The Board of Directors of Daily Telegraph Publishing Company Limited has constituted its board and effected changes in the management of the New Telegraph newspapers. The board in a statement issued on Sunday approved the appointment of Alhaji Idi Farouk, a for-mer Director General, National Orientation Agency (NOA), as the Chairman of the Board of New Telegraph.

Other board members include a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Chief Solo Akuma; Rev. Emeka Abone; Mr. Olakunle Gidado, Managing Director, BP West Africa, and Managing Director/Editor-in- Chief of New Telegraph, Mrs. Funke Egbemode. Also, as part of efforts to reposition the newspaper, new appointments have been made to the executive management of the paper.

The Daily Editor, Mr. Yemi Ajayi is now the Managing Editor, Business and Strategy while the Deputy Editor, Daily, Mr. Emeka Obasi becomes the Managing Editor, Publication and Operations. The Sunday Editor, Mr. Emeka Madunagu, has been appointed the Managing Editor (South) while the Saturday Editor, Mr. Lawrence Ani, is the Managing Editor, North and Abuja. Also, the board approved the appointments of new editors for New Telegraph titles. Mr. Ayodele Ojo is the Daily Editor while Mr. Geoffrey Ekenna is the Deputy Editor, Daily/ Group Head of Newsroom. Mrs. Juliet Bumah is the new Sunday Editor while Mr. Waheed Bakare takes charge of the Saturday Telegraph. Mr. Felix Nwaneri is the new Group Political Editor. All the appointments take effect from December 1, 2015. Farouk is a former Director General, National Orientation Agency.

He has wide experience in private and public sectors. He was local government chairman and Commissioner for Information, Kaduna State. In 1999, he was appointed as Chief of Staff to Governor Ahmed Makarfi He had served on the board of governing council of the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti and Peugeot Automobile Nigeria Limited.

Rev. Abone, a graduate of Business Administration from the University of Nigeria, is the Vice Chairman, First International Group. The board member is an Associate member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) and Institute of Directors, Nigeria.

He began his working career with Oladeji Olagunji & Co., a Lagosbased firm of Chartered Accountants as Trainee Accountant in 1988. Thereafter, he worked with Seven-Up Bottling Company Plc., Ikeja as Assistant Cost Accountant and Universal Trust Bank of Nigeria Limited (UTB) and Fund Tech Finance and Investment Plc. as Head, Finance and Administration, a post he held until his appointment at SLOK Nigeria Ltd in November 1995 as Financial Controller.

Abone has attended numerous trade fairs in Indonesia, Malaysia and China. Akuma (SAN), a former Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice in Abia State, is the Managing Solicitor, Soloakuma and Associates. He is a 1985 graduate of Law from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He has held several positions in the Body of Benchers, Council of Legal Education and Judicial Panels of Inquiry.

Akuma is the author of “Traversing the Path of Justice.” He is a recipient of the Member of the Order of the Niger (MON). Gidado is the Managing Director and Regional Lead for British Petroleum (BP) Global West Africa. He is responsible for overall leadership of BP IST West African presence and the delivery of BP supply and trading West Africa strategy. Gidado joined BP’s Natural Gas trading business in Houston Texas in 2006 before moving to London to serve as Chief of Staff to BP Global Gas Chief Operating Officer. Before he joined BP, he held senior commercial finance and accounting roles in Texaco Oil international and Cinergy Corp.

He also serves on the board of Nigermed, a BP/NNPC Joint venture in Nigeria. Egbemode, a 1988 graduate of English Studies from Obafemi Awolowo University, joined The Sun in 2007 as Editor-at-Large and was appointed Editor, Sunday Sun in March 2008. Before coming to The Sun, Egbemode had worked in various capacities in the newsrooms of The Punch, THISDAY, The Post Express and Independent Newspapers, where she was the pioneer Saturday Editor. Outside the newsroom, she also served in the public sector as Assistant Chief Press Secretary at the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) and Special Adviser (Media) to former Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Patricia Etteh. She is the author of INTIMATE AFFAIRS and CONVERSATIONS WITH MY COUNTRY.

She is the Vice President (West) of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE). Obasi is a 1985 graduate of History from the University of Benin. He was Diplomatic Correspondent/ Sports Editor, Champion between 1988 and 2004. Obasi was a board member of the Nigerian Press Council (NPC) and Media Adviser to a former state governor.

Ayodele, who until his appointment as Daily Editor, was the Deputy Editor, Daily and Head of Politics of the newspaper. The new Daily Editor, a graduate of Mass Communication and a versatile political reporter, began his career in 1998 with The Independent newspaper in Accra, Ghana. Over the years, Ayodele has worked with several newspapers and magazines in Nigeria functioning as Assistant Editor, Group Political Editor/Deputy Editor (Politics) and Editor. In 2013, he joined New Telegraph from National Mirror where he was the Deputy Editor (Politics). In April 2014, he was the Acting Editor of New Telegraph.

Between 2007 and 2015, Ayodele was Head of Politics of the defunct New Star, National Mirror and New Telegraph. Bakare, the new Saturday Editor, joined the defunct The Comet newspaper in 2000 and moved to The Punch in 2001 where he was Head of Punch Metro (2011), News Editor, Sunday Punch (2013), Feature Editor, Sunday Punch. (2013).

JULIET BUMAH

She is a 1997 graduate of English Language, University of Ilorin (1997). In 2014, he obtained a Master of Art in English Language from the University of Lagos. The new Sunday Editor, Bumah, is a journalist, copyeditor, literary critic and creative writer with over 19 years in the industry. She graduated from the University of Lagos with a BA (Hons) English in 1995 and also got her MA Litt from the same institution in 2000.

In 2002, she became the Art Editor of Daily Times and later edited Hints, a popular romance magazine, in 2008. From Hints, Bumah took her trade to The Punch, as Assistant Editor in charge of Feature and Living Desk in 2008. She was Feature Editor, Saturday Punch in 2011 and was moved to the Copy Desk, later to General News Desk (The Punch) and back to Saturday Punch as Feature Editor. She held that position until 2013 when she took up appointment as the Deputy Editor, Sunday Telegraph.