LAGOS – CHIEF Joshua Tanimowo Olugbemija, Chairman of Newsstand Agencies Limited, Lagos-based distributors of international newspapers and magazines, is dead. He died on Sunday, June 26, 2011, aged 78.

Popularly known as “Tani-Olu” for short, Chief Olugbemija hailed from Kabba in Oyi Local Government Area of Kogi State. He attended Barewa College, School of Agriculture and Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology,  all in Zaria between 1948 and 1956. He also attended the Senior Executive Course No. 1 at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, between 1979 and 1980.

Chief Tani-Olu worked at the Northern Nigeria Ministry of Agriculture and the Northern Information Service, Kaduna, between 1952 and ’59. He, however, spent the larger part of his professional life at the defunct Daily Times newspapers where he worked for 25 years between 1962 and 1987.

He rose to become General Manager of Nigerpak Limited, a Daily Times subsidiary before retiring from the Times Group in 1987. While at the Daily Times, Chief Tani-Olu worked with the late doyen of Nigerian journalism, Alhaji Babatunde Jose and former governor of Ogun State, Chief Segun Osoba, among others.