OBITUARY: Remi Oyo, the woman who transformed NAN, loses battle to cancer at 61

The Nigerian media landscape is traditionally masculine, such that all journalists are addressed as “gentlemen of the press” ─ but Mrs Remi Oyo was one of those who broke the glass ceiling.

Her death in the early hours of Wednesday in the UK after a long battle with cancer was met with shock, although those who saw her in recent times knew she was fighting a titanic battle with ill health.

She had been travelling to the United States for treatment for the past two years.

Oyo, who was senior special assistant on media and publicity to President Olusegun Obasanjo from 2003-2007, was appointed the managing director of News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in 2007.

NAN, which is the official news agency of the federal government, went through a significant transformation under her leadership, changing from the analog style of news delivery to digital.

The agency began to deliver news, photos and videos via its electronic platform, effectively moving from the age of hardcopy news bulletins and e-mails.

She suffered the indignity of a spoof NAN bulletin sent to media houses in 2009 announcing that President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was going to resign on health grounds, and promptly moved to improve the security of news delivery by the agency.

She was born in Ilorin, Kwara State, on October 12, 1952 to parents from Osin-Ekiti, although her name “Oyo” confused a lot of people who thought she was from Oyo state.

She was actually married to Mr Vincent Oyo, a media practitioner, from Delta State.

She got a diploma in mass communication from the University of Lagos, a post graduate diploma in international relations at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs and a master’s degree in International relations at the University of Kent, UK.

Although she started her career in the broadcast industry as a radio journalist, she soon moved to wire services, working with NAN and rising to the position of an editor before joining Inter Press Service Global News Agency, one of the top global news agencies, where she worked for over 10 years.

She was the first female president of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, an association of the journalism elite in Nigeria.

Oyo was also a fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Management and the Institute of Public Administration of Nigeria.

In March 2014, she was made a fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, and the pictures of her at the event showed she had lost considerable weight.

Oyo’s death is the second blow to the Nigerian media within a month, following the death of Mr. Dimgba Igwe, former vice chairman of Sun newspapers.

Alhaji Tunji Oseni, Oyo’s predecessor as Obasanjo’s spokesperson, also died of cancer.

Editors would always remember Oyo for the way she engaged with them over the controversies and negative media that dogged Obasanjo’s government.

“She was neither aggressive nor combative. Her style was to engage, to explain, to get us to be fair to her principal,” a former editor told TheCable.

In a statement announcing her passing, the husband said she had been looking forward to her 62nd birthday.