Fresh facts have emerged as to why the special adviser to the President Bola Tinubu on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, resigned.
On Saturday, Mr Ngelale announced that he had taken an indefinite leave of absence to attend to health challenge in his family.
“On Friday, I submitted a memo to the Chief of Staff to the President informing my office that I am proceeding on an indefinite leave of absence to frontally deal with medical matters presently affecting my immediate, nuclear family.
“While I fully appreciate that the ship of state waits for no man, this agonizing decision — entailing a pause of my functions as the Special Adviser to the President on Media & Publicity and Official Spokesperson of the President; Special Presidential Envoy on Climate Action, and Chairman, Presidential Steering Committee on Project Evergreen — was taken after significant consultations with my family over the past several days as a vexatious medical situation has worsened at home,” Mr Ngelale said.
Although Mr Ngelale had cited “medical matters” as the reason for his “leave of absence”, insiders told DAILY NIGERIAN that Mr Ngele was only given a soft-landing to quit as presidential spokesman but he chose to quit all the positions he was occupying.
Since Mr Ngelale’s appointment, which was influenced by the first family, there has been internal pressure to replace him with “someone better media relations” among the campaign spokespersons or “someone the president is more pleased with”.
DAILY NIGERIAN also gathered that Mr Ngelale was also on collision course with other media aides working for the president for allegedly sidelining them in the running of the affairs of the office.
According to sources, Mr Ngelale had also chewed more than he could bite, taking a number of roles that affected his primary media relations role.
The sources said the tasks of being a Special Presidential Envoy on Climate Action, and chairman, Presidential Steering Committee on Project Evergreen, has created a role strain and gave the cabal a reason to convince the president to replace him.
The sources said Mr Ngelale had stepped on some toes as he expanded the scope of the Special Presidential Envoy role to garner more influence in the power circle.
“When the powers around the president realised that he has too many irons in the fire, they asked him to choose between being a presidential spokesman and Special Presidential Envoy on Climate Action.
“They thought Ajuri would choose the climate role because of his passion for climate campaign, but he chose to remain as presidential spokesman.
“Dissatisfied with Ajuri’s choice, the presidential cabal therefore directed him to completely quit the media role and become a full-time climate ambassador.
“So when Ajuri realised that the cabal does not want him as spokesman for the president, he decided to quit the roles altogether,” said a source familiar with the power play.
DAILY NIGERIAN gathered that the president may pick his former chief of staff, Sunday Dare, as Mr Ngelale’s replacement.
Efforts to get the reaction of Mr Ngelale on the issue were unsuccessful as his known phone number was switched off at the time of filing this report.
He has also yet to respond to SMS sent to his phone line.
