Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) President, Rotimi Oladele, has read the riot act to non-professionals dabbling in the business.
In this interview with Senior Correspondent, GODDIE OFOSE, the Chief Executive Officer of Megavons Limited argues that public relations is a vital part of the economy and should be regulated.
Objective of NIPR
The number one objective I have is to ensure that as a regulatory body of reputation and integrity management we should lead and live by example. That is the summary of my objective.
If you want to manage reputation and integrity you must live by it to the extent that people should read it through you. The question of ‘who are you’ should not come up if you are a reputation manager; you should live, sing, move it, and people should see nothing but reputation.
Challenge of quacks
It is a common challenge for corporate and professional bodies.
But in our own case, we are not even fighting quackery, we are assisting the quacks to blend by going back to take the steps they left behind. That is why we say from all the structures that we are producing there is a committee that is in charge of compliance, enforcement and advocacy.
We try to encourage, advise, counsel and enlighten them so that when they are finally ready we assist them to move into that compliance level. But if they disagree and say they want to do it their way and continue to cheat then we will have to do enforcement by way of prosecuting them.
That is why we are starting with a window of opportunity for those who have eaten with the ticket of public relations without accreditation and structured body of knowledge and expertise and formal training.
There is a law that says if you employ anybody at the level of public relations, that person must be qualified, trained and certificated; which means being licensed by the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR).
The law is against engagement of non-professionals and there are sanctions. This is why we give a six-month room for people to be accredited. The first door of opportunity has been opened for those who want to formalise their membership. They need to acquire the knowledge and then belong to the mainstream so that they will enjoy continuous professional development.
Anybody who does not toe that line by March 31, 2015, from April 1 we have a synergy with the government and the federal attorney general to prosecute employers and the employees working against that law called Act 16 of 1990.
Meaning of window of opportunity
It means there is a prerogative of mercy for you having been employed as a PR (public relations) person without being a professional, and that opens the door for you to come for a structured knowledge which you can continue to benefit from the institute.
The first intensive one week will make you to join, then subsequently we give you a certificate and grade you to an appropriate level of membership as a professional member.
Capacity to regulate PR
Does the ICAN (Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigerian have the power to regulate accounting practice in Nigeria? Does the bar association have the power to moderate and regulate legal practice in Nigeria? Does the medical body and the association of nurses and midwives have the capacity to regulate their professional members?
So, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. There is nothing stopping us with the legal instruments in our hands because that is exactly what the Act was enacted for. The fact that it has not been done over the years does not mean that it cannot be done.
Now is era of sanity in PR practice. Let people who laugh at us laugh. They will believe what is happening when we take corporate bodies, public and private, to the cleaners.
If a respected regulatory body like the CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria) can say to the NIPR, ‘we want to employ some public relations officers, please check for us, are they your members?’ who else should not be regulated.
Compliance in government agencies
I am a subscriber to so many regulatory bodies; we are complying because the instruments are there. When you fail to comply and you are sued and you have to pay a heavy liability or your door has to be locked up, you will know we are serious.
There is nobody who is above the law. We are either too busy or negligent and uncaring about our rights.
What Nigeria needs most today is integrity and reputation. It is wrong for the government to open embassies all over the world without having reputation managers who are credible with expertise and experience; it is counterproductive.
Lack of viable NIPR chapters outside Lagos
There are so many chapters challenging the Lagos chapter; Cross River is one and Rivers is another. In the past six to seven years, the Lagos chapter has been trying but it is not the only one working. I have just spent a whole week in Calabar because of the exemplary performance of that chapter.
The problem with us is that we are always dominated by our environment; most of us will not watch most of the broadcast stations serving Lagos. Last week, I was in five media organisations (radio and television) in Calabar alone and the minimum of time I spent in each was 15 minutes.
So if I did five appearances spending 15 to 30 minutes in a state then you should know what we are talking about. For Abuja, it is on a daily basis, and with very robust media engagement. Today, I have granted two television interviews, last week also I was in Bauchi for three days running a workshop on updating broadcasting skills for public relations practice. That never happened before.
I have run a three-day programme on updating printing and publishing skills for PR practice. You cannot take the credibility away from Lagos because it is the nerve centre of commerce for the entire country; so, if other states perform less they will also get less, so that is the awareness they have and they have to try.
NIPR members should ginger members in other chapters to be accurate in their reporting because the way the fire of brand reporting is in Lagos is not so in other places. Many people have come to terms with the difference and peculiarity of brand reporting so when we do it we must do it with objectivity, sincerity and professionalism.
Even the credible media also falter. So it is not true that only Lagos is working.
Contracting foreign consultants
The four communication skills are speaking, listening, writing, and reading. But journalists don’t read and listen. I was in that position for so many years before I changed my attitude.
On Continental Television, I challenged Lai Muhammed that why must you employ foreigners. I spoke with Yomi Badejo, who went to him personally to discuss one on one, and he said we never employed PR practitioners, we employed public opinion researchers.
I said even at that, I am not happy with it because we have companies which are public opinion researchers and I know that they have their own association. In as much as I will not speak for them, I don’t subscribe to employing foreign professionals.
I did two write ups which were published in the media. I also wrote to the minister of information and the chairmen of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC).
When the CBN wanted to employ five consultants they wrote to us to confirm their status. We commend the CBN that from the beginning they toed the line of sanity.
Managing Nigeria’s image
Well, the NIPR is doing it and will continue to do more. We must bring to bear self consciousness that before you think of anything at all you are a Nigerian first. No foreigner is coming to repair Nigeria for you. No matter how bad you say Nigeria is it is only Nigerians themselves that can repair it.
If any other national comes here it is for business because he is looking for money, but you as a Nigerian you have a stake. We need to tell ourselves that nobody is superior to us, what is being done in any nation where there is sanity we can do better, and of course we must not see leadership as a solution to every societal problem.
There are two sides of the coin, the leadership is one side and followership is another. So, pay your dues as a follower by doing the right thing at the right time so that Nigeria will be seen as a nation of sanity.
Economic effect
No one will be ready to do business with a state considered to be corrupt. They will not, so there is direct impact on foreign direct investment. Even ordinary tourism is in jeopardy when people don’t trust they can stay in your hotel and they will not be harassed and harmed. There is so much commercial loss when integrity and reputation are negative.
How to re-engineer Nigeria’s image
We have causative measures and derivative measures. Causative measures will take a long period of time but they will give the longest kind of validity.
For example, if you make vocational skills compulsory at primary and secondary levels, you will turn out secondary school leavers who are going to be entrepreneurs and employers of labour.
They will be different from those you are bringing out to depend on their parents while they are waiting for university admission through JAMB (Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board). JAMB itself will have less work to do, because by the time they get out of secondary school they already have their career inclination.
If I were to re-engineer Nigeria as an economic giant for the next 20 years I will make sure that everybody that goes for vocational and technical education will have free education from primary to university level.
If you want to read any other thing you can pay 50 or 100 per cent but those engineering army we need will go to school free so that people are prepared for creation of employment rather than looking for employment.
Number two is that I will make sure that what is produced in Nigeria is only the best for Nigeria. If all the ministers’ children are going to the primary school next to their residence, just like any other person, then we will not be sending out children to other countries because we have a better alternative which we can afford.
Let there be a law that everybody must go to Nigerian schools. Same goes for medical treatment. If you are a minister and you are sick then you should go to a Nigerian hospital.
We also have to remove immunity clauses and demonetise politics and provide basic infrastructure. If every local government has good roads, railway line and energy, half of us sitting down here will leave Lagos tomorrow.
If you can produce your magazine and newspaper in your village at 50 per cent less, and this newspaper can still get to Lagos in five hours then you won’t be here and am sure that your press will have branches more than it has now.
Those are the things wrong with us and we need to address.
