PROFESSOR Lai Oso of the Lagos State University’s (LASU) Faculty of Communications and Media Studies has passed away at 67.
The don was returning from Delta State University (DELSU), on Saturday, June 25, 2023, where he had been an external examiner at the university up until the day before, when he was tragically killed in a car accident on the Benin-Sagamu Expressway.
According to a statement released yesterday by the Association of Communication Scholars & Professionals of Nigeria (ACSPN), Oso’s demise was mourned by the mass communication and journalism communities in Nigeria and around the world.
The President of the Association, Prof. Umaru Pate, who is also the Vice Chancellor of Federal University, Kashere, Gombe State, said, “Professor Oso held the firm conviction that the meeting of the gown and town would benefit the mass communication and media fields for the maximum impact of both professions on democracy and development. He pursued this conviction relentlessly and his death is a collective loss.”
The General Secretary of ACSPN, and Vice Chancellor of Caleb University, Imota, Lagos, Prof. Nosa Owens-Ibie, also stated that “Under his tenure the Association began the process by producing in collaboration with UNESCO and other stakeholders, the first draft of what has now been launched as the Unbundled Mass Communication curriculum, following a curriculum development workshop for communication and journalism courses in November 2015.”
“He was a scholar who helped to make scholars out of others through knowledge building, scholarly articles and book publications, and it was also under him that ACSPN commenced many niche programmes, including its mentorship series, and organised town-meet-gown training and knowledge sharing events across the country”, Owens-Ibie added.
Oso during the course of his career taught media and communications at Caleb University in Imota, Lagos, the Lagos State University in Ojoo, and the Moshood Abiola Polytechnic in Abeokuta.
