Lewis Obi, former Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director of African Concord, has passed on.
He died on Friday at the age of 77.
His death was announced in a statement released by Mr Ogbuagu An¬ikwe.
Obi was a features writer at the Daily Times before he was recruited by the late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (M.K.O.) Abiola to join the Concord Group as Features Editor of National Concord.
He later became founding editor, Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director of African Concord, one of the group’s flagship weekly magazines.
Under his leadership, African Concord emerged as a major platform for investiga¬tive and analytical journalism during Nigeria’s years of mil¬itary rule.
His editorial work brought him into direct con¬frontation with state authori¬ties, forcing him into exile in the United States after a period of intense repression.
Renowned as a mentor with a keen eye for talent, Obi nurtured many of Nigeria’s leading journalists and public intellectuals, leaving behind a legacy defined by courage, literary excellence and profes¬sional generosity.
Obi was married and is survived by his wife and children.
Reacting to his death, Babafemi Ojudu, a journalist, who received immense and immeasurable training under him, described the late Obi as “a master prose stylist — deeply committed to clarity, rhythm, and precision. He believed in the power of the perfect sentence and the exact phrase, and he worked assiduously toward both. Sloppiness never survived his desk. Editing under Lewis Obi was rigorous, sometimes exhausting, but always purposeful: he was not trying to wound egos; he was trying to elevate craft.”
The Nigerian Press Council also expressed deep sorrow over the death of Obi.
In a statement in Abuja by the Council’s Director of Research and Documentation, Mr Dan Ede, the Executive Secretary of the Council, Dr Dili Ezughah, says, “Nigerian journalism has lost one of its finest and most decorated practitioners.”
Ezughah said Mr Obi was not just a consummate professional and wordsmith, he was also a media trainer and mentor.
“Intelligent, knowledgeable, courageous, refined and diplomatic, Mr Lewis Obi spoke the truth to power back in the days of military dictatorship, in a trenchant language couched in elegant prose,” Ezughah said.
A native of Amurri in Nkanu West Local Government Area of Enugu State, Mr Obi was educated at Methodist Central School, Agbani, and earned a degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos, where he was a distinguished student of the late communications scholar Professor Alfred Opubor.
CREDIT: The NATION
