{"id":2000,"date":"2015-06-18T17:48:19","date_gmt":"2015-06-18T17:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sahara.test\/?p=2000"},"modified":"2015-06-18T17:48:19","modified_gmt":"2015-06-18T17:48:19","slug":"how-i-got-appointed-as-the-special-adviser-to-the-president-on-media-and-publicity-femi-adeshina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saharaweeklyng.com\/how-i-got-appointed-as-the-special-adviser-to-the-president-on-media-and-publicity-femi-adeshina\/","title":{"rendered":"How i got appointed as the special adviser to the president on media and publicity – Femi Adeshina"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"images<\/a><\/p>\n

In this interview with SAHARA TV monitored by ENIOLA
\nAKINKUOTU, the newly appointed Special Adviser to the
\nPresident on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, who
\nis also the immediate past Managing Director of The SUN
\nand President of the Nigeria Guild of Editors, speaks
\nabout his appointment
\nAre you excited about your appointment?
\n– \u00a0Well, it is a call to service and one should be thankful
\nwhen called to serve one\u2019s country.
\nWith this appointment will you be switching sides that is,
\nfrom scrutinising the government to defending the
\ngovernment?
\n– \u00a0 \u00a0Let me first of all examine what you said, that I will
\nswitch sides from scrutinising to defending the
\ngovernment. No. The scrutinising part will still be part of
\nmy duty. Before I can speak for the government, I must
\nfirst scrutinise the decisions and the policies and then
\nmake an input before I can then defend. So, it is not a
\ntotal switch. There must still be a lot of scrutinising
\nbecause anything I am going to defend, I have got to be
\nable to understand it, agree with it and see the rationale
\nbehind it before I can defend it. So, it is not a total
\nswitch.
\nSo, what if you do not agree with a policy? How will you
\napproach it?
\n– \u00a0 If I don\u2019t agree with a policy, I will first ask for an
\nexplanation and when I am given the explanation, I will
\nmake my input. But then, my input does not have to
\noverride what may be in the public interest or what is in
\nthe interest of the larger number of people. My opinion
\nmight not necessarily be the correct one. So, when such
\nchallenges come, you have to weigh it and say, is it in
\nthe larger interest of the people, is it in the interest of the
\ncountry? Will it eventually result in a better standard of
\nliving for the people? That is the way to look at it. It
\ndoesn\u2019t have to be something I must agree with all the
\ntime. I should be able to appraise the decisions that have
\nbeen made and seek to understand them and then make
\nmy contribution as necessary.
\nThere are reports that you know President Muhammadu
\nBuhari very closely. What is your relationship with him?
\n– \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I will say yes. The President is somebody that I have
\nadmired for a long time since he was a military ruler.
\nWhen he was a military ruler, I was already in my third
\nyear in the university. So, I can say I knew him and his
\nstyle and I liked it. I felt sorry when his government was
\noverthrown. So, when he came back into partisan politics
\nin 2003, it was something that was very exciting for me
\nand since then, I have been supporting him. I am a
\njournalist and I write a weekly column. I have been
\npointing Nigerians in his direction since 2003. And
\nwhenever I wrote anything in his (Buhari\u2019s) support, he
\nwould call me on the phone and we would discuss and he
\nwould thank me. I remember in 2009 or thereabout when
\nProf. Tam David-West wrote a book on Buhari and it was
\nto be presented at the Nigerian Institute of International
\nAffairs. I was the master of ceremony of the occasion so
\nwe got to speak and know each other better. That was the
\nfirst time I would meet him (Buhari) in person. Thereafter,
\nhe ran for President in 2011 and I still wrote in my column
\nthat I thought he was the best person to rule Nigeria and
\nbring a change. Whenever I wrote those things, he would
\ncall me and he would thank me and we would talk.
\nSo, eventually, in August 2013, I lost my mother and we
\nneeded to do her funeral. So, I sent Buhari an invitation
\ncard. The service was in Lagos and lo and behold, before
\nthe service started, he drove in. It was a pleasant
\nsurprise. It was a Christian service and he sat through it.
\nThose who had said that he was a religious bigot were
\nshocked. This was a Muslim man that came for a
\nChristian service and attended the full service and yet
\nthey were saying he was a religious bigot. So, that act
\ncemented our relationship because after the event, I
\nphoned him the next day and thanked him but he said he
\nwas the one that should be grateful because he had never
\ngiven me a kobo and yet I always gave him all the
\nsupport. He said there were people that could pay me
\nmillions of naira for such support but I had decided to
\npitch my tent with somebody that could not give me
\nanything. So, that cemented our relationship.
\nYou know, in 2011, he said he would not contest the
\nPresidency again but in the run up to the 2015 election, I
\nfelt he should still run and I wrote that the fact that he
\nsaid in 2011 that he would not run again could not be
\ncarved in concrete and he could change his mind if he
\nwanted and the rest, they say, is history. He changed his
\nmind, he ran and he won. Significantly, on the night that
\nhe was declared the winner, my phone rang around
\nmidnight and one of our leaders in the media called and
\nsaid, \u2018Please hold on for Gen. Muhammadu Buhari\u2019. I was
\nshocked and when he spoke to me, he said he
\nappreciated my support throughout the campaigns and
\nnow that victory had come his way, he just wanted to say
\nthank you. So, that was how it played out.
\nHow did you get the appointment? Did he call you or were
\nyou interviewed?
\nAfter he had been declared winner and after he had called
\nme on the telephone, I deliberately stayed away from him
\nfor two reasons. The first was because I knew he would
\nbe under a lot of pressure. A lot of people would be
\ncalling to congratulate him and probably seeking one
\nthing or the other. So, I think from that night, which was
\nMarch 31, I deliberately stayed away from him because I
\ndid not want to add to the pressure that would be on him
\nand secondly, I didn\u2019t want it to be that I was seeking a
\nposition in his government. I am a born again Christian
\nand I want anything that happens or comes my way to be
\nwhat God has ordained. I don\u2019t push anything; I don\u2019t
\nlobby for anything so I kept my distance from him. But
\nthen, people around him kept talking to me and kept
\ntelling me that they believed I was the best person to be
\nthe spokesman for the incoming President. However, I did
\nnot give any commitment for two reasons. The first, as I
\nsaid earlier, was that I didn\u2019t want to lobby and secondly,
\nI have a job that I enjoy doing: Managing Director\/Editor-
\nin-Chief of one of the leading newspapers in the country,
\nThe Sun, and then I was also the President of the Nigeria
\nGuild of Editors. Those are high calibre jobs and
\nresponsibilities. So, I wasn\u2019t looking for a job but then
\npeople around me kept talking to me till eventually, there
\nwas some sort of interview but I would not say it was a
\ndirect interview but people singled me out to say, \u2018Well, if
\nyou are invited to serve in government, will you serve?\u2019.
\nMy conviction had always been that I would never serve
\nin a government except one headed by Muhammadu
\nBuhari. So, when they singled me out, I told them I didn\u2019t
\nthink I wanted to serve in the government but since it is
\nMuhammadu Buhari, I will consider it. But I also
\nreminded them that I also have a job and I have to consult
\nwith my publisher (Orji Uzor Kalu) and I have to seek his
\nblessings. Reluctantly too, my publisher gave his
\nblessings. He told me that they would not know the
\nsacrifice he had made by letting me go but since it is a
\nservice to the country, I have his blessings. So, I got back
\nto them and told them yes, that I had sought my
\npublisher\u2019s blessing and the next I heard was the
\nannouncement that I had been appointed Special Adviser
\non Media and Publicity.
\nYou will be going into the job in a changing media
\nlandscape. You will grapple with the social media and the
\ntraditional media. How do you hope to navigate these two
\nworlds?
\nI would rather refer to the social media as digital media
\nbecause the social media is just a variant of the digital
\nmedia. Nobody can do anything successfully in the media
\ntoday without factoring in the digital media. The social
\nmedia, the digital media and every other thing will be
\nused together. You would have seen the role they played
\nin the campaigns. You could feel the pulse of the
\nelectorate and could already discern the direction the
\nelection would follow by merely following the digital
\nmedia, particularly the social aspect of that digital media.
\nIt played a major role in the campaigns and there is no
\nway you are going to ignore it. The traditional media has
\nits place because there are people who are still glued to
\nit. But the younger generation uses the digital media so
\nyou then need to use all the avenues to reach the people.
\nSo far, what do the media headlines regarding Buhari\u2019s
\nadministration say to you about what you are going to be
\ndealing with on the job?
\nI will tell you it is no tea party. It is going to be a hectic
\nwork but then it is going to be me working for somebody
\nthat I believe in. So, I guess I will have to throw my all
\ninto it. I am under no illusion that the job is going to be
\neasy or a picnic. It will not be. But I will throw my all into
\nit and as long as my principal remains who he is:
\nstraight, accountable, focused and someone who wants
\nto effect a change in the country, I guess we will get it
\ndone. When you have a good product, the marketing is
\neasier.
\nHave you spoken with previous government spokesmen
\nlike Mr. Reuben Abati and Mr. Segun Adeniyi?
\nI have spoken with Segun Adeniyi (the late President
\nUmaru Yar\u2019adua\u2019s spokesman); I have spoken with Ima
\nNiboro who was former President Goodluck Jonathan\u2019s
\nfirst spokesman; but I have not spoken to Reuben Abati.
\nWhat advice did they give you?
\nThey gave me an insight into how to do the job
\nsuccessfully. I have spoken with Segun more than once
\nbut I have spoken with Ima Niboro just once. I will meet
\nwith Segun again and we will talk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this interview with SAHARA TV monitored by ENIOLA AKINKUOTU, the newly appointed Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, who is also the immediate past Managing Director of The SUN and President of the Nigeria Guild of Editors, speaks about his appointment Are you excited about your appointment? – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,8],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/saharaweeklyng.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/images-3.jpg?fit=280%2C160&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Suws-wg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saharaweeklyng.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saharaweeklyng.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saharaweeklyng.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saharaweeklyng.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saharaweeklyng.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/saharaweeklyng.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saharaweeklyng.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saharaweeklyng.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saharaweeklyng.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saharaweeklyng.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}