Social Media Threatens Our Job ..Newspapers Vendors Cry Out In Yola

The National Association of Newspaper's Vendors, Adamawa state Branch have cried out over what they described as " social media threat " over their job.

Mallam Abdurrahman Mumini , state chairman of the Association raised the alarm in an interview with Newsmen in Yola.

Mumini expressed worry that in spite of the advantages of Internet , the advent poised a big business challenge on their job.

He explained that he was in the newspapers business for the past twenty years.

According to the chairman . he lost ninety per cent of his customers who now shift to internet to read the newspapers online.

" Before the advent of Internet I used to sell about one thousand 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 ninety per cent of their members out of the business.

He worried that in Adamawa they were selling a day old newspapers in the state 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 were published.

Also lamenting, Malam Aliyu Muhammad, 65 years old, said that he started selling newspapers in 1976 .

Muhammad recalled that newspapers businesses in those days fetched him a lot where he built a house, sent his children to school and help other relations.

" I started selling newspapers in 1976 when I was twenty five 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 internet where they read the daily newspapers even before it's arrive Yola." Muhammad said

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 argue that if the situation persist there is possibility one day no single vendor would be found on Street selling the newspapers.