Olusegun Osoba
Olusegun Osoba. Photo: Premium Times
Olusegun Osoba, is the journalist and politician who twice became the governor of Ogun state. Osoba was born in 1941 and educated at Methodist Boys' High School, Lagos between 1956 and 1960. Osoba obtained a diploma on journalism from the University of Lagos in 1965 and also did journalism courses at Indiana University Bloomington. In his career as a reporter, he came to the public's consciousness with the assassination of Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa in the first coup of 1966. Being his greatest scoop, Osoba had discovered the dead body of the prime minister who was dumped in the jungle through a tipoff by one of his contacts.
Osoba had endeared himself to his boss, Babatunde Jose, during the Murtala Mohammed coup of 1975. This would later lead to Jose appointing him as Editor of the Daily Times. He would later rise to become the managing director of the newspaper company, revamping and bringing it back to profitability through austere measures. Osoba was elected governor of Ogun State in January 1992 on the Social Democratic Party (SDP) platform, and was removed from office by the administration of General Sani Abacha in November 1993. After the return to democracy in 1999, he was elected again as governor on the Alliance for Democracy (AD) platform. As governor, Osoba opened up the rural areas especially with electrification projects. An account of his life and times, The Newspaper Years, authored by Mike Awoyinfa and Dimgba Igwe, was published in 2012.