User:Danidamiobi/sandbox/laolu

Laolu Akande is a Nigerian reporter, editor and writer.

Education
He attended the University of Ibadan where he graduated in 1990 with an honours degree in History. In 1992, he obtained his Masters in Communication and Language Arts.

Career
His career in journalism started in his schooldays at the Oyo State College of Arts & Science, Ile-Ife through the University of Ibadan. He started reporting for The Guardian in 1989. He later later moved over to the founding team of The News Magazine in 1993, where he became that magazine’s Senior Writer. He has written guest columns and news stories for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Newsday and The News Journal of Wilmington Delaware. As a journalist reporting for Nigerian newspapers including The Guardian. Laolu Akande was a African correspondent at the United Nations where he worked briefly as a Press Officer and later as an Advocacy and Communication Consultant between 2002-2004, He has interviewed former president George W. Bush. General Colin Powell, Bill Gates, Donald Trump and several African leaders and presidents. In 1995, he joined Nigerian Tribune and became its Special Projects Editor and later became the Editor in 1997, before he relocated to the United States of America in 1998. In the US where he was also an adjunct college professor, Laolu Akande founded “The Empowered Newswire”, a publication that has continuously reported about Nigerians and Nigerian issues especially in the US and Canada. He was also the Bureau Chief of the Guardian in North America. He became a pastor in 2007 at the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Jesus Friends Assembly in Long Island, New York. Laolu Akande was thereafter made the Executive Director of the Christian Association of Nigerian Americans (CANAN). During the 1992 ASUU national strike, Laolu Akande’s publications disclosed the behind the scenes maneuvers and negotiations that persisted while the strike was on between the Federal Government and the striking lecturers.

Laolu Akande taught at the State University of New York at Stonybrook and also Suffolk County Community College in Long Island, New York between 2002 and 2015.

He was officially appointed by the President, Muhammadu Buhari to be the Senior Special Assistant (Media and Publicity) to the vice president, Yemi Osibanjo and he assumed office in September 2015.

Personal life
He is married and blessed with children.