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| Otunba Dayo Adeneye….’I have stopped doing so many things as a politician’ |
encounter with Ogun State Commissioner for Information & Strategy, Chief Dayo Adeneye—D-One, he shares with us his new routine and what makes the
difference between working in the private sector and working in the Public
sector. D-One, the Co-Founder of Primetime Africa, a syndicated
television show across Africa took up the appointment in year 2015 and has
since redefined the image of that office. He told Asabeafrika what it takes to run the office of a state’s chief
spokesman. Enjoy the excerpts.
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| Ogun State Commissioner for Information & Strategy, Chief Dayo Adeneye with His Excellency, Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State |
your job is to inter-relate between the media establishment and the state. But,
how do you manage a hostile social media especially when the report is damaging
and unpalatable to the image of government?
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| Ogun State Commissioner for Information & Strategy, Chief Dayo Adeneye & the Secretary to the State Government, Barrister Taiwo Adeoluwa |
that the social media is not different from any other platform, it is called Citizen Journalism and it is part of the
break-borders information dissemination process of the digital media technology
where information can now be produced and processed on the tip of your finger.
My only problem with that is the fact that the regulation is minimal and
poor. A lot of people hide behind social
media to commit things that normally you wouldn’t be able to do maybe on radio
or TV or Newspaper. That being said, my governor will always say that ‘Social Media’ can be used as a weapon
of mass development or it can be a weapon of mass destruction’.
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| Chief Adeneye, SSP & Barrister Adeoluwa at an event in Lagos |
You can use
it massively to aid development, enlighten and educate people or it can be used
to destroy something in a matter of minutes, whether it is your character or
your achievement because people tend to believe whatever they see on social
media, ‘oh, it must be true if is not,
why would they post it? Why would anybody write it?’ So, we have to find a way
to let people know the importance of managing information on a borderless
platform, especially our blogger friends, we need to let them know that
journalism needs to be balanced. You must be investigative in your journalism,
a lot of people will just find a story, copy and post, whether they verify or
not and that is where the challenge lies. So, we as information managers must
find a way to keep a balance and help correct wrong notions by putting out the
right information right there.
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| Chief Dayo Adeneye to Asabeafrika…’We frown at bad journalism on social media’ |
how many hours do you sleep and how is the call rate on your phone doing. A
former Presidential Spokesman, Dr. Reuben Abati recently wrote that his phones
stopped ringing when he left office?
Well, I see many of my media friends as partners in progress. They are my
friends and partners in information management, yes, they want to know and find
out certain information. For them to call or reach out to you means they want
to get the truth from you. So, you must be available at all times and try to be
truthful and honest and be transparent and be sincere with them and I try to do
that.
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| Chief Dayo Adeneye to Asabeafrika…’My job is not a 9-5ive affair’ |
I am not the only one in the ministry of information; we have a whole
team that is responsible. We have press officers in each ministry, be it education,
health or Agriculture, that can react to stories and respond to media inquiries. As the Chief Information manager, we operate a two-way communication
system by informing the people about government policies, where the government
is headed and also give back information to government from the people as to
what the people want, what their yearnings and aspirations. So we serve as
mediator between the government and the governed.
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| Chief Dayo Adeneye to Asabeafrika….’Serving in Private and Public Service is almost the same thing’ |
practitioner and one of the names who established and nurtured the modern day
Nigeria Entertainment Sector, what difference is there serving in the corridor
of politics and entertainment? Do you miss your first constituency,
entertainment?
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| Chief Dayo Adeneye…His works requires being like this all the time |
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you mean is the difference between my experience in the private sector and now
in the public sector. Let me be honest with you, either way you find yourself,
you are still responsible to people. I mean, in private sector you get to make
decisions that affects lives, your employees and viewers and even in the
business. But you do that in conjunction with your aides or with special advice
from your managers. But now, in the public sector, you are talking of a larger
number of people, you are talking of millions of people. The population of Ogun State is over 7 million going close to 8
million. So, there is a lot more people to think of, it is a larger
platform. Yes, despite the challenges, we take it up as an opportunity to serve
more people, to do a greater good to a greater number of people.
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| Chif Dayo Adeneye & Wife, Barrister (Chief) Mrs. Caroline Adeneye |
So, the hours
are long, I must tell you. I get very little sleep, I don’t get any holidays, I
don’t get weekends off like my governor will tell you ‘This is not a 9-5 job’. You don’t get to close at 5pm and say ‘I am going to watch television at home’.
So, if something happens at 11pm or 1 am, you must be up and doing. If
something happens at Akute at 3am,
your phones must be on for emergency. So, that is the difference. Governance is
a continuum; it is a twenty-four hours job.
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| Chief Dayo Adeneye, Ogun State Commissioner for Information & Strategy and his Lagos State counterpart, Mr. Steve Ayorinde |
cabinet changed in D-One. You were once a teacher in the USA, once a Television
and Radio Administrator and today, you are the Commissioner for Information
& Strategy of a state?
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| Chief Dayo Adeneye with Afro Juju Music Maestro Sir Shina Peters |
with you, I relish the opportunity to serve and am saying this sincerely. I
really want to thank His Excellency, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, (CON, FCA) for
giving me the opportunity to serve. It is a responsibility that I don’t take
lightly. I look at it as ‘a must do well
assignment’. I must succeed because there are young ones that are aspiring
and looking up to one, and they will say ‘wait
a minute, if D-One can do it, if Dayo Adeneye can do it, well I can do it too.
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| Ogun State Commissioner for Information & Strategy, Otunba Dayo Adeneye (D-One) |
I can go into government, I can vie for this post, and I can contribute to my
community. I can contribute to my local government; I can contribute to my state
in whatever small way’. And that is the reason why people like myself are
in it, it is to serve. Look, let me be frank with you, the reason we remember
our late sages like Baba Awolowo,
late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the reason
we remember them today is because of their contribution. The Cocoa house Baba built is still standing
today; some of the roads in Ikenne in
Remo are still being used till today.
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| Chief Dayo Adeneye (R) his boss, Senator Ibikunle Amosun (L) with Noble Laurette, Professor Wole Soyinka (M) |
Free education that Chief Awolowo
started is a bench mark for any sensible government today. So, those are the
reasons why we must continue to live up to their legacy and also continue to
find ways in which to contribute our own little quota to nation building, to
community building and building our state. So, when we are no longer here or
when we are aged, we can tell our stories to our children and great grand
children and say, ‘oh, yes, when I was in
so-so place, this was what I was able to contribute. I was a part of the team
that did so, so, so and so’.
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| The GDA with Chief Dayo Adeneye & his Award plaques (Old Pics) |
people who love to watch D-One on the tube but have suddenly lost him to the
soap box? Fans in the core media and entertainment circle?
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| Chief Dayo Adeneye poses with some of his award plaques (Old Pics) |
say a big THANK YOU to them for the great understanding. I must thank my
friends both in the media and entertainment sector of Nigeria and across the
world. All my artistes friends and fans that do see me once in a while at any
government function or they do see me on the road and they say ‘Oh, ah, D-One’ I want to say ‘thank
you’ and equally appreciate them for the words of encouragement.
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| Chief Dayo Adeneye (M) with Ogun State SSG, Barrister Taiwo Adeoluwa (L) and Honorable Tejuosho of Lagos State House of Assembly |
Some of them send
encouragement to say ‘Well, we know it is
tough, we know it is not easy. We know you are spending a lot of time but we
appreciate what you are doing, keep it up. Some of our kids look up to you’
and those kinds of comments and those kind of gestures push one to continue to
work and continue to be sincere with what providence has found for one, because
government work is almost a thankless job. So, for them to appreciate you it is
a great honor and my promise is that we will continue to serve humanity through
our commitment to the development of Ogun
State. We will never, ever let anyone down. It is a rare privilege to serve and
I can conveniently say that I am not taking it lightly, to serve and continue
to help in any capacity demanded of me now and in the nearest future. I thank
them and wish them a prosperous 2017.
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| The GDA meets Chief Dayo Adeneye (Old Pics) |
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| The GDA with City People Magazine Ms. Bunmi Mustapha interviews Chief Dayo Adeneye at an event in Lagos |
