Former Commissioner for Tourism, Arts and Culture in Lagos State, Mr Steve Ayorinde, has described the Head West Africa, BBC, Toyosi Ogunseye, as a rare and exceptional journalist.
Ayorinde said this while reacting to Ogunseye’s emergence as the Vice President, World Editors Forum.
The former commissioner, who is also a former editor of ‘The PUNCH’, at Punch Nigeria Limited, where Ogunseye also worked and became editor of ‘Sunday Punch’, travelled the memory lane and said her elevation was a deserved one.
Ayorinde said in a Facebook post, “I reserve special congratulations for Ms Toyosi Ogunseye, Head of BBC West Africa, who was elected Vice-President of World Editors Forum at the ongoing WAN-IFRA congress in Glasgow, Scotland over the weekend. It was a first for Africa and Toyosi deserves all the accolades as a pride of the continent…and especially to the media profession in Nigeria, which appears to be gasping for breath, no thanks to the onslaught from inchoate social media news hounds, rabid blackmailers and extortionists.
“I met Toyosi some 10 years ago when she walked into my office as Editor of PUNCH with a very high recommendation from a close friend and colleague. She subsequently passed the mandatory entrance test and wowed everybody at the interview session to earn herself a most deserving slot as an investigative correspondent on the Sunday Punch, the same title she would later edit. Rare, brilliant and exceptional, yet she has remained humble and respectful. May her star never dim. Congrats TY…”
