President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the appointment of Mr. Rahman
Adeola Ipaye as Deputy Chief of Staff and Mr. Laolu Akande as Senior
Special Assistant (Media & Publicity) in the Presidency.
The new appointments were announced in a statement today, September 3, by
Femi Adesina, special adviser to the president
on media and publicity.
The two new appointees, who will work in the office of the vice president have
been working with Vice President Osinbajo since the present administration
came on board.
Rahman Adeola Ipaye
Ipaye is the immediate past Attorney General of Lagos state. Before his
appointment as Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, he 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).
Ipaye graduated from with B.A. (Hons) Degree (History) in 1984, LL.B. Hons
(1988) and LL.M. (1991 from the University of Lagos.
He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria and the
Chartered Institute of Arbitrators respectively.
Akande graduated with an honours degree in History in 1990 and a Masters
degree in Communication & Language Arts in 1992 from the University of
Ibadan.

Laolu Akande
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 United States of America
in 1998.
He worked as a journalist with the Philadelphia Inquirer and New York
Newsday while in the US. He also served at the United Nations as a Press
Officer and later as an Advocacy and Communication Consultant. He was also
the Bureau Chief of The Guardian in North America and the Executive Director
of the Christian Association of Nigerian-Americans, CANAN.
Akande taught at the State University of New York at Stonybrook and also
Suffolk County Community College in Long Island, New York between 2002
and 2015.
The recent appointments made by President Buhari has been generating a lot
of criticisms from Nigerians being that majority of the appointees are from the
North.
The president was recently dragged to court by a lawyer, Dim-Udebuani
Marcel for violating the principle of federal character enshrined in the nation’s
constitution . He wants the court to nullify all the appointments made so far
for being in breach of the constitution.
Also, the governor of Ekiti state, Ayodele Fayose had accused Buhari of
operating as a president of the Northern Nigeria only.
Naij.com