Sunday, December 21, 2008 Printer Friendly Version
With Waseet, Kola Abiola bounces back into media business

By Akeem Lasisi

Like a cat with nine lives, scion of the MKO Abiola family, Mr. Kolawole Abiola, has resurfaced in style in the media industry.


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Abiola and Fawaz


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The son of the late billionaire businessman, politician and publisher of the rested National Concord, among other titles, is the brain behind the emergence of Waseet, an international publication, into the Nigerian market.

A free weekly, it is also a classified advertising publication that is in circulation in 12 countries. It is published in Nigeria by Adwise Integrated Resources, a Nigerian media solutions company, under franchise from alWaseet International, a Dubai-based international publishing conglomerate.

According to the Adwise management, the franchise agreement was signed on November 10, 2008, in Dubai, between alWaseet International and Adwise, represented by its Chairman, Abiola.

Waseet Nigeria was, however, unveiled in Lagos on December 12.

The newspaper, which offers a range of classified ads for people to buy, sell and get informed, has no cover price, and is given out free every week.

Abiola, who is highly excited about the project, said, "Adwise's goal is to revolutionise the way that organisations and businesses of all sizes access the Nigerian consumer. High-impact targeted advertising will become affordable to all clients and budgets."

As planned by Adwise, the circulation of Waseet will begin in Lagos, while machinery has also been put in place to expand to other major cities, starting with Abuja and Port Harcourt.

AWI Managing Director, Mr. John Fawaz, noted that Waseet fitted perfectly into AWI's aggressive expansion plan aimed at reaching 100 Waseet publications by 2012.

"Our plan is to franchise Waseet newspaper in eastern Europe, Africa, India and South-East Asia. Waseet Lagos will be the seventh publication on the African continent," he added.

Waseet circulation is said to be around 5.8 million copies and the publication is read by 20 million people every week. Up until now, it has been printed in Arabic, English and Polish.

The classifieds offer a range of products, services and items for sale in eight different categories that include real estate, automotive, electronics and technology.


http://odili.net/news/source/2008/dec/21/422.html

What happened to waseet, be like say he don run down oh,

are they back in biz or what, i used to advertise with them. let me know if i can do biz with them again