Nigerian Broadcaster, Umar Tudunwada, Dies In Auto Crash

A veteran broadcast journalist, Umar
Tudunwada, died Sunday afternoon from a
road accident outside Kano city.

Mr Tudunwada was returning to the city from an engagement in Abuja when the crash happened around Kura town, about 25
kilometres from Kano.

In a career that spanned close to 40 years, Mr Tudunwada worked in television and radio both locally and with international
broadcasters.

He started his journalism career as a News
Assistant with the Nigerian Television
Authority (NTA) in 1980. He left in 1983 to join the then City Television (CTV) owned by the Kano State Government.

Mr Tudunwada was in the team that pioneered the first private broadcaster in the northern part of Nigeria, Freedom Radio in early 2000s.

He worked with the Hausa services of the
Radio Deutsche-Welle (Voice of Germany) and Voice of America (VOA).

Mr Tudunwada ended his sojourn at VOA,
which he joined in 2006, in 2009 to take up the position as the General Manager of Freedom Radio.

He later transferred his services to the Radio
Dandal Kura in Maiduguri, the Borno State
capital, before he was appointed as the
managing director of Radio Kano by Governor Abdullahi Ganduje.

He left the position on June 4.

Mr Tudunwad also served as media aide at
various times to governors Ibrahim Shekarau and Rabiu Kwankwaso, in Kano State.

In May, he was returned as the elected deputy president (North) of the Nigerian Guild of Editors.

Meanwhile, a in a statement on Sunday evening, Governor Ganduje eulogised the late journalist.

Mr Tudunwada’s death according to the
governor is a great loss that leaves a wide
vacuum in the media practice in the state and the country as a whole.

He said, “…not only his families, the state and the media profession would forever remember him as an Icon who left when we all needed him the most.”

The statement by Mr Ganduje’s Chef Press
Secretary, Abba Anwar, described Mr
Tudunwada as “a complete gentleman whose clean character shaped many promising media men an women in the state and beyond.”

“With Umar Sa’id Tudunwada, media ethics
were carefully adhered to and other practitioners copied character and
characteristics of a rare gem,” the governor
said.

He urged other practising journalists to copy
“from the exceptional professional life of
Tudunwada for meaningful development of the profession.”