"Selling and distributing newspapers is very difficult in my country. This is due to the fact that publishers have to deal with vendors who are far from being honest. Most of the time they return newspaper copies as unsold after they have rented them to people that we call free readers, who in their turn pay a small fee to read the papers," said Olayinka.

He points out that this puts the publishers in a precarious situation. They cannot pay the salaries to their employees, whereas the vendors gain their living.

"The way a few newspapers have been able to deal with this issue, is by telling vendors to only buy copies they know they can sell. In practice it means that these publishers do not take unsold copies back. But this is a very tough choice. Only a handful of newspapers can afford to do this because of the decreasing purchasing power of Nigerians.

In Nigeria, as in many other African countries, there exists no organised distribution system. "Every newspaper does its own distribution on its own. An attempt in the past to form a consortium failed because of mutual suspicions among the newspaper houses," said Olayinka, adding that no new plans for a better functioning distribution system has been discussed in Nigeria.

Does your newspaper belong to a newspaper distribution group? Contact rap21@wan.asso.fr