Former TheNews Editor, Sunday Dare appointed NCC Commissioner

President Muhammadu Buhari has appointed Sunday Dare, Senior Special Adviser on Media to Bola Tinubu, former Governor of Lagos state, as the South-West Executive Commissioner of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
Femi Adesina, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, disclosed this in a statement, saying Buhari has sent a request to the Senate to confirm the appointments of Dare and other nominees into top positions in the commission.

“In a letter dated August 2, 2016, sent to President of the Senate, Abubakar Bukola Saraki, Senator Olabiyi Durojaiye (South West) was nominated as Chairman, while Mr. Sunday Dare (South West) got the nod as Executive Commissioner, Stakeholders Management,” the statement read.

“Those nominated as non-executive commissioners are: Aliyu Sa’idu Abubakar (north-east), Clement Omeiza Baiye (north-central), Okoi Ofem Obono Obla (south-south), Ezekiel Yissa (north-central) and Ifeanyi Ararume (south-east).
“The nominations are in accordance with Section 8(1) of the Nigerian Communications Commission Act 2003.”

Dare is an award-winning investigative reporter, multimedia journalist and media trainer with more than two decades of experience in the United States and Nigeria. He spent eight years at the Voice of America in Washington, D.C., where he headed the Hausa Service and was responsible for broadcasts to more than 21 million listeners in West Africa.

Before joining VOA, Dare was General Editor of two of Nigeria’s independent weekly news magazines, The News and Tempo, based in Lagos. Dare was a journalism fellow at New York University in 1998 and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2000, the same year he received a special citation for Courage in Journalism from the Committee to Protect Journalists for his work in Nigeria.

He is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and co-founder of a monthly magazine called News Digest International, based in Lagos. He was also a 2011 Reuters Fellows at Oxford University, where he researched the use of social media, citizen journalists and other new tools used by Nigerian news organizations.