President Muhammadu Buhari has appointed Tolu Ogunlesi, a journalist, as his Special Assistant on New Media. Officials at the presidency told PREMIUM TIMES Mr. Ogunlesi has undergone security screening and his appointment is to be announced in the coming days.Mr. Ogunlesi is one of Nigeria’s most active Twitter users, and was clearly in favour of Mr. Buhari’s election in the 2015 general elections.
He will be the Buhari administration’s social media anchor, a role played by Reno Omokiri for former President Goodluck Jonathan.Mr. Ogunlesi describes himself as a poet, photographer, and fiction writer. Before his appointment, he was a freelance writer, contributing articles to various publications, mostly abroad. He also syndicated opinion articles in many Nigerian newspapers, including PREMIUM TIMES.
Mr. Ogunlesi, who trained as a pharmacist, worked as Features Editor for the defunct 234NEXT newspapers. In 2009 he was awarded the Arts and Culture prize in the annual CNN Multichoice African Journalism Awards.
He won the CNN award again in 2013 in another category. He was also shortlisted for the inaugural PEN/Studzinski literary prize.
Mr. Ogulesi tweets via @toluogunlesi and has 143,000 followers.