By Kayode Sanni-Arewa
A prolific broadcaster, news anchor, reporter, producer, videographer, and film editor, Joy Osiagwu, has passed.
A report by QEDNG said that Mrs Osiagwu died last Friday at Arewa Hospital, Jabi, Abuja, in a brief illness.
She was a former employee of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA).
Her path crossed this reporter’s at the National Assembly, where they both reported the activities of the Senate for their respective media organisations.
She was also a newscaster and would later become a media consultant. She plied the journalism trade for over two decades in full-time capacity in Nigeria and North America.
Osiagwu covered activities of the Nigeria High Commission in Ottawa Canada and the Nigeria Mission to the United Nations in New York for a decade, including the United Nations rotational presidency of the Security Council during the tenure of the former permanent representative of Nigeria to the UN Mission, Professor Joy Ogwu, in July 2010, October 2011 and August 2015 for the NTA.
Apart from covering the United Nations Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration in Marrakech, Morocco in 2018, Osiagwu covered the election process and emergence of the 74th president of the United Nations General Assembly, Professor Tijjani Bande, in June 2019 at the UN in New York.
Osiagwu obtained a masters in business administration and media leadership from the University of Cumbria in the United Kingdom. She also had a post-graduate diploma in broadcast performing arts from the Columbia Academy, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She obtained a bachelor of arts degree in drama, majoring in theatre for development (TFD) at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
Osiagwu was a member of IFLAS (the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability Cumbria Business School).
She worked at the NTA for 23 years and retired voluntarily in September 2019.
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of THE CONCLAVE, Mr Sufuyan Ojeifo described Joy Osiagwu as a brilliant journalist who distinguished herself in the practice as a media professional.
He said the last time he saw Mrs Osiagwu was in June 2013 in Washington DC when she travelled down from Canads to cover an assignment involving the then Director General of NAFDAC, Dr Paul Botwev Orhii.
He said she would be sorely missed even as he prayed that the Almighty God would grant her soul eternal repose in His Bosom.