University Lecturer, Dr. Abiodun Adeniyi turns fifty 31st December. Born in 1965, Adeniyi was educated at the St. Mary’s Primary School, Lokoja; Government Secondary School, Agbaja; the School of Basic Studies, Kwara State College of Technology (Now Kwara Polytechnic); and the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he left with a Second Class Upper Honors Degree from the famous Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) (as it then was).

Simply ‘Biodun’ or ‘Abbey’ as fondly called by friends began his journalism career working with Today Newspaper Kaduna before berthing in The Guardian Political Desk in 1991. He was deployed to the paper’s Abuja Bureau, where he covered key political beats including the electoral commission, and the senate.



I actually joined him in the Senate in 2001 as a “freelance journalist”. He covered the many transition programmes of former military president, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (rtd), and that of Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar (rtd), who eventually succeeded in restoring Nigeria from military rule to constitutional democracy.

His The Guardian experience offered him the regular reportorial contact and closeness, with several political dignitaries including former President Olusegun Obasanjo, former President Ibrahim Babangida, and many past and present political office holders, including governors, federal legislators and party administrators. Some of these contacts have graduated into a near lifelong relationship.

Dr. Adeniyi was amongst 35 young Nigerians, out of over 10,000 applicants, who won the 2002/2003 British Chevening Scholarship for Master’s Degree place in Universities in England. He completed his MA programme in International Communications at the Ivy League University of Leeds with Credits, and began his Ph.D. research in same department, following an earlier evaluation of the prospects of his Masters research as a highly conceptual subject matter worthy of further investigation. He was a beneficiary of the Institute of Communications Studies (ICS) funding, for the conclusion of the study.

The researcher was awarded Ph.D. in Communication Studies for his work on “Internet and Diasporic Communication: Dispersed Nigerians and the Online Mediation of Distance, Longing and Belonging”. The study examined the communication potentials of migrant Nigerians, the possibility or lack of it, for the construction and reconstruction of identity, and the chances for the evocation of nationalism, besides their transnational connections while online.

Supervised by Professor Myria Georgiou (Lead), now at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and Professor Stephen Lax, the project became one of the few Nigerian and African centered thesis published by Whiterose Etheses Online-a network of the trinity of the University of Leeds, Sheffield and York.

As a Ph.D. student, he was one of few black students provided with teaching opportunities at the same department; an experience that saw him teaching post graduate students from diverse continents, including from Asia, the Americas, Africa and from other European Countries.

Despite a few post-doctoral research scholarship offers in hand after the doctoral studies, Adeniyi chose to return home in 2009, in deference to the invitation of the late President Umar Musa Yar’adua, facilitated by then Presidential Spokesman, Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi and Engr. Emeka Ezeh.

He then resumed as a Communications Consultant on the Platform of the World Bank Economic Reform and Governance Project (ERGP) at the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), the presidency, Abuja. Key amongst his beats as handed out by Project Coordinator, Engr. Ezeh, was the organization of an annual International Conference of Public Procurement, which he regularly executed with near perfection.

He later continued as Lead Consultant, Witswords Consults Limited (WCL), a firm of Communications and Knowledge Management Consultants, retaining high profile clients like Oil world, Bresson AS Energy, Chrome Group, Management Sciences for Health (MSH), amongst others, after the expiration of the World Bank/Presidency contract.

He has also worked on many projects sponsored by other multilateral agencies like the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Brussels based African, Caribbean and Pacific Observatory on Migration (ACPOBS) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) first ever Nigerian diasporas link to development study project. A tempered public speaker, he is often also invited as a moderator/compere at some high profile events around Nigerian cities.

The American University of Nigeria, Yola, soon invited him to join its team as a Visiting Professor of Communication and Multi-Media Design. He has also been an external examiner at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). Widely published in many reputable websites and in many academic journals, he is a Senior Lecturer in Mass Communication, Baze University, Abuja, from where he continues his research on migrants, diasporas and the media; the dynamics of media and communication; and the future of media networks for development.

Still passionate about writing, Adeniyi is a regular contributor to The Boss Newspaper, an online medium lately flouted by high octane journalist, Mr. Dele Momodu, where he is named as Editor-at-Large. He additionally writes frequently for several Nigerian newspapers.

A keen lawn tennis player, Adeniyi is well-travelled. Author of the Novel, “No Tomorrow”, a fictional portrayal of Nigeria’s challenges, the scholar is widely regarded not just as godly person, but also as a gentleman. A family man, Adeniyi is blessed with three beautiful girls, Doyinsola, Oyindamola and Oyinkansola.

In one of the many birthday messages dispatched to him, Senator Tokunboh Afikuyomi described the university lecturer as one of the “finest professionals I have ever interacted with. I have known him for nearly three decades and it has been a wonderful friendship. I wish Adeniyi whose birthday today is coincidentally just a day before mine, long life, good health and prosperity. Congratulations!”

On what his plan for the day would be, the celebrant, presently holidaying in England quipped: “Plan? What other plan other than to pray and give thanks to God for life, for grace and for good health. I am thanking Him for my entire journey thus far. He has been great in all, and only He will take all the Glory. Chikena!”

OLATUYI, International Migration and Development Policy Expert, is the Executive Director at the POLICY CONSULT in Abuja.