How time flies… fly high the flag of the Flagship… Still remember the joy that followed the berthing of this landmark vessel of journalism and choice. Sooner or later you will read The Guardian. Today, The Guardian leads and I join millions to felicitate with the Rutam House family on a deserving anniversary. At 40, there is only one Flagship, The Guardian. So proud to have enjoyed this family, editing The Guardian Express and The Guardian On Sunday. Time will always tell even when it flies!
Dr. Mitchell Obi

Great to see The Guardian arriving at its 40th anniversary. Even in the era of the worldwide web, it carries a brace of centrality that is difficult to displace in our national affairs. Its innovatory package may have gained so much familiarity as to be taken for granted but it has a touch of the old spell that made some of us join its Editorial Board in the early years of its existence. No question about it: the newspaper was like a child born full-grown, almost instantly being described as the flagship of Nigerian journalism. It jumped the Nigerian media into a formidable stature as never before imagined in the annals of public discourses. Its sense of in depth analysis was genuinely uncommon. Packaged with a high facility for literary and aesthetic beauty, it soon became the norm across media Houses. It had a peculiar panache, on a daily basis, that was only rarely demonstrated by worldclass weekly magazines of the American Time and Newsweek variety. The Newswatch magazine, powered by Dele Giwa, Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese and Yakubu Mohammed was the closest native exemplar of its brand of New journalism. As a staple of daily masterpieces, it brought together a virtuoso performance of creative writing as an everyday attraction in the dispensation of news and opinion. The Guardian had a phenomenal capacity for self-branding that overtook all pre-existing ways of moulding opinion and dispensing public debate. Its manner and touch of integrity remained gloriously fresh across events and walks of life. To be frank, it is difficult not to overpraise that beginning and take-off of The Guardian.

It remains the most creative fusion of good money and untramelled intellectual power in Nigeria’s public space. The coming together of Alex Ibru’s high sense of enterprise and Stanley Macebuh’s dogged intellectual fervour is the kind of earth-moving factor that one wishes Nigeria had a magic for re-inventing and sustaining. This is wishing The Guardian a Hearty 40th.
Odia Ofeimun

From its inception in 1983 The Guardian established itself as an exemplar in the print media industry. Its style of reporting was refreshingly different. The language was polished and enchanting and the effect on the reader was profound and sublime.

The feature stories were thoroughly researched and presented with professional elan; going through them was always invigorating and edifying. The Editorial Board boasted the best and brightest in all domains of learning; the membership reflected diversity of academic disciplines, professional experience, geo-ethnic and ideological leanings. Editorial opinions and comments bore the imprint of robust debates, rigour, and intellectual sophistication. Accordingly, the opinions expressed were deep, vigorous, unambiguous, and authoritative. The intellectual orientation of the paper was also enhanced by The Guardian Literary Series that featured weekly interviews and critical reviews by some of Nigeria’s most iconic men and women of Letters.

From the 1990s, there was an insurgent uprising against military autocracy and terrorism in Nigeria. The Guardian became the indomitable platform for ventilating the popular quest for the restoration of a democratic and accountable governance system. The paper also devoted space to the crisis of exploitation and environmental despoliation of the oil-rich Niger Delta region. These brave and audacious contributions of The Guardian earned it the accolade of the flagship of the Nigerian media.

Thanks to the radical humanist credentials of the publisher, Dr. Alex Uruemu Ibru, the paper proudly advertised its pan-African and global outlook. This was evident in the opening of a Bureau in Harare, Zimbabwe, to monitor and promote the revolutionary struggle against the apartheid minority regimes in the region. These initiatives were supported by The Guardian Annual Public Lectures and interviews with eminent world figures.
In the early days of the newspaper it expressed a humble wish thus: “Sooner or later, you will read The Guardian” Within a decade, it became the first choice for all those who sought knowledge and refinement in a globalised community. May the heritage endure through the ages.
Professor G. G. Darah