Former minister of information, Alex Akinyele, has denied rumour that he is dead.
Public relations practitioner, Doyinsola Ogunbiyi, had over the weekend falsely reported that the Lobosin of Ondo Kingdom had passed on.
“My PR Progenitor is Gone. Sir Alex Akinyele JP. @80. RIP,” she wrote on her Facebook wall.
One of the first persons to debunk the statement was Akinyele’s aide, Aliu Mohammed who wrote, “My telephones were bombarded with calls, text and WhatsApp messages by colleagues in Journalism and friends who felt that as a close associate of Sir Akinyele, I should be able to confirm the wild and sad news.”
Mohammed said Akinyele was shocked at the news of his death.
“I am alive Aliu,” the former Concord journalist quoted Akinyele as saying.
The former minister personally put concerns about his health to rest in a Facebook post on Sunday.
“Thank you all for your show of love and prayers. At 80 plus I may not jump around like before, but I am fine. I thank God Almighty,” he wrote.
A former secretary general and president of the Nigeria Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), Akinyele turned 80 in April 2018.
In a birthday message to the octogenarian, President Muhammadu Buhari praised Akinyele for his “visionary leadership style and courageous service to the nation, especially his contributions to the public sector in ensuring that communication becomes an integral part of policy formulation and execution, and actualisation of all development projects.”
