By Abiodun Alade, @biodunpen

President Goodluck Jonathan has placed  Pa Taiwo Akinkunmi, the designer of the Nigerian Flag, on the salary of a Special Assistant forever, according to a tweet by the Special Assistant to the President on New Media, Reno Omokri (@renoomokri).

Taiwo Akinkunmi is a Retired Nigerian civil servant(born 10 May 1936) and famous for designing the Flag of Nigeria, popular called Mr Flag Man.

The national flag is an adaptation of the winning entry from Taiwo Akinkunmi in a competition held in 1959. The original had a red sun with streaming rays placed at the top of the white stripe. This was removed by the judges and the flag has not been altered since.

The designer of the national flag was Michael Taiwo Akinkunmi, a twenty three-year-old student. He was studying at Norwich Technical College in England when he saw an advertisement in a newspaper that entries were being accepted for the design of a new National flag.

In 1959 Akinkunmi’s design was chosen as the winner and was first officially used on October 1, 1960, Nigeria’s Independence day.