The appointment was made Friday evening by the National
Working Committee of the APC in Abuja.
Although a formal announcement is yet to be made, Mr
Issa-Onilu confirmed his appointment to premium times.
An aide to party chairman Adams Oshiomhole, Simon Ebegbulem,
also confirmed the appointment but said Mr Issa-Onilu would have to be
inaugurated before he can assume duties.
Mr Issa-Onilu takes over from the acting spokesperson,
Yekeen Nabena, who has now reverted to his position as deputy national
publicity secretary of the party.
Mr Nabena took the spokesperson’s position in interim
capacity following the resignation of Bolaji Abdullahi who defected to the
opposition Peoples Democratic Party.
When contacted for details of the new appointment on Friday,
Mr Nabena said he was in Lagos and was not at the NWC meeting. He said he was
yet to be briefed on the outcome but would release an official statement as
soon as he is briefed.
The new publicity secretary, Mr Issa-Onilu, is a specialist
in strategic public communications planning, with vast experience in corporate
and political communications, crisis communication, policy analysis and
development issues.
A graduate of Mass Communication from the University of
Lagos, he holds MS Certificate in Integrated Marketing
Communications from West Virginia University, Virginia,
U.S.A.
He also did courses in Advanced Public Relations and Media
Audience Research at the New York University, United States, and attended
several seminars and conferences in the U.S. and UK, including at the
prestigious World Advertising Research Council (WARC) in London, UK.
As an associate member of the Public Relations Society of
America (PRSA) and member of the Public Relations Society of New York, Mr
Issa-Onilu is also a Corporate Member of the International Communications
Conference (ICC) at the Baruch College, State University of New York, U.S.A. He
is also an associate member of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria
(APCON).
He worked variously as a media relations executive and
journalist for 15 years and as a policy and development issues strategist,
public perception analyst and communication planner in the last 13 years.
Mr Issa-Onilu joined the defunct Comet Newspapers in Lagos
as a News Editor and later moved to Thisday Newspapers as Assistant Editor,
SundayThisday.
He resigned as Group Politics Editor, Thisday Newspapers.
He also worked for the World Investment News (Winne),
France, for the production of a special report on Nigeria’s democratisation
process, published in the June 1999 edition of FORBES International Business
magazine.
The new ruling party spokesperson has written many papers
and delivered lectures on public communication, crisis communication and
reputation management and Integrated Marketing Communications.
He delivered a paper on ‘How to Prepare a Marketing Plan’ at
a workshop for advertising and marketing chief executives and practitioners
organised by the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) in Abuja
in 2008 and in Kaduna in 2009. He also delivered a paper on ‘How to Develop
Effective Public Communications Campaign’ to advertising, public relations,
marketing and media practitioners in Abuja and the North on the invitation of
APCON in 2015.
He also delivered a paper on ‘Crisis Communication and
Reputation Management’ before an international audience of communication,
marketing, advertising, and public relations academia, practitioners and
faculty at the Baruch College, State University of New York, New York, USA in
June 2010.
Mr Issa-Onilu, like his substantive predecessor, Mr
Abdullahi, is from Ilorin in Kwara State. He was among the three other
candidates who lost to Mr Abdullahi in the original election for the position
of national publicity secretary of the ruling party.
No comments:
Post a Comment