PUNCH’s First Female Editor, Toyosi Ogunseye Elected Vice-President Of World Editors Forum

A Nigerian journalist, Toyosi Ogunseye, has become the vice president of World Editors Forum (WEF).

Ogunseye who heads the BBC West Africa, was elected on Saturday at the annual meeting of WEF held in Scotland.

She is to deputise Warren Fernandez, editor of the Straits Times and editor-in-chief of Singapore Press Holdings’ English, Malay and Tamil Media Group, for the next two years.

Expressing her pleasure to serve in the capacity in a tweet, she wrote: “This morning, the @WorldEditors board voted Warren Fernandez @theSTeditor as President and me as Vice President. Warren and I are pleased to serve and humbled to lead the World Editors Forum. #WINSummit19 #WNMC19”

Meanwhile, the outgoing WEF president, Dave Callaway, who spoke shortly after their emergence, said: “Warren and Toyosi’s elections ensure WEF is in good hands as we encounter the challenges of the next two years. With media freedom under attack from all sides, a diverse, experienced leadership is what we need to help bring our industry together and take it forward.”

A Mandela Washington fellow, Ogunseye is one of the most revered journalists in Africa; with an outstanding career at The PUNCH, where she had risen to the position of the first female editor since the organisation was founded about five decades ago.

In her career as a journalist for about 15 years, she has won more 30 awards. Some of these are the Diamond Awards for Media Excellence (DAME); CNN MultiChoice African Journalist of the Year Awards (2011 and 2013); Knight International Journalism Award; and the Nigerian Academy of Science Journalist of the Year.

WEF is the leading network for print and digital editors of newspapers and news organisations around the world.

This is the first time that its leadership would be from Asia and Africa since it was established about two decades ago.