- Safiu Kehinde
Doyin Abiola, widow of late Nigerian businessman, Moshood Abiola, is dead.
The first female Managing Director of a newspaper in Nigeria passed away on Tuesday.
As confirmed by family sources, the former Managing Director of the National Concord newspaper died at 9:15pm yesterday at the age of 82.
The cause of her death is yet to be disclosed as at the time of filing this report.
Doyin Abiola was educated at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria where she earned a degree in English and Drama in 1969.
She began her journalism career with the Daily Sketch Newspaper.
During this period, she started writing a column in the newspaper called ‘Tiro,’ which was addressing sundry issues of public concern, including gender matters.
In 1970, she left Daily Sketch Newspaper and traveled to the United States to pursue a master’s degree programme in Journalism.
Shortly after her return, Doyin was employed as a Features Writer at Daily Times and rose to become the Group Features Editor.
She later went to New York University and obtained a PhD in communications and political science in 1979.
After her PHD programme, she returned to the Daily Times and was deployed to the editorial board where she worked with other experienced editors like Stanley Macebuh, Dele Giwa and Amma Ogan.
Her stay at Daily Times would be short-lived as the newly formed National Concord newspaper owned by the renown late media entrepreneur and business mogul, MKO Abiola, invited her to be its pioneer daily editor.
She then moved to be an editor of National Concord before being promoted to be the managing director/editor-in-chief in 1986.
More details later…