Suleiman Haruna Ph.D

Director, Public Relations and Protocol @FMINONigeria

[Bayo Onanuga, OON, CON @aonanuga1956]

STATEHOUSE PRESS RELEASE

PRESIDENT TINUBU RENEWS THE TENURE OF DG NTA, MD NAN

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has renewed the tenure of the Director-General of the NigerianTelevision Authority (NTA) and the Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) for another three-year term.

President Tinubu first appointed Abdulhamid Salihu Dembos of the NTA and Ali Mohammed Ali of the NAN on October 20, 2023. Their second term will begin on October 20, 2026.

Salihu Dembos, from Yola, Adamawa State, is a former National President of the Radio, Television, Theatre and Art Workers Union (RATTAWU). He previously served as the executive director of marketing at the NTA after his retirement in 2017.

He joined the NTA as an announcer at the Kaduna Station after his National Youth Service in 1989. He rose through the ranks and, at various times, served as General Manager at NTA Lokoja and NTA Kano. He retired as the acting Zonal Director, NTA Kaduna Network Centre, in 2017.

Ali Mohammed Ali is a veteran journalist and media manager with over 30 years of experience. He has a keen interest in media evolution and content development in a digital world, meeting the needs of a diverse population with alternative news feeds.

With a first degree in English from Bayero University, Kano, Ali also holds a graduate degree in International Affairs from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Mass Communications from Bayero University, Kano.

President Tinubu has urged the two chief executives to justify his confidence in them by continuing to demonstrate commitment to their organisation’s mandates and the promotion of the government’s Renewed Hope Agenda.

Bayo Onanuga
Special Adviser to the President
(Information & Strategy)
August 23, 2026

[Suleiman Haruna Ph.D @suleimanharuna]

It could be a glitch. Yesterday they said I used https://t.co/28t9HdiN6s.

[Bashir Ahmad, OON @BashirAhmaad]

Our regulator, @NgComCommission, should seriously look into @MTNNG’s data billing and warn them to stop cheating Nigerians. There is absolutely no way I could have used 56GB in a single day when I didn’t do any heavy data-consuming activity. Additionally, whenever I am at home, my phone automatically connects to Wi-Fi. So MTN needs to explain how this 56GB was supposedly consumed ooo. Nigerians deserve accurate billing and value for our money.

[Suleiman Haruna Ph.D @suleimanharuna]

@ToniaUZOMAhzf6 welcome to X!

[Suleiman Haruna Ph.D @suleimanharuna]

Check out Thirty6LionMedia 🦁's video! #TikTok https://t.co/KlcEmhT0Bn Nigeria is making great progress.

[Suleiman Haruna Ph.D @suleimanharuna]

Check out FGNConnect's video! #TikTok https://t.co/5t5e4lSNaC Tell our stories! We have enough of them.

[Suleiman Haruna Ph.D @suleimanharuna]

@gimbakakanda Sannu da kokari. The story will reverberate through the north and discussions will fly like rain.

[Suleiman Haruna Ph.D @suleimanharuna]

@tomisin_ms No he is not. In the north, male child is not an issue.

[Suleiman Haruna Ph.D @suleimanharuna]

@BashirAhmaad Congratulations. Allah ya kara lafiya.

[Reno Omokri @renoomokri]

No, Pastor Paul Adefarasin, Nigeria is not dead. She is very much alive and thriving!

As open a society as America is, there are limits on freedom of speech, such that pastors, priests, and other religious clerics cannot legally endorse, attack, or ask their congregations to support or donate money to a candidate while they are in church and acting as ministers of God. If they do, they will lose their (501(c)(3)) status and face other punitive measures.

The same is true in the United Kingdom.

So, why would Nigerian clerics think they can stand on their altars and pulpits and begin attacking or endorsing specific candidates, undermining the government of the day, or say things like "Nigeria is dead", while others call for revolutions?

In case Pastor Paul Adefarasin is not aware, the reason Nigeria became bankrupt and was almost a beggar nation in the early eighties, when his father's ₦18,000 salary was so high, was that the Nigerian naira was strictly pegged to the US dollar under President Shehu Shagari's administration.

What that meant was that the Naira was tied to the value of the US Dollar, not to the productivity of the Nigerian economy, meaning that Nigeria had to cover the gap between the real value of the Naira, which was then abysmally low, and its pegged value, by frittering away our foreign reserves and taking on loans.

That is why the Shagari Administration was forced to introduce major national austerity measures on Wednesday, April 21, 1982, or the Nigerian economy would have collapsed!

To put things in proper perspective, since President Bola Tinubu introduced the Naira's flotation, which is the same economic policy driving the US Dollar, Nigeria's GDP has consistently grown at an average of 4% per annum.

By contrast, when Paul Adefarasin's father was Chief Judge of Lagos, and, according to him, was earning ₦18,000, Nigeria experienced economic recession, and our GDP did not grow. It shrank.

In 1981, our GDP growth rate was -20.8%. In 1982, it was -10.3%. In 1983, it was -5.0%.

And why were we having negative growth rates under Shagari, when Justice Adefarasin was Chief Judge of Lagos?

Because Nigeria was using the money we should have used to fund our economic growth to defend the Naira, which was pegged to the US Dollar.

Pegging a currency to the US dollar demands massive foreign reserves, and when you deplete your foreign reserves, you will have to borrow!

In contrast, since President Bola Tinubu floated the Naira, Nigeria has experienced an UNPRECEDENTED 12 cycles of GDP growth and trade surpluses.

Nigeria’s GDP growth rate for the full year 2024 was 3.38%. It was 3.87% in 2025. In 2026, the IMF projects that our GDP will grow above 4%.

And yet someone is saying our country is dead, then nostalgically painting the early eighties as a utopian period of economic bliss?

We are not all suffering from amnesia!

This is an area in which I am an authority, as I have a Master's in Law from England and completed my dissertation on International Banking and Finance Law before working in the British Parliament.

Nigeria under Shagari was a dumping ground for imports from all over the world. We were importing toothpicks and pizzas, and had a negative trade balance.

Today, under President Tinubu, the IMF listed Nigeria as the sixth-largest contributor to global GDP growth in 2025.

We now have a positive trade balance and have added $67 billion to the economy, having moved from a GDP of ₦269.29 trillion on May 29, 2023, when Asiwaju became President, to ₦372.8 trillion today.

How many Nigerian Pentecostal pastors had private jets, private runways, Rolls-Royces and private universities in the eighties? Today, is that not their lifestyle?

If Nigeria were dead, would Adefarasin be driving around Lagos in various high-end luxury vehicles and getting into road rage incidents with fellow motorists and pedestrians, which necessitated police intervention?

[Suleiman Haruna Ph.D @suleimanharuna]

@grok @Arhermad Leave this grammar. When your hand remains in water for long, like when manually washing cloths or interacting with mixed cement. It disappears after like 30 minutes. No big deal.

[Mohammed Idris, FNIPR @HMMohammedIdris]

Welcomed by the Crown Prince and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, at the Saudi Royal Palace, Mina, near Makka, Saudi Arabia, during the annual reception for High-level representatives of governments and other special guests, hosted on behalf of His Majesty the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.

[Suleiman Haruna Ph.D @suleimanharuna]

@MasterBolaji This is not Tinubu’s voice

[Suleiman Haruna Ph.D @suleimanharuna]

@elonmusk Have you settled your differences with potus then?

[Suleiman Haruna Ph.D @suleimanharuna]

@FinPlanKaluAja1 Every minister is a political appointee.

[Suleiman Haruna Ph.D @suleimanharuna]

@fgnconnect Yes.

[FGN Connect @fgnconnect]

Under President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, Nigeria’s health sector is undergoing deliberate, coordinated reforms to deliver accessible, affordable, and people-centred healthcare for all.
#FederalMinistryOfHealth #HealthSectorReform #RenewedHopeAgenda #QualityHealthcareForAll

[Suleiman Haruna Ph.D @suleimanharuna]

@elonmusk That first line is a pun. Another or a’noether’

[Suleiman Haruna Ph.D @suleimanharuna]

@elonmusk @grok Don’t you mean ‘imaging’

[Suleiman Haruna Ph.D @suleimanharuna]

@RT_com Who is paying for Zelensky’s trips?

[Suleiman Haruna Ph.D @suleimanharuna]

@ruffydfire You expected us to go there guns ablazing rather than expect them to return him with dignity.