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Tag: Reuben Muoka

  • NIPR Fellowship to Muoka, Ibietan meritorious – Danbatta

    NIPR Fellowship to Muoka, Ibietan meritorious – Danbatta

    The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Professor Umar Garba Danbatta, has hailed the conferment of the Fellowship of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, (fnipr) on two management staff of the Commission, as meritorious and a testimony to the Commission’s promotion of professionalism and excellence in its scheme of management.

    The NCC EVC’s assertion followed the recent investiture and induction of Mr. Reuben Muoka, Director of Public Affairs, and Dr. Omoniyi Ibietan, Head, Media Relations in the Public Affairs Department of the Commission, as Fellows of the Chartered Institute during its AGM and Conference at the International Conference Centre in Abuja.

    Danbatta, in congratulating the duo, said the Commission is proud to have produced these two individuals who have been considered worthy of elevation to the fellowship cadre of the prestigious institution like the NIPR, and that their emergence resonates with two of the Commission’s core values; Excellence and Professionalism; which the Commission coincidentally shares with the NIPR.

    The NCC boss, a Professor of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, with many Fellowships like: Nigerian Society of Engineers, Nigerian Academy of Engineering, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and Renewable and Alternative Energy Society of Nigeria, expressed delight at the level of performance of the Commission’s staff in their different areas of professional calling.

    He commended the NIPR as a body for its commitment in the regulation of the practice of public relations in Nigeria for which it has found an ally in NCC. “This can only rekindle the healthy collaboration and partnership existing between the NCC and NIPR, especially in the area of capacity-building and commitment to appropriate national social orientation”, Danbatta stated.

    Muoka, the Director of Public Affairs Department of the NCC, holds M.Sc. in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos with specialisation in Public Relations and Advertising, after a Postgraduate Diploma in the same field from the same University; and he had earlier obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Performing Arts from the University of Ilorin. Besides being a fellow of NIPR, he is also an associate of the Registered Practitioners of Advertising, (arpa).

    He had worked for many years as Communications Editor in Vanguard Newspapers during which he also chaired the League of Communications Correspondents, one of the platforms that championed the deregulation of the telecom industry in Nigeria. He also worked for MTS First Wireless, Nigeria’s first mobile network operator, where he rose to the position of Deputy General Manager. In 1999, Muoka received a fellowship involving a Pan-African training and tour, leading to the award of a Diploma in Journalism, at the instance of the Egyptian Ministry of Information, and the African Journalists Union (AJU), in Cairo, Egypt.

    Ibietan earned a PhD in Communication from North-West University in South Africa. He had earlier obtained MA in Communication and Language Arts from the University of Ibadan, a BA in Communication Arts from the University of Uyo, and a Journalism Diploma from the Moscow-based International Institute of Journalism, Abuja Campus. A noted advocate of freedom and democracy, he was Freedom House Nigeria Project’s Regional Media Researcher in the Niger Delta until his appointment in 2006 as Special Media Assistant to the Federal Minister of Information and Communication, during which he popularised the use of new media for public communication in Nigeria. He is a member of the African Council for Communication Education (ACCE) and the International Institute of Communications (IIC).

    Ibietan joined the NCC in 2008 and was deployed to Legislative and Government Relations (LGR) Department where he was frontline liaison staff of the Commission with the National Assembly. Much later after the merging of the LGR Department with the Public Affairs Department in 2010, he served as Manager Media and Public Relations under Muoka’s supervision and became Senior Manager Media Management until January 2017 when he was redeployed to PAD’s emergent Online Media and Special Publication Unit, and subsequently designated as the head of the Unit. He also worked at the Consumer Information and Education Unit of the Commission’s Consumer Affairs Bureau (CAB) until his redeployment to PAD. He became an Assistant Director in January 2021 and was appointed Head Media Relations in July 2022.

  • Reuben Muoka appointed NCC’s Director of Public Affairs

    Reuben Muoka, an innovative journalist and consummate public relations practitioner has been appointed as the new Director of Public Affairs (DPA) of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

    TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports Muoka takes over from Dr Ikechukwu Adinde, who has assumed duties as the Director of Special Duties Department of the Commission.

    The new NCC’s spokesman was recently promoted a substantive director, alongside Ismail Adedigba, now Director of Research and Development (R&D); and Gwa-Tobi Mohammed, who has also assumed duties as Director/Secretary to the Board of the Commission.

    Muoka was in 2021, appointed to head the Special Duties Department, which superintends the International Relations Unit; Emergency Communication Centres Unit; the Public Private Partnership Unit; and the Security Services Unit of the Commission.

    He was promoted as Director of the Department before his current redeployment to lead the Public Affairs Department, the arm of the Commission mandated to manage the image and visibility of Nigeria’s telecom regulator and a leading light of the Nigerian public service.

    Muoka is expected to bring his rich and versatile experience in both specialized and traditional journalism, public relations, integrated marketing communications (IMC), corporate communication and people management, to bear on the Commission’s vision to expand the frontiers of its public goodwill and the impact of its reputational assets.

    A former Deputy Communications Editor of the Vanguard Newspapers, former Deputy General Manager at MTS First Wireless (Nigeria’s first mobile telephone operator), Muoka joined the NCC in 2007 as a Principal Manager, and was deployed to the Public Affairs Department where he headed the Media and Public Relations Unit.

    He later rose from the rank of Principal Manager to the position of an Assistant Director in 2010, and by 2015, as a Deputy Director, appointed to head the re-engineered Public Relations Unit of PAD. In 2017, he was redeployed to the Policy, Competition and Economic Analysis Department to head the Economic Analysis unit of department.

    Muoka earned M.Sc. degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos, specialising in Public Relations and Advertising, where he had earlier successfully completed a Postgraduate Diploma (PGD) in the same field of Mass Communication. Much earlier, he had obtained a bachelor’s degree in Performing Arts at the University of Ilorin.

    As a mark of his distinctive journalism career, Muoka received a fellowship of the Egyptian Embassy in Nigeria to undertake a Pan-African training and tour of Egypt in 1999, leading to an award of a continental Diploma Certificate in Journalism at the instance of the Egyptian Ministry of Information, and the African Journalists Union (AJU) in Cairo, Egypt.

    The focused, innovative and illuminating coverage and analysis of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in the pre and immediate post liberalisation period of telecom industry in Nigeria is credited to the insights of visionary journalists like Muoka, whose pioneering initiative led to the establishment and institutionalisation of the Hi-Tech Desk in Vanguard Newspapers in late 1990s.

    As the Chairman of the League of Communications Correspondents (LECCO), Muoka led his colleagues to give voice and focus to the advocacy for the liberalisation and deregulation of the telecom industry in Nigeria in the 1990s.

    During his active days in journalism at Vanguard Newspapers, Muoka served concurrently as Africa’s contributing editor to the London-based CommunicationsWeek for four years beginning from 1998, during which he undertook copious reportage of the African telecom landscape. The London-based magazine shared Muoka’s work to an enthusiastic global audience in a rare showcase of Africa’s promise as a flourishing point for the emergent converging telecommunications industry.

    Between 1995 and 2001, Muoka leveraged his expertise to provide part-time public relations consultancy to notable companies and institutions in the telecommunications industry, including the Nigerian Mobile Communications Limited, Abuja; Multi-links Telecommunications Limited, Lagos; Satellite Telecommunications Limited, Lagos; Pulse Marketing Communications Ltd, Lagos; and the Nigerian Communications Commission, Abuja, years before he joined the Commission as a staff.

    Reuben Ejike Muoka is a member of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ); a full member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (mnipr); and an associate member of the Registered Practitioners of Advertising (arpa), regulated by the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON).

    On behalf of the Board and Management of the Commission, I heartily congratulate Reuben on his new role and look forward to working closely with him and his team in Public Affairs Department, as key internal stakeholders in the Commission’s re-engineering processes to meet and surpass Federal Government’s expectations for a robust telecommunications sector and a remarkably emergent digital economy.