On Akande and Ipaye...

Though some are now reporting the appointment of the Deputy Chief of Service - Mr. Rahman Akande and Senior Special Assistant (Media and Publicity) - Mr. Laolu Akande as breaking news, both have been working with the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo in this capacity since June, 2015.

As we reliably gathered, under the present arrangement in the presidency, there would be only one presidential media and communication office but that individual appointees would be given separate responsibilities.

Mr Adeola Rahman Ipaye (born 1963) obtained a bachelor's and master's degrees in Law from the University of Lagos. He began his law career at Oditah Adebiyi & Co. in Lagos as a research coordinator before he joined the services of the University of Lagos as assistant lecturer. He rose to the position of a senior lecturer on October 1999 and later became the sub-dean of the faculty of law on October 2000. 

On May 2001 he was appointed Special Assistant to Senator Bola Tinubu  on Legal Affairs and in 2003 he became the Governor's Senior Special Assistant on Legal Matters. He served in that capacity for 4 years until he was appointed Special Adviser on Taxation and Revenue to the former Governor of Lagos State Babatunde Fashola, SAN. 

Mr. Rahman Ipaye, the immediate past Attorney General of Lagos State, graduated with B.A. (Hons) Degree (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 in May 2007, Mr. Ipaye was employed as a lecturer in the Department of Commercial and Industrial Law, University of Lagos (1992 to 2001); 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).

In May 2001, Mr. Ipaye took a leave of absence to join the then Lagos State Governor (Bola Ahmed Tinubu) as Special Assistant on Legal Matters. No doubt his leave of absence has now been extended by virtue of the appointment as Deputy Chief of Servise.

Mr. Laolu Akande who moderated Prof. Osinbajo's USA Town Meeting covered the inauguration ceremony for his media agency, Empowered Newswire.

Mr. Akande, a pastor, was a former editor of Saturday Tribune. He cut his journalism teeth at The Guardian in 1989, and was a foundation staff of The NEWS magazine. He moved to the United States in 1997 after agents of then dictator, Sani Abacha, began harassing him over perceived critical stance of his paper (Saturday Tribune) to the administration. He graduated from the University of Ibadan in 1990 with an honours degree in History and a Masters degree in Communication/Language Arts in 1992.

According to his brief bio on the website of the Christian Association of Nigeria USA (CANUSA), a Christian organisation for which he works as executive director, Mr. Akande is regarded as “the longest serving African correspondent at the United Nations, and the only Nigerian journalist so far to have interviewed a sitting American president in the White House when he interviewed former President George W. Bush.

“He has also exclusively interviewed American folk hero, General Colin Powell, as well as billionaires like Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Donald Trump and several African leaders and presidents.”

An adjunct college professor, Mr. Akande worked with leading American newspapers including the Philadelphia Inquirer, and New York Newsday. He worked briefly at the United Nations as a press officer and later as advocacy consultant between 2002 and 2004.