Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pinnacle Communications Ltd, Sir Lucky Omoluwa is dead. The company is one of the foremost broadcast equipment suppliers across Nigeria and Africa, specialising in the Digital Switch Over business of transforming television and radio signals from analogue to digital.
“I’ve just received news of the sudden passing of a big brother and friend! Lucky Omoluwa Chairman Pinnacle Communications,” an associate of the top broadcast equipment supplier told News Central on Tuesday.
The associate was so much in shock and could not disclose the circumstances of the death of Omoluwa whose company is credited to have helped set up hundreds of broadcast companies in Nigeria and across Africa through the supply of radio and TV transmitters in partnership with global broadcast equipment manufacturers.
Another news source in the northwestern state of Kaduna where the late broadcast equipment supplier did alot of his business said Omoluwa took ill and was admitted on Saturday at a hospital, and was eventually discharged.
He was said to have resumed work at the office Monday and was even with a couple of his friends but that the sickness relapsed early in the morning and he was again rushed to the hospital before he passed away on Tuesday, a Nigerian daily reported.
Top associates of late Omoluwa including Chief Operating Officer, Dipo Onifade, Tunde Idowu and Lorenzo Omo-Aligbe, family and staff of the organisation are currently mourning his demise.
Omoluwa was a devout Christian who was knighted by the Pope as a Knight of Saint Sylvester (KSS).
He was sometimes ago also honoured by Harris Corporation, USA and the United State Department of Commerce respectively in relation to the excellent work of Pinnacle Communications Limited in providing digital radio and television transmitters and support/maintenance as well as all allied equipment in the broadcast engineering communications business within Nigeria and across Africa.
– Pinnacle and broadcast equipment business –
His company, Pinnacle Communications Limited is a telecommunications solutions provider that specializes in analog to digital broadcasting in Nigeria and across the continent.
The company, which commenced business in 1998, has consistently installed television and FM radio systems across Nigeria and other countries.
Omoluwa’s astuteness in the business of broadcast engineering communications has been accorded recognition by credible organisations across Africa.
Pinnacle Broadcasts, run by the late Omoluwa is the only licensed private signal distributor for the Digital Switch Over (DSO) in Nigeria and has boosted public optimism on the successful implementation of the project by the Federal Government.
Pinnacle Broadcasts powered the national launch of the DSO in Nigeria in December 2016 from its state-of-the-art digital signal distribution complex in Abuja.
It also established the Kaduna Broadcast Centre commissioned in 2017 and was at an advanced stage in the Gombe Centre, in northeastern Nigeria.
– Omoluwa’s battle with Nigerian authorities –
The late Omoluwa had recently been having a running battle with Nigerian authorities over the DSO deal which also led to the suspension of the Director General of the National Broadcasting Commission, Ishaq Modibbo Kawu last week.
The case led to him being sued in court alongside his company. He was arraigned before Justice Folashade Ogunbanjo-Giwa of the Federal High Court, Abuja by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), alongside Pinnacle’s COO, Dipo Onifade, and Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Ishaq Modibbo Kawu.
The trio of Omoluwa, Onifade and Kawu were charged over alleged complicity in the misapplication of the N2.5 billion seed grant for the Digital Switch-Over (DSO) programme.
They all pleaded not guilty and have described the charges as politically motivated by interest groups that were unsuccessful during the licensing rounds of the DSO process since the payment was as a result of an out of court settlement reached between the NBC and the company after a previous court case filed by Pinnacle against the Nigerian government.
Until his death on Tuesday, Omoluwa strongly denied the corruption allegations, and even counter-sued the ICPC for defamation, seeking N1 billion in damages against the Nigerian government.
Foremost Nigerian broadcast equipment supplier, Lucky Omoluwa is dead
