Kayode Soyinka
Kayode Soyinka
Category - Media
He is in his 37th year as a newspaper reporter. He started his journalism career as a cub-reporter with the Daily Sketch in Ibadan, Nigeria in 1976. During the past 37 years, he was for 18 years a foreign correspondent based in London. During this period he worked as London Correspondent for the Sketch and Concord newspapers, and was General Editor of Africa Now, published by the legendary Editor - Peter Enahoro.
He was also for 10 years the London Bureau Chief for Newswatch. During his years as a London correspondent, he achieved a reputation as a versatile investigative journalist, breaking several important stories. He also covered international conferences and summits of world leaders in Europe, the USA, Africa and the Commonwealth.
On October 19, 1986, he survived the letter-bomb blast in Lagos which killed the seasoned Nigerian journalist and pioneer Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch, Dele Giwa.
He, in 1995, drew upon his wide experience and contacts to start Africa Today, the pan-African news magazine which is now one of Africa's most influential news magazines on the newsstands in over 90 countries around the world - where he is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief. He is also the author of Diplomatic Baggage: Mossad & Nigeria - The Dikko Story, an analysis of the 1984 kidnap of Nigerian former exiled politician, Dr Umaru Dikko - which he says was the most sensational event in his London career.
Educated at Baptist Boys' High School (BBHS), Abeokuta, he has a degree in International Relations; and an MA in International Journalism from the City University London. He is a 21st Century Trust Fellow and was in 1990 a Visiting Scholar at Wolfson College, Cambridge University. He is a member of the Round Table Moot - the Editorial Board of the Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs and was one-time, for three years, Chairperson of the London Management Committee of the Commonwealth Journalists Association.
Kayode Soyinka got married 30 years ago to his wife, Titilope, and they are blessed with two adult children.