High hope in aviation as Nigerian airlines embraces new, more profitable aircraft tribuneonlineng.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from tribuneonlineng.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Ex-information minister Tony Momoh is dead
Sodiq Oyeleke
A former Minister of Information and Culture, Tony Momoh, has died at the age of 81.
Sources close to the deceased told our correspondent that he died on Monday at his residence in Abuja.
A former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar described the late Momoh as a good man.
In a message posted on his Twitter handle, @atiku, the former Vice-President wrote, “A good man, Prince Tony Momoh, has gone home. The veteran journalist, politician, and former minister was an avowed apostle of politics without bitterness. And like the prince he was, carried himself with dignity and respect. He will be sorely missed.
Late Tony Momoh
According to family sources, the former Minister died on Monday at his residence in Abuja.
Momoh was appointed Minister of Information and Culture by General Ibrahim Babangida, holding the position from September 1986 until 1990.
Momoh was Chairman of the African Conference of Information Ministers from 1988 to 1990.
He was educated at Government School Auchi, the school Momoh the First had established at Auchi in 1922. He also attended Teacher Training College, Abraka, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, the University of Lagos, and the Nigerian Law school.
He had degrees in Mass Communication and Law and was a solicitor and advocate of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. He worked in various capacities, including professional and administrative, in the Daily Times of Nigeria Group.
Not Minister of Education, not of Transport, not even of Justice nor Attorney General of the Federation – all pre-eminent positions of authority, of honour and of service.
But that was not how the common folks of his land, the Igala land of Kogi State, knew and identified Alhaji Abdullahi Ibrahim from Okaba in Ankpa Local Government of Kogi State who had, at various times, occupied all the aforementioned positions. x
For his fellow Igala compatriots, the title of SAN, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, with the prestige attached to it, was an honour worthy of their distinguished son especially when such honour, because of its novelty, was a rare commodity.
Advertisement
My colleague and very good friend, Waziri Adio, has a sense of humour that sometimes borders on the morbid. Shortly before we departed Lagos last Sunday on the first leg of ‘THISDAY Meets the Nation’ tour, he said: “If this aircraft crashes, THISDAY would be re-enacting the Zambia national soccer team tragedy scenario.” Mr. Victor Ifijeh (current Managing Director of The Nation newspaper) immediately scolded Waziri: “Why do you always think negatively?” Apparently, the editor of THISDAY, whom we all call Kabila in the newsroom, was not in a hurry to join his Congolese ‘namesake’ in the great beyond. He almost did.