Osinbajo’s spokesman, Akande bags UI alumni special award

Laolu Akande, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Office of the Vice President, has bagged the University of Ibadan (UI) Alumni group’s 2022 Special Recognition Award.

The convener of “World of Uites”, organisers of the awards, Mr Tobilola Ogunbajo, assisted by a member of the group, Mr Onele Peter-Cole, presented the award to Akande on Friday, in his office at the Presidential Villa.

Presenting the award, Ogunbajo said that The World of Uites – a virtual gathering of the University of Ibadan alumni, affiliated with the Lagos Chapter, is recognising Akande for his selfless service to the nation and for being a worthy ambassador of the institution.

Although he was unable to attend the awards event held in Dec. 2022 in Ibadan because of other pressing official engagements, Akande said in a message that the award was coming from an affiliate group of the UI Alumni made up of younger upwardly mobile members.

“I find this recognition refreshing and certainly fulfilling. I thank the organisers for finding me worthy of this honour.

“I welcome representatives of the group, themselves successful professionals – a notable banker and lawyer, to Aso Villa,” he said.

Akande, a news journalist with over three decades of active experience, was named the official spokesman to the Vice President in 2015 when he relocated back to Nigeria from the U.S.

In the course of his professional career in the U.S., he had interviewed among several eminent news makers a sitting U.S. President, George Bush, and reported from the UN headquarters in New York as an international correspondent for several years.

Other distinguished recipients of this year’s award include Oyo State Commissioner for Youth and Sports, Mr Seun Fakorede, Founder of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Nigeria, Dr Saheed Ayoola, and Vice Chairman of Bariga Local Government Area, Lagos State, Mr Rotimi Agunsoye.

In the maiden edition of the awards, the National President of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), Mr Kolade Alabi, Chairman of the Lagos State Chapter of the UI Alumni Association, Mr Dauda Salau, and Special Adviser to Oyo State Governor on Youths and Sports, Mr Fisayo Soyombo, were all honoured.