By Taiwo Obe
Nine days to his 35th birthday and, remarkably, on the day Nigeria turned 40 as an independent nation (1 October 2000), Hakeem Bello was appointed editor of Nigeria’s Daily Times.
He had joined the Daily Times Group nine years earlier as a senior staff writer on the Sunday Times. He would later be drafted to start a special Saturday edition (Daily Times on Saturday) before being appointed editor of the daily. He was briefly executive editor of another newspaper, National Interest, before Babatunde Raji Fashola, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, in late 2006, contesting for the governorship of Lagos State, invited him to be the coordinator and adviser on media of his campaign organisation. A victorious Fashola in 2007 appointed Bello as his Senior Special Assistant on Media, and four years later, on winning a second term, his Special Adviser, still on Media.
On Saturday, 10 October 2015, Bello, a Fellow of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, will be 50 years old.
To celebrate, Bello wants to give back to journalism, a profession which he cherishes and hopes, with assistance from seasoned journalists, would return to the standards obtainable during his days at the Daily Times Group.
Read more here
