Professor Yemi Osinbajo, Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has accepted the invitation to attend the launch of the epochal book on The Guardian.
The event, billed to hold in Lagos on April 7, 2021, will also be attended by many top media icons, politicians across the political divide, captains of industry and other high profile Nigerians.
Senior Special Assistant (SSA) on media, to the Vice President, Pastor Laolu Akande, a former star correspondent at The Guardian, has confirmed that professor Osinbajo has scheduled the event as one of those to attend in the second quarter of the Year.
The authors, Aaron Ukodie and O’seun Ogunseitan had sent an invitation to the Vice President at the close of last year to attend the event as Special Guest of Honour and to deliver a keynote address.
Several governors, among them Governor Kayode Fayemi, Chairman Governors Forum, who also had a stint at The Guardian, have also been invited as special guests to attend the event.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the governor of Lagos State where The Guardian was founded in 1983, flourished and became iconic within its first five years, is expected to be the Chief Host.
Gov Sanwo-olu will be supported by Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, the governor if Delta State, the ancestral origin of the equally iconic Mr. Alex Uruemu Ibru, the proprietor of The Guardian who died on November 20, 2011.
Mr Alex Ibru, who will be posthumously honoured at the event for his sterling entrepreneurship and proprietorship, will be represented by his wife Lady Maiden Alex-Ibru, who is now the publisher of The Guardian who’s management has also endorsed the epochal publication.
The late Publisher Alex Ibru gathered a selected handful of the best hands in Nigerian journalism practice back then, mixed them with a sprinkle of the best of the academics in the arts, philosophy and even the sciences, to found The Guardian.
The newspaper attracted the late iconic writer Dr. Stanley Macebuh and outstanding authors, media men and teachers like the inimitable Lade Bonuola, Professors Onwuchekwa Jemie, Femi Osofisan and Dr Ibekwe Chinweizu.
The Guardian also had the likes of Harvard University teacher Herbert Ekwue-Ekwue and Oxford-trained economist Dr. Ashikwe-Egom, who called himself the motor park economist and then advert guru and now Professor, Jide Oluwajuyitan.
The Guardian also had emeritus Professors Godwin Sogolo and Emebvo Baikolo apart from hordes of Ph.D holders Edwin Madunagwu, Yemi Ogunbiyi, Patrick Dele Cole and Tunji Dare who converged, at The Guardian then, to make the newspaper the Flagship of Nigerian journalism.
The Guardian Book is expected, by many, to be the historic book of the year, also because of the number of professors and top media men that have contributed to its making.
Contributors to the book include all the founding stars of The Guardian and others including media industry icons such as Mr Femi Kusa, top media manager and SMEs advocate, Ted Iwere, renown NTA-anchor Kingsley Osadolor, senator Ayogu Eze, Mr Onuoha Ukeh, Managing Director of Sun Newspapers and Thisday editorial board chairman, Segun Adeniyi, have alsob contributed to the making of the book.
Limited customised copies of the book are still available for preorder at www.theguadianera.com.
