After Alwan Hassan’s Media Controversies, APC Restricts Campaign Spokespersons to Alake, Yari, Idris
The All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council has overhauled its media and communications structure, limiting the authority to speak on behalf of the campaign to three senior officials ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
The council announced the changes in a statement, explaining that the decision was aimed at improving coordination, discipline and consistency in its public communications.
Under the revised arrangement, only the campaign’s Director-General, Senator Abdulaziz Yari; Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake; and Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, are authorised to issue official statements on behalf of the council.
Alake has been designated the campaign’s official spokesperson, while Yari and Idris will also retain the authority to represent the council publicly.
The council further directed individuals previously appointed as spokespersons to relinquish those roles and become members of the Directorate of Media and Strategic Communications.
It also urged television and radio stations to take note of the changes, adding that designated representatives would be assigned to media programmes whenever the need arises.
The statement was signed by Femi Gbajabiamila, Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu and Deputy Director-General (Administration) of the APC Presidential Campaign Council.
The restructuring follows a series of controversies involving some of the campaign council’s previously announced spokespersons, particularly Alwan Hassan, whose recent public comments have attracted criticism and drawn the ruling party into explanations.
In one instance, Hassan generated controversy after alleging that some ministers paid billions of naira to secure appointments under the government and subsequently sought to recover their investments after assuming office.
“A lot of ministers pay billions and billions, and you know, to get themselves appointed, the first thing they think of is how to recoup that money,” he had said.
The remarks prompted a response from the APC, which rejected suggestions that ministers serving in the Tinubu administration paid money to secure their appointments. The party explained that Hassan was referring to alleged practices under previous administrations.
Hassan also attracted public attention during a recent appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today, where he attempted to demonstrate the functionality of Nigeria’s 112 emergency telephone number.
During the programme, he presented the hotline as one of the administration’s achievements and challenged anchor Seun Okinbaloye to call the number live on air.
However, repeated attempts by the presenter to connect to the emergency service were unsuccessful.
When Okinbaloye declared that the number was not working, Hassan attributed the failure to a possible network problem, maintaining that the service was operational and that he had successfully used it on previous occasions.
The latest changes place the campaign’s official public communications under the direct authority of three designated leaders, while other members of the media directorate will continue to support its communications activities without retaining independent spokesperson status.
