Kunle Ajibade, renowned journalist, to be honoured at colloquium

Kunle Ajibade, a renowned journalist and author, who turned 60 on Monday will have his birthday marked with a colloquium led by Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate.

The colloquium, organised by his friends, will take place at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) on Wednesday by 10am. It will be followed by an evening of poetry slated for 5:30pm at the Freedom Park, Lagos.

In a statement released by his friends, Ajibade was described as a journalist who has functioned as a crucial actor within the Nigerian media space over the last three decades.

“His various roles in the media have seen him serve as reporter to media houses, a senior correspondent for The African Concord magazine, assistant editor with The African Guardian, and then different editorial and management responsibilities in the now rested Tempo and A.M News titles, before being Executive Editor of TheNEWS magazine and PM News in the past several years,” the statement read.

According to the statement, “Ajibade’s works in the days of military rule, saw him crusading on the side of social justice and running against the murky essence of the vicious Abacha military regime in its high noon.

“Kunle Ajibade was arrested on spurious charges and ‘jailed for life’ in 1995, after a kangaroo and contrived judicial process, in similar vein to the encounters of other journalists like George Mbah of Tell magazine, Chris Anyanwu of The Sunday Magazine (TSM), and Ben Charles Obi of the Weekend Classique, about the same period.

“His experience of arrest, imprisonment, and subsequently release from the gulag of military dictatorship after three harrowing years are chronicled in his memoir, Jailed for Life: A Reporter’s Prison Notes, which won the Victor Nwankwo Book of the Year award in 2005. He is also author of What a Country!, which details Nigeria’s travails under cruel and repressive rule”.

Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu,  Ayo Obe, Femi Falana, Ayisha Osori, Owei Lakemfa, and Sam Omatseye will speak at the event which is open to the public.