Femi Adesina
My Daughter Was Almost Weeping Reading Unsatisfactory Remarks about Me in the Social Media
Femi Adesina, a consummate journalist, is the current Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari. He is saddled with the responsibility of defending his Principal, amid killings and economic challenges in the country. It’s unenviable being in his shoes, especially when he has to defend the inexplicable, the assignment becomes a herculean task. But his unalloyed allegiance to his principal keeps him going. He tells Adedayo Adejobi why his job is an assignment, his lonely nights, how his daughter almost cried her hearts out upon reading unsatisfactory remark about her dad on social media and more My Appointment Came as Surprise
Well, I had been supporting President Buhari since he was a military head of state. I was in my third year in the university and he was overthrown. I knew who I was supporting and I believe that that regime would have been very good for Nigeria if it had lasted longer. So when he entered partisan politics, by then I was a journalist writing a weekly column and then I used the weekly column to point Nigerians to his direction that this is a man who can bring enduring change to Nigeria. 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015, I supported him. Along the line, we began to talk as my columns used to run on Fridays.
He either called me Friday night or Saturday and we discussed anytime I wrote on him. We talked for many years like that until my mother passed on in 2013 and I just sent him a card to the funeral service, a Christian service. I was surprised he showed up and stayed throughout the service. That’s the man people say is an ethnic bigot. But he came to a Christian service and stayed throughout. In 2015, I was among those that wrote urging him to run when he said he wasn’t going to run again. In 2014, I wrote an article telling him he could always change his mind not bound by what he said in 2011, so I was glad when he changed his mind. On the night he won the election, I was home when my phone rang and somebody said please hold on for the Presidentelect. I was shocked and he spoke to me and said Adesina I want to thank you for your support over the years. There are people who could have paid you millions of naira for your support, but you didn’t support them. It’s me that did not pay you anything that you are supporting. Thank you very much.
After that, I told my wife that the President elect called me, and I was hoping he won’t say ‘come and work with me’ later, because as Managing Director/Editor in Chief of the Sun and President, Nigeria Guild of Editors, I was just content with that. I thought I would do that for a number of years and then move on to something of my own. Along the road, it was your paper THISDAY that first carried the story on 20th may 2015 to say that Adesina will become Special Adviser Media to the president. It came as news to me just like to other people. You needed to see how my phone was jammed that day but then, I haven’t spoken to the President elect, I didn’t know what was going on, I didn’t know if the story was true. On May 31st, around 5pm, I got a call saying we are going to announce tonight saying you are the Special Adviser Media to the President, shall we go ahead? I said