A former governorship aspirant under the Peoples Democratic Party in Ogun State, Otunba Segun Showunmi, has criticised President Bola Tinubu over what he described as “a cacophonic media team.”
He says there is no clear-cut leadership for the president’s media team and that the president has made a job as sensitive as managing the media to be a “job for the boys.”
Sowunmi faulted the appointment of more than two people to manage the presidential communication, saying that the idea of having an “attack dog” is obsolete.
The PDP chieftain made the remarks in a statement sent to journalists on Wednesday.
President Tinubu’s media team is currently being managed by the trio of Bayo Onanuga, Sunday Dare and Daniel Bwala.
He said, “For someone who has built and invested heavily in the media and who has enjoyed significant support from the media, it beats me how he is suddenly so confused and disorganised with a straightforward task of putting together a coherent, light-footed, fit-for-purpose media team.
“Just look at the cacophony of strange fellows he has appointed, from the rather too-old-for-the-era Methuselah to the turncoat minimal value blabber.
“They are too many, the job description is all over the place, and some of them have neither real access to nor understanding of how the Nigerian media space works.”
Sowunmi wonders: “If the president cannot put a simple media team together, can anyone be surprised how he will motivate them to get the job done?
“What is even their job? He mistakes media management for public relations. He muddles this up with spokesperson interface, with media firewall speaking heads, and with social media optimisation.
“He imagines some ‘attack dog’ role as useful in an era where believability is key and young people are catching cruise, as they call it, where rudeness and deliberate misdemeanours are the currency.”
Showunmi urged President Tinubu to quickly reorganise the media team and ensure that there is an appointed leadership with cabinet status to coordinate and lead the media team, other than how it is now where the three appointed Special Advisers, Onanuga, Dare and Bwala, operate independently as spokespersons for the presidency.
Having an identified head of the team with a cabinet status, he said, would also make it easy for the media, especially the international ones, to know who to call on matters affecting the government.
While referencing former President Buhari’s administration when Femi Adesina was leading the media team and Malam Garba Shehu was backing him “with clearly defined roles,’ Sowunmi advised Tinubu to designate one of his media men as Special Adviser, while the others should be Senior Special Assistants.
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