.jpg "Mr Yorson Kwaku Addai-Nsiah")
Graphic's longest subscriber turns 76
Graphic's longest subscriber, Mr Yorson Kwaku Addai-Nsiah, has celebrated his 76th birthday and 60 years association with the Graphic Communications Group (GCGL), with a call on the public to value records keeping.
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For 60 uninterrupted years, Mr Addai-Nsiah subscribed to the Daily Graphic, the leading and biggest selling newspaper published by the GCGL since 1950.
Celebrating the two occasions in Kumasi, the grey-haired man said records keeping had been an important function from primitive times and more so in this computer age.
He noted that records keeping had numerous advantages, especially in the area of research, adding "teachers, students, public officers even the uneducated would need to value records keeping to serve as individual, group and national asset for posterity. It could be hard or soft copy and records keeping would play a vital role in national development. I have tried it and you need to try it too".
He also expressed gratitude to the management of the GCGL, most especially the Director of Newspapers, Mr Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh, recalling that it was during his tenure as editor of the paper that he (Addai-Nsiah) was offered a daily complimentary copy of the Daily Graphic and other papers of the GCGL which had continued till today.
Mr Addai-Nsiah who lives in the second largest city of the country, Kumasi, is a fanatic for records keeping and has copies of the Daily Graphic (flagship of GCGL) from 1956 to date.
He has recently updated his list of editors to include editors of the rest of the newspapers in the GCGL stable.
More so, his list of names of all reporters of the Daily Graphic, both dead and alive, makes him a chronicler.
Born on August 23, 1940, Mr Addai-Nsiah was just 16 years of age in 1956 when his association with the Daily Graphic began.
He first started buying the newspaper for his uncle at age16 when he was in Standard four (now considered as Junior High School 1) and was encouraged by his uncle to read newspapers to be abreast of current issues.
Having been nurtured thus, he began subscribing to the Daily Graphic and the Pioneer, Ghana’s oldest independent newspaper, at a price of one penny per copy.
“I treasure my copies so much that I have been keeping them till date, having prevented my kids from tampering with them,” he said.
He was born at Anwomaso, near Oduom in Kumasi and is blessed with a wife and eight children – five sons and three daughters.
The pensioner completed elementary school in 1959.
As a Chronicler
On his list of editors since the inception of the paper are M. Therson Cofie, Isaac Eshun, Oscar Tseddze, Henry Ofori, Nicholas Alando, Cameron Duodo, Kojo Dumoga, Richard Hosley, J.K. Nkrumah, J.A. Addo-Twum, George Aidoo, Elizabeth Ohene, Kojo Yankah, Sam Clegg, Elvis Aryeh, C.S. Buabeng (Acting capacity), Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafo and the incumbent Ransford Tetteh (since October 2007).
According to him, he has counted the number of times the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has appeared in the Daily Graphic since his enstoolment between December 22, 2004, and April 28, 2006, to be 43.
Recalling , Addai-Nsiah said the maiden issue of the Daily Graphic was published on October 2, 1950 and recounted how the state took over the management of the paper in 1962, incorporated it in 1965, turned it into a limited company in 1999 before it was later renamed Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL).
Honour from GCGL
In 2006, when he celebrated his 66th birthday, the management of the GCGL acknowledged his noble effort at keeping records and honoured him.
A letter signed by the then Public Affairs Manager, Mr Albert Sam, commended him for his outstanding role in keeping records.
The letter read in part that “the GCGL management appreciated his loyalty to the Daily Graphic,' and underlined that he could be a useful source of information about the Group for its reading public.
As a way of encouraging him, the management of the GCGL under the then Editor of the Daily Graphic (now Director, Newspapers), Mr Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafo, decided to offer him a daily copy of the Daily Graphic free of charge.
Now the GCGL has given him free Friday wears and he has had all his copies of the Daily Graphic since 2006 bound.
Giving his impression about the Daily Graphic, he said his addiction to the paper had helped him to be abreast of current issues and improved his standard of the English Language.
He said although he was not a journalist, his attachment to the paper had enabled him to learn about the rudiments of journalism.
“As of now, there is no major event published in the Daily Graphic that I cannot recollect. Most quotations from the past presidents and world leaders reported in the Daily Graphic are still fresh in my mind,” he revealed.