Gbenro Adesina
The Editor of P.M. News, Lanre Babalola, died this evening, August 10, 2020, after a brief illness.
Babalola, died in his house in Sango, Ogun State. He is being treated for colon cancer before his death.
It was gathered that he went to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) today for treatment but died shortly after returning home.
Shedding light on his death, Damilola, his son said, “We took him to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) in the morning. We bought all the prescribed drugs and returned home. He had not even taken his medication when he died.” Babalola was being treated for colon cancer before his death
Babalola, who was born on June 14, 1963, started his academic career at Christ Church Cathedral Primary School, Broad Street, Lagos in 1971 and completed the primary school programme in 1976. He attended Nigeria Peoples High School (NIGERPECO), Ebute Meta, Lagos, between 1976 and 1981. From 1984 to 1986, he was at The Polytechnic Ibadan, Oyo State, for his Ordinary National Diploma (OND) in Mass Communication. He equally obtained a diploma in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos (1992). His academic career was brought to a close after attending Ogun State Polytechnic, now Moshood Abiola Polytechnic between 1996 and 1998, where he obtained Higher National Diploma (HND) in Mass Communication.
He started his journalism career in 1992 at the defunct Satellite newspaper as a Labour reporter and in 1994, he joined Todays News Today (TNT) as a General reporter, where he rose to the position of News Editor in 1998.
In 2000, he joined PMNEWS, published in Lagos by the Independent Communications Network Limited (ICNL), as a News Editor and became the Editor in 2015, the position he occupied till 2019.
One of his colleagues, Temitayo Odunlami, wrote on Facebook: “When I spoke with LANRE BABALOLA some two weeks ago, he was full of optimism he would recover from the cancer of the anus that had afflicted him. But no, shameless death had other ideas. Death took away affable LANRE this evening. LANRE was NEWS EDITOR, PM NEWS. We lost a good colleague”.
