Guest Writer
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| By Jossy Nkwocha |
LABARAN Maku, minister of information, on Friday, January 10, inaugurated a 22-man Council of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, NIPR, in Abuja, in accordance with the provisions of the NIPR Decree No 16 of 1990, now an Act of the National Assembly, cited as Cap N114, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (LFN), 2007. According to Section 4 (1) of the Act, the Council is the governing body of the Institute, charged with the administration and general management of the professional body that regulates public relations practice in Nigeria.
The newly-elected chairman of the council and president of the Institute is Rotimi Oladele, a Fellow of the Institute from the Lagos Chapter, former managing director of African Newspapers Limited — publishers of Tribune Newspapers, and currently the managing director of Megavons West Africa Limited, Lagos. The vice chairman and vice president is Muktar Sirajo, a member from the Kaduna Chapter and senior special adviser to the Kaduna State government on Media and Public Affairs.
By the provisions of the NIPR Act, 17 members of the council were elected at the recent national conference and annual general meeting, AGM, of the Institute held in Abuja, from December 15 to 18, 2013, while five members of the council were appointed by the honourable minister of information.
The other elected members include Sule Yau Sule (Kano), Rosemary Waku (Benue), Haroun Audu (Plateau), Karibi George, (Rivers), Kabiru G. Aminu, (Bauchi) and Elder Eddy Anyanwu (Imo). Others are Kabir Ibn Muhammad (Gombe), Adewale Adeniyi (Osun), Mohammed Ibrahim (Adamawa), Imeh Okon Bassey (Akwa Ibom), G. O. Uzoma (Abuja), Abimbola Olugbenga (Ondo), Nasiru Usman (Zamfara), Felix Erondu (Abia) and Walson Appah (Bayelsa).
Nominated members include Emmanuel Dan Daura, a professor (Nasarawa) – apparently to represent the academia, Hajia Lantana, Dennis Ekemezie (Anambra), Aniekan Umana, commissioner for Information & Strategy in Akwa Ibom State and Brig. General Chris Olukolade, director of Defence Information – to represent the security agencies.
Having worked closely with Oladele and Mallam Sirajo in the past, as well some of the other council members, I am confident that the brand new Council will take NIPR to the next level of “professionalism and excellence” which is the Institute’s motto. The last council headed by Mallam Mohammed A. Abdullahi achieved a lot including establishing top-level liaison in the nation’s governance, securing a new national secretariat in Abuja, and a functional website, and harmonising issues with the National Youth Service Corp, NYSC, for graduates of the Institute’s professional diploma.
Doubtlessly, public relations, as a profession, is doing well in Nigeria. Its practitioners are holding strategic positions in government, industry and the academia. Today, the practice is represented with various nomenclatures such as Information Management, Corporate Affairs, Public Affairs, Corporate Communications, Reputation Management, Corporate branding, Media & Publicity, Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, Events’ Management, among others. All of them are regulated by the NIPR Act, the NIPR Code of Ethics & Professional Conduct and NIPR extant Bye-Laws.
Oladele’s team needs to take NIPR to higher grounds. This write-up therefore serves as an agenda-setting mechanism to help the council to achieve more laurels. Firstly, the council needs to devise appropriate mechanism or strategy to implement the provisions of the NIPR Act, the Codes and Bye-Laws. For now, too many people in government and industry are practicing public relations illegally in various guises without registering or being admitted as members of the institute. So, the Council needs to fight the monster called quackery and ensure that those practicing public relations are members of the institute whose professional conduct can be monitored and regulated by Law.
Secondly, there is need to review and amend the NIPR Act which was enacted 23 years ago. There are many loose ends that need to be strengthened. The National Secretariat, for instance, needs to be strengthened like other professional bodies to ensure prompt actions on administrative matters. There is also the need to strengthen the regulatory framework of the NIPR Council, streamline government funding of the institute as a federal government agency, etc. NIPR should be properly re-positioned as a professional body of choice and an effective regulator whose members are thoroughbred professionals, especially now that the nation’s image and reputation need serious handling.
Thirdly, the NIPR Education Advisory Board should have a lot of work to do to ensure that the body of knowledge of public relations is elevated through continuous research, innovation and development. In this regard, the curricular for the institute’s professional certificate and diploma examinations should be effectively enhanced in line with current trends and standards. Universities and Polytechnics that offer public relations courses must be accredited. The institute’s professional training programmes nationally and internationally should be properly done to benefit the participants and earn enough funds for the Institute.
Fourthly, the council should get the national secretariat to build a good data-base of all PR practitioners across the country, with all their bio-data, places of abode, email addresses, etc. This will help them to re-publish the Register of Members which maiden edition was done by the Mike Okereke administration over 20 years ago. This ought to be published every five years.
There is also need for the Secretariat to resume the publication of a regular quarterly newsletter or e-newsletter, which helped to intimate members about the activities of the institute. Again, council needs to bring back our regular professional journal, where professional papers written by members can be published and circulated. Members must be given value for their membership of the institute.
Fifthly, I strongly advocate a change in the timing of our national conference and AGM to ensure greater participation of our members. In the past three years, the event has held in mid-December, which is the busiest time for most public relations practitioners in corporate organisations. It has prevented many members from contributing to discussions on important issues concerning NIPR, and disenfranchised such members from voting for the best leadership of the institute.
According to Schedule 1 (4) 1: of the NIPR Act: “The Council shall convene the annual meeting of the Institute on 30th April in every year or on such other day as the Council may, from time to time appoint, so however, that if the meeting is not held within one year after the previous annual general meeting, not more than fifteen months shall elapse between the respective dates of the two meetings”.
Some people had thought that this provision of the Act compels the institute to hold AGM in December.The new Council should please restore ournext AGM to between January to April 2015. There should be “Call for Papers,” especially PR case studies, to make the conference stimulating and rewarding for participants.
Sixthly, I humbly suggest that we de-emphasise politics in the affairs of the institute. Granted, politics and religion are the opium of any society. But when they are allowed to overshadow everything else, they destroy the system. As a professional body, we need to emphasise professionalism and excellence, and ask ourselves: how do we grow our institute? How do we chase away quacks? How do we improve the quality of our members to grab good jobs? How do we get our profession to be respected among the comity of other professions?
For now, we spend too much time playing the politics of NIPR: Who becomes president? Who becomes council member? We should allow the best candidates with the requisite qualifications, aptitude and experience (QAE) to lead our institute. And the best can come from any state of our country, Nigeria.
Lastly, the council should work as a team; imbibe team spirit to achieve result. There should be unity of purpose. Issues should be resolved mainly by consensus. I strongly believe that the Rotimi Oladele team will make tremendous progress if they can put these humble suggestions into action. I humbly submit…
Jossy Nkwocha, Fellow of NIPR, was General Editor of Newswatch Magazine; and currently head of Corporate Communications & special adviser to the Managing Director of Indorama Eleme Petrochemicals Limited (IEPL), Port Harcourt. He can be reached on sirjossynkwocha@yahoo.com.
— Jan. 27, 2014 @ 01:00 GMT
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I bless God for your life sir. Write ups like this can act as a booster to the NIPR practice. My prayer is that those in authourity would hold and encourage write ups like this, so that the NIPR practice would take its proper place in the Nigeria society and the African continent as a whole. PR practice is the link to all other links.Thanks