By Shola Oshunkeye
The Crest can authoritatively reveal that the former Special Adviser to ex-President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Chief Femi Adesina, will resume at The Sun newspapers as the organisation’s Executive Vice Chairman with effect from Friday, September 1, 2023.
Adesina, who left the company as Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief in 2015 to serve as Buhari’s media adviser, told The Crest exclusively that the company’s founder and Publisher, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, approved the appointment, and both of them agreed that he (Adesina) should resume on September 1.
This is to enable Adesina, a former President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, NGE, to enjoy a well-deserved rest having been unable to go on leave throughout the eight years he served as the ex-President’s spokesman.
During the intervening period, Adesina, who holds the National Honour of Officer of the Order of the Niger, OON, also plans to go to “a quiet place somewhere in the world” to write his memoirs. But don’t ask the former Special Adviser to tell you the exact location. He would flash his signature laughter and stylishly shrug it off.
Adesina revealed details of his post-State House life in an exclusive interview he granted The Crest in his office in the Aso Rock Villa last Friday, his last working day there.
“I came from The Sun newspapers,” he began. “I was the MD/Editor-in-Chief (of the publishing company). And when I wanted to leave, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu said ‘Don’t resign. You may get to the government and you don’t like it. You can always come back.
“Or, you may get to government and stay eight years; you can always come back.’ He said: ‘I’m going to make you the Executive Vice Chairman of company. Not only did he say it, he issued me the letter. Yes, I have the letter.”
Effective when? This reporter asked him.
“He said anytime I choose to return,’ Adesina further disclosed. “And me and him have had a meeting; and he has asked me: ‘Do you want to take some time off, and I said ‘Yes, I would like to take two, three months. Then he said, ‘Okay, resume September 1.”
That’s not all. Adesina revealed why he asked for two months.
“Why I asked for two months was because I wanted to go and write,” he said. “In another two weeks, I would like to travel to a quiet place somewhere in the world and write my memoirs.”
Well, as the cliché goes, that is just a tip of the iceberg. Please, watch out for the full interview in The Crest.