•Founder, Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore
Tobiloba Ashaju
“To do honest journalism, you don’t expect lots of money all you can be is being fearless,” these were the words of the founder of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore over the weekend.
Sowore who spoke at the 2017 Campus Editor’s Summit (CES) organised by the National Association of Campus Editors (NANCE) at the Tai Solarin University of Education on Saturday.
Speakers at the event include Sowore; Former Editor, The Cable, Fisayo Soyombo; The Nation Newspaper Campus Life Editor, Wale Ajetunmobi and Content Editor, Naij, Temitope Popoola.
Ajetunmobi had defined Journalism as the act of gathering news, processing, and disseminating it for consumption.
Ajetunmobi said he is also a campus journalist. He said journalists and campus journalists are the same but the difference between them is the environment they get their news.
He rounded off his speech saying “the future of journalism is on our palms with the aid of social media, tabs and phones.
Then Omoyele Sowore said “let me start by saying I am not a journalist but journalism has been so fascinating to me. I applied for Geography and Planning but was given Humanities in UNILAG. It was that time when Nigerian was suffering worst economy but I managed even though my father didn’t support.”
“I was expelled from school two times, making me spend six years instead of four in the higher institution and it was after that I travelled to the US in 1999.
“There were lots of vibrant and courageous journalists then, not until 2004 when politicians started buying up editors and Journalists.”
“I started with stories, even though I have a bad writing,” said Sowore.
He also talked about how he wrote some newsstories but were not published because of fear of the powerful, but he continued to write.
Towards the end of the summit, the issue of false publication of news about MAPOLY was raised by the Press Club MAPOLY President, Ifedayo Ogunyemi and was addressed by Popoola.
Poems were recited to thrill the crowd after the speakers have spoken.
Campus journalists from Moshood Abiola Polytechnic (MAPOLY), University of Ibadan (U.I), University of Ilorin (UNILORIN), Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ladoke Akintola University of Technology and many others were present at the summit.