Iconic Professor of Communication Studies, Lai Oso dies at 68 in auto accident
…Car plunges into river on return from examining a Delta State PHD Student
Erudite Professor of Communication Studies, Lai Muraino Oso, on Saturday passed on at the age of 68 years.
Oso was returning to Shagamu from Abraka by road after being an External Supervisor of a PhD Mass Communication Student at the Delta State University, Abraka when the vehicle conveying him plunged into a river near Ijebu-Ode in Ogun State.
Oso was a former Dean of the School of Communication Studies of the Lagos State University, where he was a Lecturer until his death.
He was a former Chief Lecturer and Head of Department of the Mass Communication Department of The Ogun State Polytechnic now Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta.
Oso who worked with Radio and News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) is current President, Association of Communication Scholars and Professionals (ACSPN).
He obtained his first degree in Mass Communication BSc at the University of Lagos; had his M.Sc in International Relations at Obafemi Awolowo University and got his Ph.D. in Mass Communication as a Federal Government Scholar at the Leicester University, England in 1977.
His Shagamu residence was jam packed with eminent Scholars and relations on Sunday at about noon. One of the numerous visitors is the Dean of the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies at LASU, Prof. Sunday Alawode who confirmed the news to Correspondent on Sunday said, “It is a rude shock to all of us even as we commiserate with Mummy Oso, the children and his entire family, the Communication family worldwide.”
Prof. Lai Oso is survived by his wife, Retired Matron Bimbo Oso, of the Ogun State Health Management Services; his first child, Dr Simisola Oso, who is also a Lecturer in the Faculty of Science at LASU and Mojo Oso Esq a lawyer who is planning to move abroad.
A former Dean of the School of Communication Studies Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Dr. Goke Rauf, who was also at the Shagamu home of the OSOS lamented the passage of ‘a good man and an iconic scholar well respected in the Communication Academia in Africa’.
Most of his students and colleagues in the profession and at the Ogun State Polytechnic who are on the Mass Comm Platform (Mostly pioneer students of the department) described the news as a very bad one making this day a Black Sunday unto us”. Everyone expressed deep sorrow that a gentleman of the Pen Confraternity has exited.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Patmos Media Line, Rev. Eniola Olatunji (formerly Yomi Kassim) said he knew Lai Oso in 1979 when he was a Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abeokuta and he was the Sports Reporter of the Ogun State Broadcasting Corporation (OGBC).
He said, “I can never forget Professor Lai Oso. He made me go back to school. I had spotted a great error in the arrangement of the 1979 Ogun Green Courts which was an International Lawn Tennis Tournament on the ATP circuit at the Premises of the Abeokuta Sports Club and Lai Oso talked down on me telling me not to waste by brilliance but upgrade myself academically instead of being comfortable as a School Cert Holder.”
Dr. Oso visited my family at our Kado Estate home in 2001 when he came with the Ogun State Chapter of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) to the Annual Conference at the Women Center as I also served for four years on the Executive of the Oyo State Chapter and we used to have tripartite programmes with the Lagos and Ogun State Chapters. The news of his death was shocking to me and my wife, Dr. Bunmi Olatunji a Chief Consultant Radiologist at the National Hospital, Abuja. His 2001 visit coincided with when my wife joined the National Hospital and was “washed’ by delegates of the Oyo and Ogun Chapters which then Dr. Oso was the Chief Organiser.
The Family is still busy mourning his passage and there has not been a hint on his burial arrangements.
Eniola Olatunji for Patmos Media Line.
