By Our Correspondent
Lagos, June 13, ’25 (TNZ) The Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos (UNILAG) has felicitated with four of its distinguished alumni, who were conferred with the revered national honour of the Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) on Friday in Abuja.
TheNewsZenith reports that Prof. Oluruntola Sunday, the Head of the Department, congratulated the awardees for being exemplary ambassadors of the department and the University of Lagos.
Sunday urged them not to relent in their contributions to the development of journalism, journalism education, and the growth of democracy in Nigeria.
The alumni are Prof. Olatunji Dare, late Dr Yinma Sen, Bayo Onanuga and Dare Babarinsa.
TheNewsZenith reports that President Bola Tinubu announced the conferment while delivering his Democracy Day speech at a joint session of the National Assembly on Thursday.
According to the president, they were awarded for their immense contributions to the development of the nation and humanity.
Prof. Olatunji Dare is an erudite scholar of journalism. He taught at the Department of Mass Communication, UNILAG, where he was also the first student of the department to finish with a first-class degree.
As part of an illustrious career, which commenced upon graduation, Dare had served as Editorial Page Editor and Chairman of the Editorial Board of The Guardian, one of Nigeria’s leading newspaper.
In 1994, Nigeria’s military government shut down The Guardian because of its editorial outspokenness, which was the brainwork of Prof. Dare.
The following year, he received the Louis M. Lyon’s Prize for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University.
The university gave him the award in recognition of his steadfast commitment to journalism’s best practices.
After The Guardian apologised to the military government, Prof. Dare resigned his position at The Guardian and relocated to the United States in 1996 to take up a faculty position at Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois.
The same year, he received the Hammet/Hellman Grant award for courage in the face of political persecution by Human Rights Watch in recognition of his career.
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Prof. Dare was a columnist at The Nation for decades until last year, when he retired after his 80th birthday.
Another alumnus, late Dr John Yima Sen, was a prominent pro-democracy advocate and respected public intellectual.
Late Sen was also awarded CON posthumously for his contributions to the nation’s governance and unity.
Also an alumnus of the Mass Communication Department at UNILAG, Sen earned his bachelor’s degree in 1974.
He went on to pursue a distinguished career spanning fields such as media and public relations, politics, civil society, and academia.
Fellow recipient, Bayo Onanuga, is similarly an alumnus of the Department of Mass Communication, UNILAG, where he obtained his first degree in 1980.
Onanuga has, and is still playing pivotal roles in the Nigerian journalism space. He co-founded TheNews and P.M. News in the early 1990s.
TheNewsZenith recalls that former President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Onanuga as the Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) between 2016 and 2018.
Thereafter, he directed media strategy for the Tinubu/Shettima 2023 presidential campaign and now serves as Special Adviser on Information and Strategy to President Tinubu.
Another Alumnus and CON recipient, Dare Babarinsa, is a veteran journalist, who served as former Executive Director of TELL Magazine, Editor-in-Chief of The Westerner.
Babarinsa is the current Chairman/ Managing Director of Gaskiya Media Limited. (TNZ)
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