President Buhari Appoints DCOS, SSA (Media) VP”s Office

President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the appointments of Mr Rahman Ipaye as Deputy Chief of Staff and Mr Laolu Akande as Senior Special Assistant (Media & Publicity) in the Presidency.

This information is contained in a statement issued in Abuja on Thursday by the president’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina. According to the statement, the two new appointees will work in the Office of the Vice President.

Ipaye is the immediate past Attorney General of Lagos State.

He studied at the University of Lagos where he graduated with B.A. (Hons) degree in History in 1984; LL.B. Hons (1988) and LL.M. (1991).

He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria and the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators respectively.

Before his appointment as Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Ipaye was employed as a lecturer in the Department of Commercial and Industrial Law, University of Lagos (1992 to 2001).

He was also a onetime Special Assistant (Legal Matters) to the Governor of Lagos State (2001 to 2007); and Special Adviser (Taxation and Revenue) to the Governor of Lagos State and member of the State Executive Council (2007 to 2011).

The new SSA, Media and Publicity, (Office of the Vice-President), Akande, graduated from the University of Ibadan in 1990 with an honours degree in History and a Masters degree in Communication & Language Arts in 1992.

He became a Staff Reporter of the Guardian newspaper in 1990 while still serving under the National Youth Service Corps.

He left The Guardian to join the foundation team of The News Magazine in 1993, where he became Senior Writer.

In 1997, he was appointed by Nigerian Tribune as editor of the Tribune on Saturday, a position he held until he moved to the U.S. in 1998.

In the U.S. he worked as a journalist with the Philadelphia Inquirer and New York Newsday. He also served at the UN as a Press Officer and later as an Advocacy and Communication Consultant.