Osoba’s memoir for launch tomorrow

Former Governor of Ogun State, Chief Segun Osoba’s memoir, Battlelines: Adventures In Journalism And Politics, will be launched tomorrow at the Eko Hotel and Suites, Lagos. It has 19 chapters in all.

Published by Diamond Publications Ltd, the event is expected to attract politicians, media practitioners and high networth guests, who over the years have interacted with the author.

Osoba started his career in journalism in 1964 working with the Daily Times as a trainee reporter covering crime stories, and by 1966, he was the diplomatic correspondent of the newspaper.

He obtained a diploma in journalism at the University of Lagos and went for one-year course in the United Kingdom on the scholarship of the Commonwealth Press Union in 1967.
He became news editor in 1968, deputy editor of the Sunday Times in 1971 and deputy editor of the Times in 1972.

In 1969, he was studying in Bloomington, USA at the Indiana University’s department of journalism. In 1974, he won the Nieman Fellowship Award for journalism for years postgraduate study at Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. He is the first Nigerian to have won this prestigious Nieman Fellowship for Journalism.

In August 1975, he became the Editor of the Daily Times of Nigeria, then left the firm in November 1975 to take up the task of General Manager of the Ilorin based Nigerian Herald. He returned to the Times in 1984 as the managing director.

Internationally, he worked as stringer or local correspondent for the following organizations: The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), The Times of London, Newsweek Magazine, U.S.A, United Press International News Agency (UPI). He was the chairman of the Governing Board of the Nigerian Institute of Journalism and Member of the Executive Board of the International Press Institute representing Black-Africa from 1984-1992.

He was a member of the Nigerian Constituent Assembly in 1988. He is also member of the Commonwealth Press Union, London and the Nigerian Union of Journalist (NUJ).