

Also lamenting, 65 years old Malam Aliyu Muhammad disclosed that he started selling newspapers in 1976 .
Muhammad recalled that newspapers businesses in those days fetched him a lot and he was able to build a house, sent his children to school and help other relations.
His words: “I started selling newspapers in 1976 when I was 25 years old. Some few years back I started noticing that our customers are not patronising the newspapers as it was before. I was later told by a colleague that our customers have shifted to the Internet where they read the daily newspapers even before they arrive Yola.”
He advised the newspapers publishers to review their policy of placing the whole newspaper content on internet to save their bushiness.
He emphasized the need for the publishers to only publish headlines on the Internet and reserve the body content of the story on the newspapers pages.
Muhammad argued that if the situation persist there is possibility one day no single vendor would be found on street selling newspapers.