The Supreme Court has refused to admit the certificate from the Chicago State University (CSU) that was presented by the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, as evidence in his appeal against President Bola Tinubu. Atiku had obtained the certificate from the CSU after a US court ordered the university to release it to him, despite Tinubu’s objection. Atiku claimed that the certificate would prove that Tinubu was involved in a drug-related case in the US and was fined $460,000. However, Tinubu, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and the All Progressives Congress (APC) argued that the certificate was inadmissible in law as it was not obtained through proper legal channels. They contended that the 180-day time limit for hearing the petition had elapsed and that Atiku did not join INEC as an interested party in the US proceedings. The seven-man panel of the Supreme Court, led by Justice Inyang Okoro, agreed with Tinubu and his co-respondents and dismissed Atiku’s application to tender the certificate. The court reserved its judgement to a later date on the main appeal filed by Atiku and his running mate, Peter Obi, to challenge Tinubu’s victory in the February 25 presidential election.
An elder statesman and former Pro-chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Adamu Fika is dead. Fika, who had been battling with health related problems for some time, died last night, October 24, on his return from a London hospital to Kaduna. He was 90. Funeral prayers has been scheduled to hold at Sultan Bello Mosque, Kaduna today, October 25th, by 4:00pm. Malam Adamu Fika, born in Fika in 1933, had an illustrious career, serving also as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF). The deceased, who until his death was Wazirin Fika in Yobe State, began his educational journey at Kaduna Government College and the Nigerian College of Arts, Science, and Technology, now known as Ahmadu Bello University. He started his career as a Mathematics and Physics teacher at Barewa College in Zaria, where he influenced the lives of many students, including General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma and the late Emir of Lafia, Isa Mustapha Agwai. Throughout his career, Malam Adamu Fika held several significant positions, including Permanent Secretary of various federal ministries, such as Internal Affairs, Commerce, and Communications. He also served as the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation and made invaluable contributions to the development of Nigeria. He resigned in protest when the government of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida splitted the office of the Secretary to the Government and Head of Service to the federation, warning that it would destroy the civil service. He received numerous honors and awards for his exceptional service, including the Commander of the Federal Republic (CFR) by the Federal Government in 1992. He was revered for his dedication, integrity, and leadership skills, making him a highly respected figure in Nigeria. His passing is a great loss to the nation, as he leaves behind a legacy of excellence, professionalism, and selflessness. Malam Adamu Fika’s contributions to education, public service, and the development of Nigeria will be remembered and cherished for years to come. Incidentally, last week, the Governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni, visited him on his sick bed at the London hospital when he visited the United Kingdom on a working visit.
The Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) has announced the sharing a total of N903.480 billion September 2023 Federation Account Revenue to the Federal, States and Local Governments. This is contained in a communique issued by the FAAC at the end of its October meeting held in Abuja yesterday, October 24. The communique indicated that the N903.480 billion total distributable revenue comprised distributable statutory revenue of N423.012 billion, Value Added Tax (VAT) revenue of N282.666 billion, Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL) revenue of N10.989 billion and Exchange Difference revenue of N 186.813 billion. It stated that a total revenue of N1594.763 billion was available in the month of September 2023. “Total deductions for cost of collection was N54.426 billion, total transfers and refunds was N347.857 billion and savings was N289.000 billion.” The committee said that gross statutory revenue of N1014.953 billion was received for September, which was higher than the N891.934 billion received in August by N123.019 billion. It added that the gross revenue available from VAT was N303.550 billion, which was lower than the N345.727 billion available in August by N42.177 billion. “From the N903.480 billion total distributable revenue, the Federal Government received a total of N320.543 billion, the state governments received N287.071 billion and the LGCs received N210.900 billion. “A total sum of N84.966 billion (13 per cent of mineral revenue) was shared to the relevant states as derivation revenue. “From the N423.012 billion distributable statutory revenue, the Federal Government received N190.849 billion, the state governments N96.801 billion and LGCs received N74.629 billion. “The sum of N60.733 billion (13 per cent of mineral revenue) was shared to the relevant states as derivation revenue,’” it said. It said that the Federal Government received N42.400 billion, the state governments received N141.333 billion and the LGCs received N98.933 billion from the N282.666 billion VAT revenue. The communique said that N10.989 billion EMTL was shared as follows: The Federal Government received N1.648 billion, the state governments received N5.495 billion and the Local Government Councils received N3.846 billion. “The Federal Government received N85.647 billion from the N186.813 billion Exchange Difference revenue, the state governments received N43.442 billion, and the LGCs received N33.491 billion. “The sum of N24.233 billion (13 per cent of mineral revenue) went to the relevant states as derivation revenue. “The balance in the Excess Crude Account (ECA) was 473,754.57 dollars.” Report has it that in September, Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) and Oil and Gas Royalties increased considerably while VAT, Import and Excise Duties, EMTL, Companies Income Tax (CIT) and CET Levies recorded significant decreases. Source: NAN.
The First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu has expressed worry over the high prevalence of cervical cancer in Nigeria.
Speaking at the National launch of the introduction of the HPV Vaccine into the routine immunization schedule of the National Immunization Programe in Abuja today, October 24, the First Lady said that the initiative does not end with the introduction of the vaccine into the routine immunization schedule but that there must be focus on education and awareness about the virus.
She said that regular screenings must be encouraged and there must be improved access to healthcare with behavioral interventions as well.
“For me, I will recommend that girls who are under 18 years of age and sexually active, avail themselves the opportunity of this vaccine, to avoid a future of ill-health and possibly, death.
“In conclusion, I want to emphasize that the introduction of HPV vaccine into our routine immunization schedule is a significant step forward in our mission to protect the health and future of our nations womenfolk and it will lead to a structured and systematic way of achieving a cervical cancer free generation.”
Senator Oluremi Tinubu said that the initiative goes beyond preventing cervical cancer but also demonstrating the commitment of the administration of the President Bola Tinubu’s administration to gender equity and empowering women to take control of their health.
Earlier, the Coordinating Minister for Health and Social Welfare, Professor Mohammed Ali Pate emphasized that the vaccine is safe, effective and already in use in several countries of the world.
“No father or mother who really understand they can prevent a serious disease will stop their daughters from taking the vaccine, except they really do not understand.”
In their goodwill messages, the Sultan of Sokoto, health sector partners and others said that the introduction of the vaccine will go a long way to enhance the health of the female folk in the country.
The First Lady supervised the administration of the vaccine on the girls who were present at the event
Mr Femi Soneye as the company’s Chief Corporate Communications Officer | Credit: Per Second
There has been a burst of excitement in the Nigerian media community since Thursday, last week, when the management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) announced the appointment of 49-year-old Mr Femi Soneye as the company’s Chief Corporate Communications Officer (CCCO). By virtue of that significant appointment, Soneye becomes the company’s spokesperson; and, he is required to robustly drive its public communication plans and strategies to ensure that the company’s external publics, through the media, are kept abreast of and apprised with issues of public interest around the operations of the national oil company.
The good thing is that Soneye will be honchoing a department that is very resourceful and capacitated to provide him with the necessary support to confront the rising complexities occasioned by episodic advancement in technology in use and deployment of public communication in pushing through and explicating to the company’s external publics, its official positions on contending industry issues. In fact, what Soneye essentially brings to the job is a load of passion that has, over the years of building media relations for brands across the public and private sectors, consistently driven his savoir faire and fidelity to efficient service delivery.
In the connectedness or intercourse between experience and service delivery, Soneye has kept faith with those little things that matter in building a bank of social capital and obligatory goodwill that are inevitable in the province of media relations. In 2013, we had a chance meeting in Washington DC at an official assignment. There was exchange of pleasantries between us (a three-man team from Nigeria) and Soneye, who had just celebrated the one-year anniversary of the publication of his online newspaper with headquarters in the United States of America: Per Second News (PSN). We had expressed our desire for Nigerian cuisine, especially pounded yam. He offered to drive us to Maryland to a Nigerian Kitchen where our culinary desire was taken care of.
Soneye and I got closer the following day at the event proper, exchanged numbers and, on getting to Nigeria, he got in touch and I reciprocated his gesture. At the time, I was handling the media affairs of Chief Tony Anenih (now late) who was then Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Soneye pragmatically deployed the PSN platform in publishing every material I sent to him without asking for any consideration in reciprocity. In the last ten years of our friendship, he has demonstrated a great sense of association, always reaching out to me. He has also always tapped my expertise as a media professional to achieve certain tasks in aid of his media support services for some institutional and individual brands. This peer “support and review” mechanism has been largely mutual.
A man of big ideas, Soneye reaches out to seek ways in which I could add value to ideas he is always fleshing up around reputation management. Imbued with a touch of Midas, he sees through his ideas and projects. If there was a glitch leading to failure, it would not be on account of him not having invested his best possible in the project; it has always boiled down to some shenanigans from the other side. I believe that the NNPCL job is one of the big ideas that Soneye had been working on in recent months or years. This can be explicated: on a number of occasions, I had seen how consistently he had intervened in providing positive reportage of the activities of the NNPC, particularly through the transition to NNPCL, using his Per Second News platform and many times using pseudonyms to syndicate positive narratives in other media organs. Remarkably, his coverage had cut across the entire gamut of the national oil company-providing, as it were, positive media focuses to the institution and individual leaders that superintended over the corporation then and those who are still in the saddle at the company.
In that deliberate, conscious and planned intervention effort to mollycoddle friends with the magnitude of his excellent media relations offerings, he had also built a robust goodwill for the NNPCL among his numerous media colleagues and their media organs. Soneye had quietly provided a link between a good number of online media publishers and the NNPCL who desired advert patronage. In this context, his transformation from being an external link to being a significant top member of management is both monumental and transcendental. It makes the interface much more seamless and one that ensures that media partnerships are easily consummated. Besides, with Soneye in the saddle, there is a new dawn of robust media relationship that is becoming increasingly tangible-just because of his personality. Every media organisation which craves for pieces of information henceforth should rest assured that it would get responses unlike in the immediate past epoch when neither calls nor text messages were answered.
Again, unlike many reputation managers or image makers who would either get involved in “media fisticuffs”, practically descending into the arena, in defence of institutional positions, Soneye has always advocated the pacific path, emphasized conciliation for better media relationship, and shown a great understanding and belief in the efficacy of engagements to achieve consensus ad idem or meeting of minds on issues that are conflictual. He is always excited to win over more and more friends to the side of his “good ideas or causes” who then become the extended mouthpieces of the brands he promotes. Soneye’s brilliance and cosmopolitan nature do not predispose him to treat the other person with condescension. His simple mien and calm disposition underpin very largely his “Omoluabi” (a well-brought up son of Yoruba land and of Ijebu Igbo extraction) pedigree. Highly respectful, Soneye is also reputed for his consistent kindness, his catholic conviviality, his gift of the garb, and ease of making friends with high net worth. These, perhaps, find solid anchorage in his Christian faith through which he has received the divine grace to prosper.
As he resumes any moment from now at his desk in the massive belly of the behemoth that the NNPCL office structure and infrastructure typify, Soneye, without a doubt, will deliver on his assignment on the back of an unprecedented social bank of goodwill and support from media professionals- his colleagues- who are well pleased in him. His media constituency is united behind him to assist in the delivery of his mandate(s). That external media tension has been taken care of. The only other tension that he may have to deal with is internal, that is within the top echelon of the management of the NNPCL and this may border on the shape, texture, contents and context of information flow to the media. He will be expected to do some processing of information and flow to the external publics through the media to provide appropriate guidance as to the theme of every communication endeavour.
In rounding off, I posit that Soneye’s pick is in apple pie order and his passion for the job is in a warm embrace with the platform of engagement that the national oil company has offered him. A cornucopia of goodwill, support and prayers is readily available for the NNPCL’s “Seriki Magana” or if you like the “kakaki”! More power to Soneye’s elbows as he continues with what he had hitherto been doing from the outside.
Ojeifo, journalist and mediapreneur, is based in Abuja and can be reached via ojwonderngr@yahoo.com
The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Christopher Musa has asked those who will be out to cause any form of trouble in the November 11 Governship election in Bayelsa, Kogi and Imo States to stay clear of the states in their own interest.
He made it clear that the military is committed to protecting the nation’s democracy and ensuring peaceful atmosphere in the governorship election in the three States.
General Musa spoke when the Minister of Defence, Alhaji Mohammed Badaru and Minister of State, Dr. Bello Matawalle paid a working visit to the Defence Headquarters in Abuja today, October 24.
He advised all stakeholders in the three states to ensure that nobody is killed in the process of casting vote.
According to him, it is important that they all put hands together to sure that the election is hitch-free, peaceful and reflect what the people actually wanted.
The CDS said the military would do whatever it takes to protect democracy and help it to thrive in Nigeria, adding that they were fully ready, prepared and committed to the task.
“We know there have been series of challenges within the sub region where we have a number of coups all over.
“We want to assure Mr. President and to you all, that the Armed Forces of Nigeria is fully committed to democracy.”
General Musa thanked the ministers and President Bola Tinubu for ensuring that the military met its operational requirements in terms of combat enablers, funding and welfare of personnel.
According to him, the government has shown determination, dedication and commitment to ensuring that the armed forces is properly equipped, trained and managed to secure the country’s territorial integrity.
He complained however that the military is limited by dearth of funding to effectively handle some of its activities, especially in the area of accommodation for personnel.
According to him, the military is recruiting almost 20,000 officers and soldiers yearly and said that they need be properly accommodated.
The CDS, therefore, appealed to the ministers to look into it, including foreign training for personnel to enhance their capacity in dealing with counterterrorism and counter insurgencies in the country.
Responding, the Minister of Defence, Muhammad Badaru, commended the military for the successes so far recorded since the assumption of duty of the current CDS.
He said that they had done well in dealing with criminals across the country.
According to him, more than 117 terrorists, bandits and other criminals were killed by the military within the period, and urged it to sustain the onslaught until the nation is rid of the menace.
”We have seen significant improvement in oil production thanks to the servicemen and I believe that will continue.
”The CDS had promised that they would push and push harder until the country regained its normal production levels.
“We have also seen remarkable progress in the South East and North East where facilities that were shut down years backs are being reopened recently.
“I want to thank your leadership because we have one group that is committed, dedicated and working together.”
The minister also commended the CDS and service chiefs for boosting the morale of troops in operational areas through regular visits and other inspirational programmes.
He pledged that the Federal Government would continue to support the military in meeting its operational requirements in the area of equipment, improved funding, accommodation, training and medical services.
According to him, President Tinubu holds the military in high esteem and believes that the way to solve the security challenges of this country is by supporting the military.
”He has demonstrated fantastically well with what he has done so far, so I will also remind him of all these issues you raised and I am sure he will take it up and will see to the success of this fight.
“We promise Nigerians that within one year they will see tremendous changes and that will happen from what has been seen so far.
“So congratulations and keep it up and you have all our support and the support and assurance of Mr. president in all you do and in all your requirements.”
Kaduna State Governor, Alhaji Uba Sani has stormed the Aso Rock Presidential villa, Abuja, with loads of requests on President Bola Tinubu to intervene in the security challenge rearing its head in the State.
Speaking to newsmen shortly after a close door meeting with the President today, October 24, Governor Uba Sani said: “we have some areas where we need Mr. President’s intervention and support, especially in the area of Security as well as all other important programmes of our own government that have to do with agriculture and healthcare.”
The Governor said that after a series of meetings he had had with the service chiefs recently, he had concluded that the state needs some more boots on the ground in areas like Birnin Gwari, Giwa, Idebi as well as some local governments around Zangon Kataf, Kaura and some axes of Southern Kaduna.
He said that the President has stepped up his effort of ensuring that the military generally considered Kaduna as one of the most important states that needs serious support on security.
“We need Federal Government intervention because as you are aware, security is something to do with the federal government, particularly when it comes to issue of the service chiefs, the police and the DSS.
“As someone who have been in National Assembly for four years before being the governor, I know we need the support of the federal government and Mr. President, in particular, for us to be able to address the problem of insecurity in our states.”
The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Ezenwo Nyesom Wike has called on the newly appointed Mandate Secretary of the Women Affairs Secretariat, Mrs. Adedayo Benjamins-Laniyi to bring her experience and talents to bear in governance in the FCT.
Wike, who spoke today, October 24, during the swearing in ceremony of the Mandate Secretary, performed by the representative of the FCT Chief Judge, Justice C. Aghashieze, stressed that the Mandate Secretary was appointed based on her experience and capacity and urged her to also bring innovation into governance in the FCT.
The Minister said that the position, being its first in the FCT, required a lot of work and therefore advised Mrs. Benjamins-Laniyi to work in synergy with her colleagues to achieve the mandate of her Secretariat.
“With your resume, we can see that you are full of talent and experience and that’s what we want you to bring to bear to help FCT to have a place where women will also be part of the governance structure.
“We want to believe that women will appreciate this opportunity to also contribute to the Renewed Hope agenda.”
Describing the Women Affairs Secretariat as a testament of the Renewed Hope agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Minister commended the President and the First Lady, Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu for promoting inclusivity and ensuring that women are included in governance
It would be recalled that the President recently approved the establishment of the Mandate Secretariat on Women Affairs in the FCTA, which would function like the Women Affairs Ministries in other States of the federation.
With her appointment, Mrs. Adedayo Benjamins-Laniyi becomes the pioneer Secretary of the FCTA Women Affairs Secretariat
Born on the 17th of October 1965, Mrs. Adedayo Benjamins-Laniyi is a high-profile politician, certified global communication expert and an environmentalist.
A graduate of the University of Ibadan, Mrs. Benjamins-Laniyi hails from Ogun State and is the grand Matron of the Hope Again for FCT Women in Politics as well the organizer of an annual enlightenment programme on violence against women.
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu has listed measures taken for the conduct of the Governship election in Bayelsa, Kogi and Imo States on November 11 this year.
Speaking today, October 24, at the quarterly consultative meeting with representatives of the political parties in Abuja, Professor Yakubu said that the Commission has already delivered all non-sensitive materials for the elections to the three States.
According to him, the training of various categories of ad hoc staff is ongoing.
“We have made the soft copies of the complete register of voters available to all political parties participating in the elections.
“We conducted the mock accreditation of voters and the upload of results to our IReV portal using the BVAS.”
He said that the Commission’s State offices have concluded the readiness assessment of the facilities as well as the movement of critical facilities to the 56 Local Government offices across the three States.
“At the same time, political parties have uploaded the names of their polling and collation agents to the dedicated web portal. As I informed Nigerians at the meeting with our Resident Electoral Commissions (RECs) last week, a total of 137,934 agents made up of 130,093 polling and 7,841 collation agents have already been uploaded to the portal.”
Professor Yakubu said that so far, not all the political parties have nominated agents for all the polling units and the collation centres in the three States.
“In the next few days, the Commission will publish the detailed distribution of agents uploaded by all political parties for public information.”
The INEC Boss advised the parties to consider the submission of names of agents as that they should regard as important as the nomination of candidates for election.
He said that
the printing of agents’ identity cards will be completed this weekend to allow political parties ample time to distribute the cards to their agents.
He said that all the identity cards are QR Code-readable to ensure maximum security and to avoid impersonation by unaccredited persons.
Professor Yakubu however, expressed concern about the spate of recent judgements and orders of court in respect of the nomination, substitution or disqualification of candidates after all the sensitive materials have been printed.
“The reprinting of the materials in compliance with court orders within a short period of time is not only expensive but the management of the process very challenging. “Although the Commission has already published the final list of candidates for the three States, four recent court orders have compelled us to review the list. “These changes have been reflected in the updated list of parties and candidates on our website.
“However, this decision is without prejudice to any pending appeal by the affected candidates or their political parties.”
Professor Yakubu is also worried about
about the spate of violence in the three States involving parties and candidates.
“I wish to remind you as party leaders that free and fair elections are only possible in an atmosphere of peace. “After all, election is a process involving human beings as voters, election officials, observers and the media whose safety is of paramount concern to us. While we will continue to work with the security agencies in this regard, political parties acting individually or collectively through the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) also have an obligation to impress on your members, candidates and supporters to maintain peace during the campaign rallies and procession.
“I urge you to also appeal to them to maintain the same disposition on Election Day and beyond.”
President Bola Tinubu has directed the Special Adviser to the President on Policy Coordination, Hadiza Bala Usman, to liaise with the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, and the Chairman of the Tax Policy Review Committee to expand and enforce taxes on what he called “the fruit” and not the “seed.”
“I will continue to emphasise the importance of ensuring that our tax authorities are not taxing the seed, but are taxing the fruit.”
The Presidential spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale, quoted President Tinubu as advising tax authorities, when he briefed newsmen on the meeting between the President and the Acting Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Zack Adedeji, today, October 24, to ensure that the recommendations are swiftly and immediately implemented across all ministries, departments, and agencies of the federal government.
The President said that the tax policy review committee would be made a top most priority at the next sitting of the federal executive council meeting.
‘We want to ensure that our citizens are receiving the best of public service provision. And that is only going to be possible when we have expanded the tax net to such an extent that we are collecting tax to GDP, reaching the 18 per cent threshold, without any undue burden being placed on the most vulnerable segments of our population and without, in any way, increasing any substantial form of the taxes being levied on large scale industry, medium scale industry and small scale industry in the country.”
Tinubu emphasized the need for effective synergy amongst the tax authorities, which he said should ensure that every institution of the federal government is on the same page with respect to how tax policy will be implemented.
At today’s meeting to brief the President was also the chairman of the tax policy review committee, Taiwo Oyedele.
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Kaduna State Governor, Alhaji Uba Sani has stormed the Aso Rock Presidential villa, Abuja, with loads of requests on President Bola Tinubu to intervene in the security challenge rearing its head in the State.
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu has listed measures taken for the conduct of the Governship election in Bayelsa, Kogi and Imo States on November 11 this year.
Femi Soneye: Combining Passion And Engagement At NNPCL, By Sufuyan Ojeifo
There has been a burst of excitement in the Nigerian media community since Thursday, last week, when the management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) announced the appointment of 49-year-old Mr Femi Soneye as the company’s Chief Corporate Communications Officer (CCCO). By virtue of that significant appointment, Soneye becomes the company’s spokesperson; and, he is required to robustly drive its public communication plans and strategies to ensure that the company’s external publics, through the media, are kept abreast of and apprised with issues of public interest around the operations of the national oil company.
The good thing is that Soneye will be honchoing a department that is very resourceful and capacitated to provide him with the necessary support to confront the rising complexities occasioned by episodic advancement in technology in use and deployment of public communication in pushing through and explicating to the company’s external publics, its official positions on contending industry issues. In fact, what Soneye essentially brings to the job is a load of passion that has, over the years of building media relations for brands across the public and private sectors, consistently driven his savoir faire and fidelity to efficient service delivery.
In the connectedness or intercourse between experience and service delivery, Soneye has kept faith with those little things that matter in building a bank of social capital and obligatory goodwill that are inevitable in the province of media relations. In 2013, we had a chance meeting in Washington DC at an official assignment. There was exchange of pleasantries between us (a three-man team from Nigeria) and Soneye, who had just celebrated the one-year anniversary of the publication of his online newspaper with headquarters in the United States of America: Per Second News (PSN). We had expressed our desire for Nigerian cuisine, especially pounded yam. He offered to drive us to Maryland to a Nigerian Kitchen where our culinary desire was taken care of.
Soneye and I got closer the following day at the event proper, exchanged numbers and, on getting to Nigeria, he got in touch and I reciprocated his gesture. At the time, I was handling the media affairs of Chief Tony Anenih (now late) who was then Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Soneye pragmatically deployed the PSN platform in publishing every material I sent to him without asking for any consideration in reciprocity. In the last ten years of our friendship, he has demonstrated a great sense of association, always reaching out to me. He has also always tapped my expertise as a media professional to achieve certain tasks in aid of his media support services for some institutional and individual brands. This peer “support and review” mechanism has been largely mutual.
A man of big ideas, Soneye reaches out to seek ways in which I could add value to ideas he is always fleshing up around reputation management. Imbued with a touch of Midas, he sees through his ideas and projects. If there was a glitch leading to failure, it would not be on account of him not having invested his best possible in the project; it has always boiled down to some shenanigans from the other side. I believe that the NNPCL job is one of the big ideas that Soneye had been working on in recent months or years. This can be explicated: on a number of occasions, I had seen how consistently he had intervened in providing positive reportage of the activities of the NNPC, particularly through the transition to NNPCL, using his Per Second News platform and many times using pseudonyms to syndicate positive narratives in other media organs. Remarkably, his coverage had cut across the entire gamut of the national oil company-providing, as it were, positive media focuses to the institution and individual leaders that superintended over the corporation then and those who are still in the saddle at the company.
In that deliberate, conscious and planned intervention effort to mollycoddle friends with the magnitude of his excellent media relations offerings, he had also built a robust goodwill for the NNPCL among his numerous media colleagues and their media organs. Soneye had quietly provided a link between a good number of online media publishers and the NNPCL who desired advert patronage. In this context, his transformation from being an external link to being a significant top member of management is both monumental and transcendental. It makes the interface much more seamless and one that ensures that media partnerships are easily consummated. Besides, with Soneye in the saddle, there is a new dawn of robust media relationship that is becoming increasingly tangible-just because of his personality. Every media organisation which craves for pieces of information henceforth should rest assured that it would get responses unlike in the immediate past epoch when neither calls nor text messages were answered.
Again, unlike many reputation managers or image makers who would either get involved in “media fisticuffs”, practically descending into the arena, in defence of institutional positions, Soneye has always advocated the pacific path, emphasized conciliation for better media relationship, and shown a great understanding and belief in the efficacy of engagements to achieve consensus ad idem or meeting of minds on issues that are conflictual. He is always excited to win over more and more friends to the side of his “good ideas or causes” who then become the extended mouthpieces of the brands he promotes. Soneye’s brilliance and cosmopolitan nature do not predispose him to treat the other person with condescension. His simple mien and calm disposition underpin very largely his “Omoluabi” (a well-brought up son of Yoruba land and of Ijebu Igbo extraction) pedigree. Highly respectful, Soneye is also reputed for his consistent kindness, his catholic conviviality, his gift of the garb, and ease of making friends with high net worth. These, perhaps, find solid anchorage in his Christian faith through which he has received the divine grace to prosper.
As he resumes any moment from now at his desk in the massive belly of the behemoth that the NNPCL office structure and infrastructure typify, Soneye, without a doubt, will deliver on his assignment on the back of an unprecedented social bank of goodwill and support from media professionals- his colleagues- who are well pleased in him. His media constituency is united behind him to assist in the delivery of his mandate(s). That external media tension has been taken care of. The only other tension that he may have to deal with is internal, that is within the top echelon of the management of the NNPCL and this may border on the shape, texture, contents and context of information flow to the media. He will be expected to do some processing of information and flow to the external publics through the media to provide appropriate guidance as to the theme of every communication endeavour.
In rounding off, I posit that Soneye’s pick is in apple pie order and his passion for the job is in a warm embrace with the platform of engagement that the national oil company has offered him. A cornucopia of goodwill, support and prayers is readily available for the NNPCL’s “Seriki Magana” or if you like the “kakaki”! More power to Soneye’s elbows as he continues with what he had hitherto been doing from the outside.