Shola Oshunkeye: Celebrating a quintessential newsman at 65

ONE of Nigeria’s leading journalists, Shola Oshunkeye clocks 65 today, April 20. In his years of practice and marriage to the profession, Oshunkeye has seen it all as the popular saying goes.

Starting from the lowest rung of the ladder as a reporter, through the dint of hard work and determination, he climbed to the top of his chosen career.  

He could perhaps be said to have come to the profession late. After spending 17 years in the federal civil service, he discovered that the drudgery of life was not for him.

With a degree in Science Technology at the University of Lagos, he joined the Concord Press of Nigeria in 1989 as a Senior Correspondent. He cut his journalism teeth with Nigeria’s first Saturday newspaper, Weekend Concord and within two years he was promoted to the post of Deputy News Editor, and two years after, he moved up first as Assistant Editor (March 1992), and as Associate Editor (October 1994).

He was not ready to allow his dream to be stunted, during those heady days of military rule when the Concord Press was proscribed at the beginning of the travails of its publisher, Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola, Oshunkeye was appointed Editor of Weekend Classique, a Lagos-based tabloid. However, when the Concord newspapers was reopened in June 1994, he returned to Weekend Concord as Associate Editor and was later named Editor of the then best-selling newspaper.   

In May, 2001, Oshunkeye, who holds a Post Graduate Diploma from the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, NIJ, resigned his appointment as Editor, Weekend Concord, to join the then wave-making newsmagazine TELL as Associate Editor and Abuja Bureau Chief. He doubled as Bureau Chief and as State House Correspondent at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja. He later joined The Sun in July 2005 as General Editor.

The rise of the Science Technologist turned journalist continued. In February 2008, The Sun named him as Editor of the now rested, The Spectator, an upscale human-interest newspaper which he edited till September 2011, when he was appointed General Editor, Magazines, for the group. In November 2013, he was appointed General Editor, West Coast, covering Benin Republic to the Gambia. 

He was later to become Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of The Sun Publishing Ghana Limited in December 2013. He retired from The Sun Publishing group and floated The Crest Publishing and Entertainment Company Limited, publishers of The Crest Online newspaper, as well as The Crest Journalism Enhancement Foundation, CJEF. He serves as the President/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the group. 

WINNER of the prestigious CNN African Journalist of the Year 2006, Oshunkeye is a Fellow of The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, St. Petersburg, Florida, and The Media Project; Fellow of the CNN International Professional Progamme, and an alumnus of the United States Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Programme. He has attended several international conferences on power reporting and investigative journalism, including the African Investigative Journalism Conference at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. 

Among other awards, he was the winner of the Best Print Journalist Award of the Nigerian Media Merit Award, NMMA, 1996, and the overall winner of the prestigious CNN/Multichoice African Journalist of the Year, 2006.

A member of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, Nigerian Union of Journalists, and several global media networks, Shola Oshunkeye is married to Funsho, a seasoned administrator-turned-school proprietor. The family is blessed with God-fearing children and several lovely grandchildren.

In his message congratulating him for attaining the age of 65, President Muhammadu Buhari rejoiced with Oshunkeye, urging him to useshould use his experience to mentor the younger generation of journalists.

Oshunkeye was born on April 20, 1956) in Ilesa, Osun State,  and has had 32 years of journalism practice in topflight national newspapers and magazine in Nigeria and Ghana.