Dr Doyinsola Abiola, former Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief of National Concord newspaper, and wife of the late business mogul and acclaimed winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election, Chief MKO Abiola, has passed away.
She died on Tuesday evening at about 9:15pm after a brief illness, family sources confirmed. She was 82.
A pioneer in Nigerian journalism, Dr Abiola was the first woman to become editor-in-chief of a national daily newspaper in Nigeria, blazing a trail for generations of women in the media industry.
Born in the 1940s, she graduated with a degree in English and Drama from the University of Ibadan in 1969 and began her journalism career at the Daily Sketch, where her widely read column Tiro addressed gender and societal issues. She later travelled to the United States for postgraduate studies in journalism, earning a master’s degree and eventually a PhD in Communications and Political Science from New York University in 1979.
Dr Abiola returned to Nigeria to join the Daily Times, rising to become Group Features Editor and serving on the paper’s editorial board alongside top media minds like Stanley Macebuh, Dele Giwa, and Amma Ogan.
In the early 1980s, she joined the newly established National Concord, where she made history once again first as the pioneer editor of the daily edition and later, in 1986, as Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief, a position she held for decades.
She married Chief MKO Abiola in 1981 and stood firmly by him during the political crisis that followed the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election a defining moment in Nigeria’s democratic journey.
