Change in designation notwithstanding, Tinubu’s appointment of Sunday Akin Dare from Oyo State, as his Special Adviser on Public Communication and Orientation may have laid to rest speculations about the person and state of origin of the replacement for his former Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Mr. Ajuri Ngelale, an Ogoni man from Rivers State.
Ngelale, a popular broadcast journalist, stepped down as the president’s spokesman early last month, citing family medical issues.
However, according to informed media reports, well before Ngelale resigned on grounds of ‘family medical issues’, the presidency had started “shopping for an experienced and competent media professional to replace Mr. Ngelale” who was said to have learnt of plans to boot him out and didn’t wait to be humiliated out of office. Talk about giving a dog a bad name and hanging it!
Obviously, Dare, a former Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder Management at the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC); former  Chief of Staff/Special Adviser on media to President Tinubu when PBAT was the leader of the APC; former Senior Special Assistant (Media) to the Minister of Information and Communications; former Chief of the Hausa Service, African Division at Voice of America (VOA) in Washington, DC; former correspondent for The Nation magazine in New York; former production editor for the European-backed Fourth Estate magazine during Nigeria’s military interregnum and a member of the founding team of Nigerian weekly magazines, The News and Tempo, fits the the bill of “an experienced and competent media professional to replace Mr. Ngelale.”
A well-educated media professional, Dare who attended London School of Economics (LSE) for a Strategic Communications course; is an Oxford University, UK Academic Research Fellow; attended Harvard University Cambridge, Boston Massachusetts, USA Journalism and New Media Studies as a Nieman Journalism Fellow; is a New York University Freedom Forum Fellow Visiting Scholar, School of Journalism; University of Jos Masters holder in International Law and Diplomacy and holder, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna, Nigeria Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) Degree in International Studies, is also a former Minister of Sports and Youth Development and Member, Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR).
But while Dare’s appointment has been hailed in media circles as a good choice by the president, it is not clear how he will function with Bayo Onanuga, also a Special Adviser to the president on Information and Strategy, who has been doing the work that Mr. Ngelale left when he resigned as presidential spokesman.
Analysts are quick to recall that part of the reasons for Ngelale’s ousting, which, to all intents and purposes, became his undoing, was his frequent clashes with Mr. Onanuga, first over the delineation of boundaries, and second on how and who exactly to handle what presidential communication at any one point in time?
One of such clashes came to light when the two publicly disagreed on the president’s Democracy Day (May 29) official schedule.
While Ngelale told the world that the president would make a national broadcast and subsequently inaugurate some legacy projects, Onanuga announced that the president would address a joint session of the National Assembly, which was what eventually took place. Backed by the Chief of Staff to the President, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, a former Speaker of the House of the Representatives, who helped to arrange the joint National Assembly seating for the president’s address. Onanuga, needless to say won the supremacy battle and Ngelale began to count his days in the presidency. He was an outsider after all.
And yet, there is still cause for worry, irrespective of the cultural consanguinity of all the president’s spokespersons now. So, have measures been put in place to prevent such a shameful public spat by presidential aides in the future, as took place between Onanuga and Ngelale?
Indeed, analysts wonder how Dare, an urbane, liberal and mild-mannered media professional would be able to harmoniously work with Onanuga, a feisty, unfriendly, even hate-mongering journalist, to effectively drive the president’s communications, avoiding the pitfalls of Onanuga-Ngelale’s frosty relationship.
“That’s what worries me about the President’s media team,” said a State House Correspondent with one of the mainstream dailies about the likely Dare-Onanuga clash. “With Bayo, the potential for disharmony and clashes over role overlap among members of the media team, is very high. I believe, however, that with practically no ‘outsider’ inside the team, they will find a way around their personal egos and work for the president as they are expected to.”
