The Nigerian media industry has been thrown into mourning with the death of ace journalist and scholar, Dr Onukaba Adinoyi Ojo.
Onukaba who contested the last All Progressives Congress gubernatorial primary election in Kogi state, had attended former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s 80th birthday celebrations in Abeokuta, Ogun state on Saturday.
According to a family source, he was on Sunday knocked down by an oncoming vehicle while trying to flee from an armed robbery gang on Akure-Ilesha road.
He was a scholar and former Managing Director of Daily Times who also taught at University of Abuja.
The celebrated journalist was News Editor at the Guardian Newspapers. He also worked as an Information Officer at the United Nations.
Some of the students he taught at University of Abuja and the colleagues he worked with during his decades of journalism practice have started pouring encomiums on Onukaba, who was said to be an unassuming gentleman.
The Nation Newspapers’ Head of Abuja bureau, Yomi Odunuga, said on his Facebook page: “Adinoyi Ojo Onukaba, if it turns out to be true, then life is cruel”
A Presidential Adviser on Political Affairs, Babafemi Ojudu, said he was simply devastated by the news.
He described Onukaba as an incorruptible journalist who distinguished himself as an Aviation Correspondent with the Guardian Newspapers.
“Onukaba was a brilliant and incorruptible journalist. He stood out among his colleagues while working as an aviation correspondent for the Guardian Newspapers where he struck friendship with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. He worked in the Villa during the Obasanjo Presidency. Onukaba tried twice to be Kogi state governor without success. A man of noble ideas and ideals, Onukaba was a good man. He brimmed with great vision for his people which he couldn’t bring to reality,” Ojudu wrote on his Facebook page.
Ojo, who is survived by a wife and three children, will be buried according to Islamic rites on Monday.
