One of Nigeria’s foremost communications scholar and professor of Communications at the Lagos State University (LASU), Prof. Lai Oso, is dead.
Oso, aged 67, was said to have died in an accident while returning from a conference in Abraka, Delta State.
Idris Mohammed, one of his students who broke the news on on Facebook, wrote: “It is with great sadness and heavy heart that I bring to you the passing away of our very own Professor Lai Oso of the Mass Communication Department, Lagos State University in the evening today as a result of a ghastly accident on his way back to Lagos from Abaraka, Delta State. Late Lai Oso was one of Professor Pate’s allies and a great communication scholar in Nigeria.
“He was a humble and generous man of exemplary good character. Goodnight, Prof.!!!”
Platforms Africa quoted two of his students, Idris Mohammed and Wasiu Tejuoso, as saying the late don died in a motor accident in Ijebu axis of the Ore-Sagamu expressway on Saturday evening.
“He was coming from Delta State University (DELSU) where he was an external examiner at the department of Mass communication. His SUV had reached Ijebu axis on the expressway before the car plunged into a river,” it quoted another student who was called from Ijebu Police station.
Oso was a Professor of Mass Communication, School of Communication, Lagos State University.
He was the Dean of the school between 2011 and 2015. He was President, Association of Communication Scholars & Professionals of Nigeria (ACSPN).
He studied at the University of Lagos (B.Sc. Mass Communication), Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife (M.Sc. International Relations) and obtained a Ph.D degree in Mass Communication as a Federal Government scholar at the University of Leicester, England in 1977
He worked as a Reporter both in Radio and the News Agency of Nigeria and had taught courses in Journalism, Media and Governance, Political Communication, Development Communication and theory.