Malam Nasir El-Rufai, the Governor of Kaduna State, has announced the promotion of his spokesperson Samuel Aruwan and Maryam Abubakar, his new media aide. Both officials have been elevated to the position of Senior Special Assistant, but in the same functions.Aruwan is now El-Rufai’s Senior Special Assistant,Media and Publicity while Maryam is the newly promoted Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on New Media.
Announcing the elevation of the aides, Malam Nasir El-Rufai said that their sterling efforts in projecting government policy and promoting credible engagements with the public merit acknowledgement. Aruwan is among the first set of appointees El-Rufai announced before he took office on 29 May 2015.
Aruwan is a hardworking and disciplined journalist with supportive networks across Kaduna state and Northern Nigeria. Shortly after winning the APC primaries in 2014, Malam Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai appointed Aruwan as his campaign spokesperson. During the campaigns, Aruwan distinguished himself, working under the tutelage of Muyiwa Adekeye, Malam Nasir El-Rufai’s long-term media adviser, and member of the Kaduna APC Campaign Council, who is now Special Adviser Media and Communication to Governor El-Rufai.
Maryam Abubakar also served in the research unit of the El-Rufai campaign, after working time for the Progressive Governors Forum.
Aruwan, a graduate of Mass Communication, has worked with LEADERSHIP and Blueprint newspapers. He has traveled widely, attending training programmes within and outside Nigeria. He participated in the special journalism training on African Investigative Journalism at the School of Journalism, Wits University, South Africa which focused on promoting peace via journalism. He was also trained on Curbing Religious Extremism using the Media at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change in the United Kingdom in 2014. In December 2015, he was selected for the 2016 Drew University Future Leaders Programme in New Jersey, United States which he successfully completed in July 2016.
Asides working as a Research Assistant to many scholars and organizations, Aruwan started formal media practice in LEADERSHIP Newspapers Group as a Reporter and rose to Bureau Chief of its Kaduna Bureau in 2008 before he resigned in October 2011 and joined Blueprint Newspapers Limited. He is a member of Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) and a pioneer member of Africa Regional Media Hub, (ARMH) South Africa. The hub connects US policy makers and experts with media in sub-Saharan Africa
Maryam Abubakar holds an Executive Masters Degree in Business Administration from Preston University, Ajman, in the United Arab Emirates and a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science from the University of Abuja, in Nigeria.
She worked at the secretariat of the Progressive Governors Forum before joining the El-Rufai campaign team as a research officer. In 2015, she was appointed Special Assistant-New Media to Malam Nasir El-Rufai.
Maryam has worked in the not-for-profit sector, honing her leadership, inter-personal and resource management skill with Dubai Cares (a philanthropic organization providing quality primary education for children in developing countries) and Burjuman’s Safe and Sound (a breast cancer awareness program in the United Arab Emirates).
She is passionate about women’s rights, and has an unwavering passion for social justice, social responsibility and good governance.
