The Sun Newspapers: Jubilation amidst New appointments

The management of The Sun Publishing Limited has announced new appointments in the newspaper organization. This is to serve our teeming readers with innovative products and give them more value for money. The appointments take immediate effect.
In a statement by the Managing Director/Editor-in-chief, Mr Eric Osagie, the new appointments “are aimed at driving our growth strategy and the Board’s vi¬sion of transforming the company into a top rate media and entertainment organization.”
In this regard, Mr. Kunle Solaja becomes General Manager, Special Publica-tions. Before now, he was General Editor in charge of sports contents of our publi¬cations. In a similar vein, a new News Editor has been appointed. She is Ms. Fo¬lashade Adetutu-Koyi, who until now was Assistant News Editor, Abuja, and was also the newspaper’s Senate correspondent. She succeeds Adesina Aiyekoti
who moves up as Assistant Editor for Saturday Sun. Ihe¬anacho Nwosu who was Dep¬uty News Editor, Abuja is now the Assistant Editor, Politics. Razaq Bamidele who was Po¬litical Editor becomes the As¬sistant Editor, Sunday Sun. Also, Henry Chukwurah, Dep¬uty News Editor has been pro-moted Assistant Editor, Daily Sun, while Robert Obioha, be¬comes Deputy Chairman of the Editorial Board.
The sports department is also affected by the wave of fresh appointments. John Joshua Akanji who was Assistant Edi¬tor, Sports is now the editor of SoccerStar which from September 1, transforms to SportingSun. In similar vein, George Aluo, Deputy Sports Editor will be the Sports Editor of Daily Sun while Emmanuel Jemegah, another Deputy Sports Editor is now the Editor of Weekend SoccerStar and Sunday SoccerStar.
Kunle Solaja, the General Manager, Special Publications is the longest serving editor of sports publications in the country. His long and fruitful career in sports journalism had seen him, since 1990, cover seven consecutive editions of the FIFA World Cup finals. He is a back-to-back winner of the Nigerian Media Merit Award in Sports Reporting in 2009 and 2010.
He has been editing Soc¬cerStar since inception in February 2005. He is also the author of the landmark books, “Super Eagles…through the ages” and “Going for Goals… Nigerian football’s hidden sto¬ries”.
Solaja holds Bachelor of Science (1983) and Master of Science (1988) degrees in Mass Communication from University of Lagos and also a CIES/FIFA Diploma in Sports Management (2012) from Cairo University, Egypt.
Adetutu Folasade- Koyi, News Editor, started her journalism career as a test can¬didate on the Features Desk of The Guardian, in August 1997. Less than four months later, she pioneered Natural Health reporting in Nigeria by anchoring four pages of Natu¬ral Health in The Guardian in January 1998.
In April 1999, Ms. Koyi moved to The Comet News¬paper and as Assistant Editor, edited the Natural Health pag¬es which were later expanded to include science and ortho¬dox health.
In search of challenges, Koyi left the newspaper in October 2002 for Daily Inde¬pendent where she covered the Capital Market beat on the Business Desk.
On July 1, 2011, Ms. Koyi joined The Sun and also, covered the Senate. A widely-travelled journalist, she has been to Uganda, the United Kingdom, Ghana, South Af¬rica, Tanzania, Canada and China to cover conferences relating to health, HIV/AIDS, and parliamentary matters. She is a 1994 Second Class Upper graduate of English (BA (Hons) from the Lagos State University, Ojo.
Adesina Aiyekoti, the new Assistant Editor for Satur¬day Sun, has a 30-year career span as a journalist. His odys¬sey in journalism has seen him holding positions as Judicial Correspondent, Chief Cor¬respondent, Assistant News Editor, and City Editor before he joined The Sun in 2003 as a Chief Correspondent. He is an alumnus of the Nigerian Insti¬tute of Journalism (NIJ).
Razaq Bamidele, the As¬sistant Editor of Sunday Sun holds a Bachelor Degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies from University of Ibadan in 1987 and Post Graduate Di¬ploma Certificate in Journal¬ism from Nigeria Institute of Journalism (NIJ), Ogba, La¬gos, 1994.
He worked at the defunct Concord Press of Nigeria be¬tween 1998 and 2000. He was the Political Editor at Today News Today (TNT), an eve¬ning newspaper, 2000. He was also the Political Editor at The Monitor Newspaper, Ibadan, from 2000 to 2003, before joining The Sun Publishing Limited in 2003.
Nwosu, who now mans the political desk, holds an M. Sc in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos and a certificate in Advanced Reporting from Pan African University, Lagos.
Henry Chukwurah, the Assistant Editor, Daily Sun holds a Diploma in Journal¬ism from Times Institute of Journalism, Lagos and BSc in Mass Communication from Enugu State University. He was The Sun Bureau Chief, South South before being recalled to head office to be¬come Deputy News Editor.
John Joshua Akanji, edi¬tor of Sporting Sun, holds a diploma in journalism and a B.A Honours in Literature in English from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria where he emerged as the best gradu¬ating student in 1994. He be¬gan his journalism career as producer and presenter with the Kaduna State Media Cor¬poration. He had stints with Sportslink newspapers and was also the sports editor at Hallmark newspapers, and later at National Interest.
Akanji was a sports pre¬senter on Star FM and Chan¬nels Television.
At a time, he was also the sports correspondent of the BBC. Vastly versatile and experienced with coverage of many competitions under his belt, he was a pioneer staff member of The Sun and later edited the Weekend SoccerStar. He rose to the position of Assistant Edi¬tor, Sports before his new ap¬pointment.
Aluo, Sports Editor, attend¬ed The Polytechnic, Nekede, Owerri where he got HND (upper credit) in Information Science in 1993. He obtained a postgraduate diploma in Public Relations at the Nige¬rian Institute of Journalism in 1995 before a Master’s degree in International Relations at Lagos State University in 2000.
Aluo’s career in journal¬ism began as an intern at The Guardian newspapers be¬fore joining Champion News¬papers where he rose to the position of Deputy Editor of Sporting Champion. A widely travelled journalist, he joined the The Sun as Deputy Sports Editor in 2010.
Jemegah, editor of Week¬end SportingSun has over 23 years reporting experience since finishing at the Nige¬ria Institute of Journalism in 1990. He worked with Prime People magazine as enter¬tainment/sports reporter. He has worked at The Repub¬lic, Sportslink and Today¬Sports where he rose to the position of Weekend Editor before joining The Sun Pub¬lishing Limited in 2005.
Jemegah has many awards including The Best League reporter in 2001 and several nominations. He is at the mo¬ment working on a book on the Nigerian league.
Obioha, deputy chair of the editorial board, who joined The Sun Publishing Lim¬ited in 2005 as a member of the Editorial Board, has maintained a regular weekly column in the newspaper. In between his journalism ca¬reer, Obioha has had many journalism skills training both locally and abroad including the recent one on Digital Mul¬timedia Journalism held at the Graduate School of Journal¬ism, City University of New York, USA.
He attended University of Maiduguri from 1988-1991 and obtained a second class upper degree in English/ Education in 1991. He got his M.A. degree in English from the University of Lagos in 1993.