President Muhamadu Buhari led federal government just appointed Bayo Onanuga, editor-in-chief of TheNEWS, as the managing director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) .
This new appointment was disclosed in a statement issued by Segun Adeyemi, special adviser to Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture on Wednesday, 25th May. If you wonder who the man, Onanuga is, INFORMATION NIGERIA brings you 9 interesting facts about him.
1.Mr. Onanuga is the Managing Director/CEO of The News/PM News newspapers
2.He declared interest in Ogun senatorial seat contesting on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
3.He was the former Editor of the now rested African Concord magazine, which was popular in Nigeria in the 90’s
4.He attended Moslem Primary School, Isoku, and Ijebu Muslim College, both in Ijebu Ode for his primary and secondary education before heading to the University Of Lagos.
5.He was among the pioneer staff of Ogun State Television, OGTV, in 1982, where he worked for a year and a month before he resigned to pursue career in print journalism.
6. He joined The Guardian as one of its pioneer staff and later left to start his own newspaper, The Weekly Titbits, which exited the scene after two editions.
7.He later joined the National Concord as a Senior Features Writer in 1985 and rose to become the Editor of the African Concord magazine, where he resigned in April 1992 and teamed up with Seye Kehinde (now publisher City people magazine), Dapo Olorunyomi (now Editor-in-chief of PREMIUM TIMES), Sani Kabir, Idowu Obasa (ex- chairman, Onigbongbo local government in Ikeja), Babafemi Ojodu (now Senator representing Ekiti State) and Kunle Ajibade (Executive Editor, The News and PM news) to establish The News magazine in 1993.
8.Mr. Onanuga was among many journalists who suffered persecution during the military era in the country. For instance, in August 1996 Amnesty International reported that Editor-in-chief Bayo Onanuga was thought to be held by the State Security Service at their Lagos headquarters, and may have been ill-treated in custody.
9.Onanuga fled from Nigeria in 1997 after hiding from state security forces for months. He returned home to resume work at ICNL in 1998, after the sudden death of Abacha and the start of the transition to democracy
10.Did you know that Bayo Onanuga and some other writers like Babafemi Ojudu and other former staff from the African Concord resigned in protest over a request by M.K.O. Abiola, the publisher, to apologise to President Ibrahim Babangida over a critical story about the military regime.
