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Sports enthusiast and president’s spokesman, Adesina gets national honour

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The Nwanne Di na mba’’ of Mmaku kingdom, Chief Femi Adesina

BY KUNLE SOLAJA

Like his childhood football hero, the late Muda Lawal, spokesman for Nigeria’s president, Chief Femi Victor Adesina will be conferred with the national honour, Order of the Niger (OON).

This is consequent of the approval of President Buhari for the conferment of National Honours on two past Presidents of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE). The recipients  are Femi Adesina and Halilu Ibrahim Dantiye.

Letters to that effect, dated September 19, 2022 and signed by the Minister of Special Duties and Inter-Governmental Affairs, Senator George Akume, were addressed to the awaiting recipients of the national awards. They will be honoured in Abuja on Tuesday 11 October.  

Adesina, the Nwanne Di na mba’’ of Mmaku kingdom in Enugu State is a sports enthusiast and author of the book, “The Shooting Stars : The Golden Era of a Soccer Team”, published in 1992.

The then IICC Shooting Stars and also the national football team, then called Green Eagles, camped in Adesina’s family hotel, Olugbon Hotel in Adesina’s hometown, Ipetumodu, near Ile Ife.

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Muda Lawal, his childhood hero was on 14 March  1991 became the first Nigerian footballer to be officially designated as  Soccer Ambassador. .He remained the only one that was so ceremonially installed by a President in Office. The honour went with the national award of Order of the Niger (OON), the same title that Chief Adesina will get on 11 October.

At the end of his tour of duty as Special Adviser to President Buhari, he will easily have had the longest tenure as the chief spokesman to any Nigerian leader.

In the course of serving his principal, he has met many world leaders.

Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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