Temitope Ajayi, the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to President Bola Tinubu, has refuted media reports claiming the shut down of the Lagos office of Microsoft\u2019s Africa Development Centre.<\/p>\n
While noting that the shutdown was an \u201cincorrect media report,\u201d Ajayi said the organisation was \u201cre-aligning roles\u201d within its business, while \u201cfew roles will certainly be impacted.\u201d<\/p>\n
He stated this on Thursday on X.com.<\/p>\n
Tweeting as @TheTope_Ajayi, he also faulted the tweet made late Wednesday on the same subject by the 2023 Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, labelling it a \u201cnaked dance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Obi had lamented the announcement on the shutdown, saying it \u201cunderscores the urgent need for comprehensive economic reforms in Nigeria.\u201d<\/p>\n
Obi\u2019s tweet partly read, \u201cThe recent announcement of Microsoft Nigeria to its workers about shutting down its innovation centre in Lagos and cutting 200 jobs is deeply troubling. It underscores the urgent need for comprehensive economic reforms in Nigeria.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis further highlights the challenges and broader issues plaguing the Nigerian economy. The closure of Microsoft\u2019s innovation centre represents yet another significant setback for Nigeria\u2019s aspirations to become a hub for technology and innovation in Africa.\u201dThe former Anambra State Governor tweeted that the shutdown \u201craises serious concerns\u201d about Nigeria\u2019s \u201cbusiness environment for investors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reacting to this, Ajayi noted, \u201cThe story that Microsoft is shutting down Nigeria office is not true. Africa Development Centre is just a department within Microsoft business in Nigeria. Contrary to incorrect media reports and Peter Obi\u2019s naked dance, the Africa Development Centre is also not shutting down.<\/p>\n
\u201cMicrosoft, like any other organisation, is only re-aligning roles within the business, and few roles will certainly be impacted. Affected staff, which are less than 30, will be asked to apply for new roles within Microsoft \u2013 a standard practice within the organisation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The presidential aide added that employees \u201cwho can\u2019t find new roles in other departments or those who want to seek new opportunities outside the system will be asked to go. The situation at Microsoft is not anywhere near the impression of the \u2018earthquake\u2019 that Peter Obi sensationally described.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Temitope Ajayi, the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to President Bola Tinubu, has refuted media reports claiming the shut down of the Lagos office of Microsoft\u2019s Africa Development Centre. While noting that the shutdown was an \u201cincorrect media report,\u201d Ajayi said the organisation was \u201cre-aligning roles\u201d within its business, while \u201cfew roles will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":30763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30762"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30764,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30762\/revisions\/30764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}