What does it mean to speak for Tinubu?
- L-R: Sunday Dare, Bayo Onanuga, Daniel Bwala – The triumvirate that speak for Mr. President
By Ikechukwu Amaechi
Ordinarily, the innocuous question – who speaks for President Bola Tinubu – should be a non-issue because it ought to be a given. But these are no ordinary times. In Tinubu’s bumbling emi l’okan dynasty, where the end justifies every means and jejune politics trumps governance, absurdity is the norm and the answer to such a question is not easy to come by. It is even more arduous if it is rephrased thus: what does it mean to speak for Tinubu?
But such inanities, in the warped estimation of his rabid supporters, elevate Tinubu to the pantheon of political gods, making him the Jagaban of Nigerian politics. Sadly, Nigeria is worse for it because governance is sacrificed on the altar of insalubrious intrigues.
That exactly is the case with his media team. On July 31, 2023, Tinubu appointed Ajuri Ngelale, who served as Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs to President Muhammadu Buhari, as his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity. The 38-year-old Ajuri wasn’t unknown. A broadcast journalist before his appointment, he also served as co-spokesperson of the Tinubu-Shettima Presidential Campaign Organisation.
But he was an outlier in the Tinubu political family where the likes of Dele Alake, erstwhile Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, held sway. His appointment was said to have been facilitated by a faction of the Aso Rock cabal led by Tinubu’s son, Seyi.
Ngelale was having a ball until the President appointed Bayo Onanuga as Special Adviser on Information and Strategy on October 13, 2023. Thereafter, the supremacy battle, which blew open on May 28, 2024, ensued. Preparatory to the first year anniversary of the Tinubu administration on May 29, 2024, Onanuga said the President will not make any broadcast.
“Instead the President will address a joint session of the National Assembly, which has lined up a programme to commemorate 25 years of the nation’s democratic journey at both the executive and legislative levels,” he disclosed.
Hours later, Ngelale countered him, telling Nigerians to disregard the statement. “In view of the public commentary concerning the President delivering a speech before a joint sitting of the National Assembly tomorrow, May 29, 2024, it is important to state that this information is false and unauthorised as the Office of the President was not involved in the planning of the event,” Ngalale said. That was unprecedented. A line was drawn in the sand. It was, therefore, not surprising when a fight to finish ensued. Onanuga triumphed and three months after, Ngelale resigned.
The former presidential spokesman, who disclosed that he had submitted a memo to the Chief of Staff to the President on September 6, predicated his action on some undisclosed “medical matters.”
“While I fully appreciate that the ship of state waits for no man, this agonising decision — entailing a pause of my functions as the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity and official spokesperson of the President, Special Presidential Envoy on Climate Action and Chairman, Presidential Steering Committee on Project Evergreen — was taken after significant consultations with my family over the past several days as a vexatious medical situation has worsened at home.”
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Nobody was taken in by such spurious reason. It was obvious that he had been given a very hard push and Onanuga was over the moon. He couldn’t have been happier seeing the back of the upstart who publicly called him a liar and even without being officially re-designated, he moved into Ngelale’s former office at the presidential villa and appropriated the presidential spokesman title.
To be sure, Onanuga has always been a close ally of Tinubu right from his active journalism days especially when he was the boss at the Independent Communications Network Limited (ICNL), publishers of TheNews magazine. Nigerians thought that with the exit of Ngelale, the game of musical chairs in the communications team had effectively come to an end. But they didn’t reckon with the President’s seeming abhorrence for orderliness.
So, like Ngelale, Onanuga was enjoying his day in the sun when Tinubu, on October 23, appointed Sunday Dare, his former staff at TheNews magazine as Special Adviser on Public Communication and Orientation. But that was not much of a problem because Dare, former Minister of Youth and Sports, was to work from the Ministry of Information.
But when he appointed Daniel Bwala as Special Adviser, Media and Public Communications (State House), on Thursday, November 14, it was obvious, as Ndigbo would say, that the handshake had gone beyond the elbow. Bwala’s appointment was an invitation, once again, for Onanuga to wrestle.
It took less than a week before the battle started. Last Monday, Bwala announced himself as the official replacement for Ngelale. “Today, I resumed officially as the Special Adviser, Media and Public Communications/Spokesperson (State House),” he tweeted after briefing State House correspondents earlier.
“When Ajuri was there, the nomenclature was Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, and now that role is called Special Adviser on Media and Public Communications (State House). Sunday Dare works from the office of the Minister of Information,” he added.
While insisting that the three Special Advisers were all servants of Tinubu, he reiterated that, “I only came to introduce myself to you and the role that was given to me by Mr. President, and I told you that role was once occupied by Ajuri Ngelale.”
But Onanuga would have none of that. Not after surviving the Ngelale scare. A few hours later, he countered Bwala, insisting that Tinubu has no single spokesperson. Not only that, he announced that changes had been made in the designations of members of the presidential communications team.
“President Bola Tinubu has re-designated the positions of two recently appointed officials in the State House media and communications team to enhance efficiency within the government’s communication machinery.
“The restructuring is as follows: Mr. Sunday Dare – hitherto Special Adviser on Public Communication and National Orientation is now Special Adviser, Media and Public Communications. Mr. Daniel Bwala – announced last week as Special Adviser, Media and Public Communication, is now Special Adviser Policy Communication.
“These appointments, along with the existing role of Special Adviser, Information and Strategy, underscore that there is no single individual spokesperson for the Presidency. Instead, all the three Special Advisers will collectively serve as spokespersons for the government. This approach aims to ensure effective and consistent communication of government policies, decisions, and engagements.”
Answering questions later that evening on Politics Today, a Channels Television programme, Bwala tried to assuage Onanuga by declaring his willingness to submit to his leadership even as he insisted that nobody had informed him Onanuga was the leader of the media team. But he didn’t walk back his earlier claim.
“Bayo Onanuga is an elder statesman. He is a very brilliant journalist who has had his records. We are happy he’s leading us…I haven’t been told, but I am happy for him to lead. I can never be drawn into a position where I will rub shoulders with him. My own is, if he says ‘go and carry that table,’ I will just do so; that’s my job. It’s not about title.” That was rather too patronising and the mendacity was not lost on the wily Onanuga.
Was the re-designation authorised by Tinubu? No one can tell. As at the time Onanuga released the statement, Tinubu was in faraway Brazil.
Of course, Onunaga knows that having three special advisers serve collectively as spokespersons for the government is no guarantee for effectiveness and consistency. It is rather a recipe for confusion, classic case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. In any case, special advisers do not speak for the government. That is the remit of the Information Minister. They speak for the President.
Three spokespersons for one president is not only redundant and inefficient, it also raises the question of whether the communication challenges of the Tinubu government are so overwhelming that it requires multiple voices to manage. Or is this just an attempt to amplify propaganda and gaslight Nigerians in a devious bid to wheedle the unwary?
Yet, as if having three Special Advisers is not bad enough, the team has over 12 officials including Fela Durotoye, Senior Special Assistant on National Values and Social Justice; Linda Nwabuwa Akhigbe, Senior Special Assistant on Public Engagement; Fredrick Nwabufo, Senior Special Assistant on Strategic Communications; Aliyu Audu, Special Assistant on Public Affairs; Tunde Rahman, Senior Special Assistant (Media); Abdulaziz Abdulaziz, Senior Special Assistant (Print Media), thus making it the most unwieldy presidential media team in the country’s history. The irony is that this is happening in a government that claims to be desirous of cutting the cost of governance and reducing redundancy.
Unsurprisingly, rather than succinctly communicating Tinubu’s vision and governance worldview, assuming there is any, to Nigerians, the special advisers have redefined their role to mean only one thing: spewing the vilest vitriol against real and perceived opponents of their principal.
The only yardstick for measuring hard work in the circumstance is the level of nastiness – how bitterly harsh and caustic they are in their criticism. To speak for Tinubu, your conscience must be dead with scruples flying out of the window. To be a Tinubu spokesperson, you must hone your skill as an attack dog, with the unenviable reputation of unscrupulous attitude to anyone with a dissenting view to the indefensible policies of the government. That is what it means to speak for Tinubu.