The Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) joined others in mourning the recent passage of Mrs Oluremi Oyo, the former Managing Director of News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
According to a statement by its Secretary-General, Mr. Isaac Ighure, “Mrs Oyo, a Fellow of the NGE and its first female president, died on Wednesday in London, few days to her 62nd birthday anniversary, which would have come on October12”.
Ighure noted that: Prior to her two-term tenure as the Managing Director of NAN, she served as the Senior Special Assistant (Media and Publicity) to former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Oyo will long be remembered by the NGE for her exemplary leadership qualities, which brought the Guild out of a near comatose state, with about 200 members, and transformed it into a vibrant association ofsenior editors with more than 400 members.
Her tenure as the NGE president marked a new beginning for the Guild and laid a solid foundation for its transformation into a force to be reckoned with in the country.
Oyo was elected President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors and served for two consecutive terms from 1999 to 2003. She had also served first as Secretary of the NGE, the professional body of editors running the country’s media industry.
In 2003, Oyo became the Senior Special Assistant (Media and Publicity) to President Olusegun Obasanjo, again, the first woman to be appointed to such a position.
In 2007, she became Managing Director of the NAN where she initiated the transformation of the Agency’s service delivery.
Apart from being a Fellow of the NGE, Oyo was also a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Management and the Institute of Public
Administration.
Her marriage to Vincent Oyo was blessed with two children, Otome and Okiemuote, and three grandchildren.
The NGE commiserates with her family, NAN, the country’s journalists and the nation at large.
The Guild notes that these are, indeed, hard times for the Nigerian media, as only recently it lost two other illustrious and thoroughbred journalists, Dimgba Igwe of The Sun newspapers and Mike Akpan of Realnews magazine.
Igwe was the Vice-Chairman of The Sun, while Akpan was former Editor of Newswatch magazine, and later, Editor-in-Chief of Realnews.
