Whoever brought Ajuri Ngelale to be the spokesman and special adviser to President Bola Tinubu had, from the word-go, reduced the President to a local political champion that he was far away from.
Apart from being a dark horse, even in the basic Journalism profession, Ajuri lacked basic human relationship. He came in with a dangerous agenda of divide-and-rule among the presidential media men and women. He virtually turned the status of presidency into that of local government.
On arrival at the presidency as the presidential official spokesperson last year, he addressed media men covering the beat. He made it clear that he was going to reduce the number of journalists in the beat. As a matter of fact, that statement alone showed him out as a person that lacked even the human relationship he was employed to bring to bear on his principal.
Of course, it was not surprised that a few days later, on August 18, he practicalised what he had designed to achieve. He orchestrated the sacking of over 20 media men representing their various organizations from the Villa in a very disgraceful manner. The sacking was done with all the trappings of arrogance; giving no iota of reasons or formula used for the action. Despite moves by people of goodwill; people who knew the dangerous implications of such action to intervene and to make him reverse the action, Ajuri remained adamant and arrogantly so.
In deed, it is clearly on record that Tinubu, who engaged Ajuri used to be the darling of media men and women across Nigeria. Tinubu was not known to discriminate against journalists. As a matter of fact, his ability to embrace media practitioners of all hoos made him an outstanding media personality amongst his peers.
Someone like Tinubu who fought military regime to a standstill was seen as the champion of democracy. When the story is being told about how democracy found its way into Nigeria, Tinubu would stand out like a sore thumb. And he did not become champion of democracy by choosing and selecting which media and media practitioners should be his friends or mouthpiece.
But to begin to choose and select which media and media practitioners should remain in the Presidency just when he finally became president, willy nilly, portrayed a serious character defects in him directly and or through Ajuri whom he asked to do it for him. In other words, displaying of such charater actually showed either that he was at a cross-purpose with his Chief spokesman or that he had metamorphosed into a different thing.
One doesn’t blame Ajuri much for one thing, that those who brought him to Tinubu did not understand and appreciate the responsibilities and complexity involved in being a PRESIDENTIAL SPOKESMAN. Or they were trying to compensate him for whatever favour he might have done for them or Tinubu or both, not for the purpose of competent output. Those people could have just made way for him to get fat contracts, get his millions or billions cash and crawl back to from where he came.
Here was Ajuri who had not risen to any appreciable level in journalism all his 38 years on earth. He was just a common reporter with AIT and one other private radio station. It is not just enough, as he might have convinced his sponsors, for one to know how to blow grammar and twist words to create some kind of, mainly, negative effects.
Historically speaking, spokespersons of the past Presidents were known to have risen through the ranks in journalism to the position of Editor, and in public relations fields before they got appointed. It started from late Wada Maida, late Oluremi Oyo, Dr. Reuben Abati, Olusegun Adeniyi, Femi Adesina, Garba Shehu and others. They were not only Editors-in-chief in the print media but were at one time or the other, Presidents of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE). There were others too who became Presidential spokespersons after going through tough Journalism experiences. And because each of these experienced journalists knew where the shoes pinched, they operated with a great amount of humility, respect for not only their contemporaries but also the junior colleagues. They imbibed some elements of political sagacity in their interactions with people around the seat of power and beyond, because they understood the values of such personal touch to the whole gamut of the job.
Whatever anyone would say, it was quite obvious that Ajuri, from the way he crashed into the Villa, had failed right from the very moment he was engaged, not because he wanted to fail but because he saw himself in a shoe that was began than his legs. Besides, he was too proud to understand the limits of his power, and above all, he regarded the position of the Presidential spokesperson as next to God: that he was untouchable. In fact, from the very beginning, his arrogance was palpable and at the point of self-destruction.
All said, I submit that Tinubu needs a far more better spokesperson than Ajuri that had just breezed in and breezed out.
It doesn’t really matter whether he was booted out when his inefficiency and arrogance reached the point of no return or he turned in his letter saying goodbye to the Villa, what is important is that he has returned to his own level: not Presidential spokesperson that he abused severally, but to where he can enjoy his voice, shouting at the boys around him
It is obvious that the Presidency needs to take its time to avoid bringing in another kind of Ajuri, which may spell a disaster to the image of the President himself. He or she must be the spokesperson that would work hard to ensure internal cohesion of the immediate constituency of the presidential media circle.
