Tuesday , March 19 2024

Famous Nigerian Veteran Journalists

Whether you are a student of Nigerian mass media history or not, there are names you should be familiar with when the country’s media landscape is mentioned. These are people that were part of the building and shaping process at various points in the story of journalism in Nigeria. Here are some very famous legendary names in Nigeria’s mass media and journalism history. There are so many of them but just a few are mentioned here. This list was compiled in particular order. Party of the contents were first posted on m.ranker. while others are contained in Wikipedia. It is truly and interesting read.

1. Nnamdi Azikiwe

Photo: Inlandtown.com

Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was born in 1904 in Zungeru, a town in the present day Niger State. He traveled to the United States where he attended Storer College, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and Howard University.
Azikiwe’s journey in the journalism world began when he accepted an offer from Ghanaian businessman Alfred Ocansey in 1934 to become founding editor of the African Morning Post (a new daily newspaper in Accra, Gold Coast, the present day Ghana).
He returned to Lagos in 1937 and founded the West African Pilot, a newspaper which he used to promote nationalism in Nigeria. In addition to the Pilot, his Zik Group established newspapers in politically- and economically-important cities throughout the country.[30] The group’s flagship newspaper was the West African Pilot, which used Dante Alighieri’s “Show the light and the people will find the way” as its motto. Other publications were the Southern Nigeria Defender from Warri (later Ibadan), the Eastern Guardian (founded in 1940 and published in Port Harcourt), and the Nigerian Spokesman in Onitsha.[31] In 1944, the group acquired Duse Mohamed’s Comet. See more in Wikipedia.

2. Anthony Eromosele Enahoro


Anthony Eromosele Enahoro was Nigeria’s foremost anti-colonial and pro-democracy activists. He was born the eldest of twelve children in Uromi in the present Edo State of Nigeria. His Esan parents were Anastasius Okotako Enahoro and Fidelia Inibokun née Ogbidi Okojie. Enahoro has had a long and distinguished career in the press, politics, the civil service and the pro-democracy movement. Educated at the Government School Uromi, Government School Owo and King’s College, Lagos, Enahoro became the editor of Nnamdi Azikiwe’s newspaper, the Southern Nigerian Defender, Ibadan, in 1944 at the age of 21, thus becoming Nigeria’s youngest editor ever. He later became the editor of Zik’s Comet, Kano, associate editor of West African Pilot, Lagos, and editor-in-chief of Morning Star from 1950 to 1953. He died in 2010.
See more on Wikipedia.

3. Chris Anyanwu

Christiana “Chris” Anyanwu MFR is a Nigerian journalist, publisher, author, and politician. She was imprisoned from 1995 to 1998 for treason after reporting on a failed coup d’état against the government of Sani Abacha, and won several international journalism prizes during her confinement, including the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. Believing that she could make more of an impact in politics than in journalism, Anyanwu ran for office and was elected Senator for the Imo East constituency in 2007. See more on Wikipedia.

4. Bayo Ohu

Ogunbayo Ayanlola Ohu, known as Bayo Ohu, was a Nigerian journalist. Ohu worked as the assistant news editor for The Guardian, an independent daily newspaper published in Nigeria. Ohu was born on June 18, 1964. He attended elementary school at the Local Authority Primary School in Iseyin, Oyo State. Ohu next enrolled at Progressive Grammar School in Ado-Awaye, which he completed in 1976. He finally completed his education at The Polytechnic in Ibadan between 1988 until 1990. Ohu was hired as a reporter by The Guardian, a daily newspaper based in Lagos, in 1991. He worked for the newspaper as a state correspondent in Kastina state in northern Nigeria. Sweet more on Wikipedia.

5. Dele Giwa

Sumonu Oladele “Baines” Giwa was born on 16 March 1947 to a poor family working in the palace of Oba Adesoji Aderemi, the Ooni of Ife. He attended local Authority Modern School in Lagere, Ile-lfe. When his father moved to Oduduwa College, Ile-Ife as a laundry man, he gained admission to that school. Dele Giwa travelled to the USA for his higher education, earning a BA in English from Brooklyn College in 1977 and enrolled for a Graduate program at Fordham University. He worked for The New York Times as a news assistant for four years after which he relocated to Nigeria to work with Daily Times.

Dele Giwa and fellow journalists Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese and Yakubu Mohammed founded Newswatch in 1984, and the first edition was distributed on 28 January 1985.
Dele Giwa was killed by a mail bomb in his Lagos home on 19 October 1986. See more on Wikipedia.

6. Isa Keita

Isa Kaita C.O.N., C.B.E., LL.D, LL.D, DPA a Nigerian Politician was born on January 1912 at Katsina, Nigeria. He held the traditional title of Madawaki of Katsina and later, the Waziri of Katsina. Prior to joining politics, he was a distinguished broadcaster. In the 1950s and 1960s, he was a regional minister for works and education in the Northern Region of Nigeria. See more on Wikipedia.

7. Herbert Macaulay 

Herbert Macaulay was born in Broad St., Lagos on 14 November 1864 to the family of Thomas Babington Macaulay and Abigail Crowther. His parents were children of people captured from what is now Nigeria, resettled in Sierra Leone by the British West Africa Squadron, and eventual returnees to present day Nigeria.
Macaulay entered primary school in 1869 and from 1869 to 1877, he was educated at St Paul’s Breadfruit School, Lagos and CMS Faji School, Lagos. From 1877 to October 1880, he attended CMS Grammar School, Lagos for his secondary education.
From 1891 to 1894 he studied civil engineering in Plymouth, England and was also a pupil of G.D. Bellamy, a borough surveyor and water engineer in Plymouth. In 1893, he became a graduate of the Royal Institute of British Architects, London.
He was a veteran journalist who worked for The Comet newspaper. See more on Wikipedia.

8. Alade Odunewu

“Allah De”, as he was popularly called, was one of the well-known journalists of the 1950s and beyond. Allah De (name of his satirical column in the Daily Times), died in a hospital in Lagos on Thursday, 25th July, 2013, of old age related sickness. My sincere condolence to those he left behind. Alade’s input to journalism in Nigeria is great, especially in the sub-genre of ethics. See more on shsrpedgenews.

9. Onyema Ugochukwu

Onyema Ugochukwu was born on 9 November 1944 in Umuahia, Abia State, Nigeria. He graduated from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, with a BSc in Economics.
He is a Nigerian economist, journalist, and politician. Ugochukwu served as the senior Special Adviser on Communication to Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo and the first Executive Chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission. Ugochukwu joined the Business Times group as an Economic Analyst and a pioneer staff of what would later become the most influential financial newspaper in Nigeria. Ugochukwu rose in the ranks to become the Editor of the Business Times newspaper (1977 to 1982). In 1983, Ugochukwu became Editor in Chief of the London-based West Africa magazine, where he wrote extensively on development issues, to provide a better understanding of the African debt crisis. He eventually returned to Nigeria to become the Editor in Chief of the Daily Times of Nigeria and he was subsequently appointed to its board as the Executive Director of Manpower and Development. He retired from newspaper journalism in 1994 as the Executive Director of Publications. Ugochukwu remained active as a media consultant for the Dow Jones Financial News Service. See more on Wikipedia.

10. Ken Wiwa

Kenule “Ken” Bornale Tsaro-Wiwa was on the 28th of November 1968. Also known as Ken Saro-Wiwa, Jr, was a Nigerian journalist and author.
Wiwa was born in Lagos, the eldest son of Nigerian human rights activist and author Ken Saro-Wiwa. He was educated in Nigeria and at Stancliffe Hall School and Tonbridge School in England, and then at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, now part of University College, London. He was editor of the United Kingdom’s Guardian′s periodical New Media Lab, where he developed content for the paper’s online edition.
Wiwa produced and narrated television and radio documentaries for the BBC and CBC, and wrote commentaries for National Public Radio. His memoir of his father, In the Shadow of a Saint, won the 2002 Hurston-Wright Nonfiction Award. He died on 18 October, 2016). See more on Wikipedia.

 

About Chinenye Nwabueze

Nwabueze is a writer with passion for cutting-edge news

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