Former Managing Director of News
Agency of Nigeria and presidential media aide to former President Olusegun
Obasanjo, Mrs Oluremi Oyo, has died in the United Kingdom, where she was
undergoing treatment for cancer.
Former Managing Director of News
Agency of Nigeria and presidential media aide to former President Olusegun
Obasanjo, Mrs Oluremi Oyo, has died in the United Kingdom, where she was
undergoing treatment for cancer.
Her husband, Vincent Oyo, confirmed
her death.
Below is a statement issued by her
husband on Thursday.
Vincent writes: With gratitude
to God for a life well spent, I regret to announce the death of my dear wife,
Dame Felicia Oluwaremilekun OYO.
She died peacefully on Wednesday
(October 1, 2014) in the United Kingdom, where she was receiving treatment for
a cancer related ailment.
Dame Oyo was a seasoned journalist
who began her journalism career in 1973 in the Nigerian Broadcasting
Corporation now known as the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria .
She later joined the News Agency of
Nigeria (NAN) as a Desk Editor in 1981, and left in 1985 as a Principal Editor,
the first woman to attain such a high position in the Agency.
After leaving NAN, she joined the
Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS) as the Nigerian Bureau Chief.
She later
became the international news agency’s West African Bureau Chief.
Having first served as Secretary of
the Nigerian Guild of Editors, Dame Oyo was elected President of the Guild for
two consecutive tenures from 1999 to 2003. She was the first woman to be so
honoured.
As President of the Guild, she set
up a functional secretariat which still exists today at the NAN complex in
Iganmu, Lagos. She also ensured capacity building for Editors through regular
training which she pioneered for the Guild.
She was appointed Senior Special
Assistant (Media and Publicity) to former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2003
and served in that capacity until the end of the President’s tenure in May
2007.
This appointment was also a first as
she was the first woman to hold that position in the history of the country.
Dame Oyo was thereafter appointed
the Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria in July 2007. During her
tenure, she improved the fortunes of the Agency and increased its clientele.
A committed and patriotic Nigerian,
whose friends cut across the length and breadth of the country, Mrs. Oyo put
Nigeria first in her private and official activities.
Born into a Catholic family, Dame
Oyo had her primary education at the St. James’ Catholic Primary School in
Ilorin, where she grew up. She attended the prestigious St. Louis Girls
Secondary School, Bompai, Kano and had her higher education in Lagos and
Britain.
A devout Catholic, Dame Oyo was a
former Vice Chairperson of the Parish Pastoral Council of SS Joachim and Anne
of the Catholic Church, Ijegun, Lagos.
Dame Oyo, who had a Master’s Degree
in International Relations from the University of Canterbury at Kent, also
earned a post-graduate Diploma in International Relations from the Nigerian
Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Lagos.
In recognition of her patriotism,
the former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, appointed her as a
member of the Constitution Drafting Committee to craft the constitution that
ushered in the present democratic dispensation in 1999.
A recipient of Nigeria’s National
honour, the Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON), Dame Oyo also earned many
other awards among which was the National Council of Catholic Women
Organisation of Nigeria merit award.
She was Fellow of the Nigerian Guild
of Editors (NGE), Nigerian Institute of Management (NIM), and the Nigerian
Institute of Public Administrators.
On January 7, 2011, His Holiness,
Pope Benedict XVI made her a Papal Dame of the Order of St. Gregory the Great.
Dame Oyo and I were blessed with two
children, Otome and Okiemuote who are married and have given us beautiful
grandchildren.
She was born on October 12, 1952.
Members of her family and her large circle of friends and well-wishers were
looking forward to her 62nd birthday come October 12.
She is survived by her husband,
Vincent, her children, grand-children and siblings – Sunday Oke and Yomi
Oke
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