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| Description: A lawyer who was on the defence team of the late Ken Saro-Wiwa, Comrade Oronto Douglas ranks high among the influential aides of President Goodlock Jonathan in Aso Rock. Sunday Trust learnt that the president would not take any major decision without taking into account the input of the 48-year-old man. Officially, he is the Special Assistant to the President on Research and Documentation, hence Douglas always pulls up a seat around Jonathan at every meeting. One of his responsibilities is to write the president’s speeches, and we learnt that he does this often, except his is out of the country. As soon as any memorandum to the president matures to the level of implementation, it is Comrade Douglas who liaises with the minister, agency or institution concerned on how it should be done. This places him in a very powerful position, such that ministers and other top government officials consult him when they want to know how the president would react to issues they intend to raise with Jonathan. Apart from the Aide-de-Camp (ADC), there is virtually no other aide who is as close to the president as Comrade Douglas. He has been within the corridors of power since Jonathan became a politician. Douglas was the Commissioner for Information in Bayelsa State when Jonathan was deputy governor of the state. When Chief Deprieye Alamaseigha was impeached in 2005 and Jonathan become governor, Douglas resigned from the cabinet and refused to return in spite of appeals to him by the then Governor Jonathan. When he was picked as vice president by the late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua, Jonathan appointed Douglas as Senior Special Assistant on Research and Strategy. The nomenclature of that office was modified to Research and Documentation after Jonathan became president. He is playing a very strategic role for the president in the match to 2015. |
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