The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has appointed journalist and public relations practitioner Reuben Muoka as its new director of public affairs.
Muoka takes over from Ikechukwu Adinde, who has assumed duties as the director of special duties department of the commission.
The new NCC’s spokesman was recently promoted to a substantive director, alongside Ismail Adedigba, now director of research and development; 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.
Muoka is expected to bring his experience in both specialised 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 a master’s 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.
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.
On the appointment, NCC executive vice chairman/chief executive officer Umar Danbatta said, “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.”
