By Chinwendu Agoha (Media & Governance Reporter)
Frontline journalist and first female editor in Champion newspaper group, Dr Ngozi Fidelia Anyaegbunam is dead. She passed on at the age of 67.
Ngozi, also a former lecturer in the department of English Language and Head of Department of General Studies at the University of Calabar and a member of the editorial board of the Daily Times Newspaper group, died at the weekend in Abuja after a brief illness.
Dr Anyaegbunam who hails from Ogbunike in Oyi Local Government Area of Anambra State, South East, Nigeria, was the founder and president of Media World, a Non-Governmental Media Organization she initiated in early 1995 to train and retrain media practitioners in Nigeria and Africa towards promoting and enthroning a new world order, ensuring a better society and enhancing media practice.
The media world which became an instant success in 1996, had on it's board of governors, eminent leaders, elderstatesmen and women, corporate titans and distinguished international scholars and personalities like the former vice president of Nigeria in the second republic democracy, Dr Alex Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme, Dr Christopher Kolade, Professor Ibrahim Agboola Gambari, Barrister Tochukwu Onwugbufor (Nigeria's former Solicitor General of the Federation), Professor Felicia Ekejiuba (a former Regional Director of the United Nations Fund for Women, UNIFEM) among many others.
Anyaegbunam's Media World Project equally made strong waves in the Nigeria's media sector in the 90s with it's training and exposure of practicing journalists to skill acquisition and modern trends in the industry. She introduced a popular Media World Newsletter which had on it's editorial advisory board renowned young journalists at the time like Funke Egbemode, a then staff of the Punch newspapers and a former president of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE); Celestine Okafor, also a Senior Political Affairs Correspondent of the Punch newspapers in 1996 and currently the Publisher/Editor-in-chief of Nigerian NewsLeader Newspaper.
Other editorial advisory board members include Maurene Chigbo, then Assistant Editor of the popular Newswatch magazine and presently the publisher/CEO of Realnews magazine and President of Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP); Angela Agoawike, a former editor of Sunday Times newspaper, ex-Secretary General of the Nigerian Guild of Editors and now Managing Director/CEO of Owerri based Omalicha FM Radio Station, among other eminent journalists.
A statement by Dr Ngozi Anyaegbunam's son and only child, Mr Rocky Agbese, described the deceased veteran journalist and media consultant as a "trailblazing journalist who had editorial stints with Champion Newspaper (1st female editor) and The Daily Times (where she authored the book Waziri Ibrahim: Politics Without Bitterness), Ngozi was born in October 1957 at Damaturu in modern day Yobe State to George and Victoria Anyaegbunam.
"Subsequent to these, she became a full time media management consultant to numerous blue chip companies. She also held the distinction of being a female print media journalist to interview two sitting Presidents of Nigeria (Olusegun Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari).
"A dedicated and loving mother, grandmother, sister, cousin and friend, Auntie Ngozi will be sorely missed by all who came across her and were impacted by her larger than life presence. Rest in Peace till we meet to part no more!! Funeral arrangements will be announced by the family", the statement said. NNL.
