The legend of Inam Akbar and the truth behind his Midas touch
If we were to claim that there was one single man whose presence could jolt Pakistan’s news media industry out of its slump and get it back up on its feet, you might laugh. But this is exactly the kind of reverence that some sections of the industry hold for Inam Akbar. “If he were to be released, he has so many strategies, and so many ways to fix problems that his mere presence will calm the unrest in the media industry,” says twice former federal information minister Firdous Ashiq Awan in a 2019 interview. Mubasher Lucman, a senior television anchor, has similar views. And they are not the only ones calling for charges against Inam Akbar to be dropped.
But who is Inam Akbar?
For years, there has existed a great, intricate, web of connections between news media organizations, political parties, government institutions, bureaucrats, and advertising agencies that has been ruling the entire media industry in Pakistan. At the center of it all has been one man, Inam Akbar, who has been exerting a great gravitational pull that has kept the entire media industry up and running. The perception is that anything he touches turns into gold, and one of the reasons for the news media industry being in crisis is the absence of him and his appropriately named advertising agency, Midas.
The story of Inam Akbar has seen dizzying highs and now abysmal lows.Outside of those involved in the business of the media, particularly the news media, he has kept a relatively low profile. Most people will have heard of Mir Shakil ur Rehman, Salman Iqbal, or even Mian Amir Mehmood as the big players in Pakistan’s media industry, but for anyone that has been involved in the business end of journalism or media, Inam Akbar has time and again overshadowed them all. As owner of few of the country’s largest advertising agencies, with most of the government and real estate accounts on his client list, he was really the one that held the purse strings.
Today, he is nowhere to be seen. The once mighty figure that made the owners of large media houses and politicians dance to his tune is currently out on bail in a number of corruption references filed by the National Accountability Bureau. His main advertising agency, Midas, has gone from the largest advertiser in Pakistan to being suspended and blacklisted by the All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) and Pakistan Broadcasters Association (PBA). And Inam Akbar has gone from the puppetmaster practically bankrolling the country’s entire media industry to being the biggest defaulter in the industry’s history.
As the media industry grapples with the largest bad debt it is likely to book in its entire history, they will have to reflect on a man that started off by astounding them with his brilliance, lured them in with his connections, and then, before they even knew it, had them stuck in a loop of defaulting payments, strongarming them into ‘discounts,’ and convincing everyone that Midas (and more importantly Inam Akbar himself) was too big to fail.
One thing is for sure, it did all start out with brilliance. Over the years, Inam Akbar would apparently perfect the art of bribery, and leverage personal relationships to make himself and his advertising agency larger than life. But as a number of media personalities point out, the news media industry owes a great debt to Inam Akbar because of the special talent he had for convincing the government and real estate moguls to spend money on news media advertising, an ability he used to its maximum potential and then some. Where did Inam Akbar come from? How did he become the biggest advertiser in Pakistan? And more importantly, what made him go from mythical proportions to notoriety in the industry that was for years codependent with him? The story starts a generation before Inam Akbar, and it starts in a newspaper office.
Website: Pakistan Today
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