Tolu Ogunlesi

Tolu Ogunlesi (b. 1982, Ibadan), poet, journalist and former CNN African Journalist of the Year (2014, Arts & Culture), was appointed Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Digital & New Media in January 2016 — the first formal digital-communications appointment in the Nigerian Presidency. Trained as a pharmacist at the University of Ibadan, he had previously been West Africa editor for the Financial Times beat-reporting network and a columnist for The Africa Report and Punch. From the Aso Villa New Media Office he ran the @MBuhari and @NGRPresident handles, coordinated rapid-response social-media communications, and led the Presidency's engagement with Nigerian Twitter through the contested 2015–2019 term. He left office at the end of Buhari's first term in May 2019 and has since written extensively on Nigerian politics, technology and the diaspora.