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Page 1 of 3 The Nigerian Institute of Public Relations clocks 45 next year. By this time, it will be the second oldest national PR association on the African continent next to the Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa (PRISA) which clocked 50 last May. The NIPR has played a strategic role in creating the enabling environment for PR practice, not only in Nigeria but also in Africa.
With the coming of age of the Institute, Nigerian PR practitioners look forward to the Institute playing and excelling at the global level like its counterpart in South Africa. This expectation finds rhythm with the ongoing efforts of the Federal Government to see that Nigeria truly becomes the “giant of Africa” in all aspects of the human endeavour. But to achieve this feat, Nigerian PR professionals need to do more than just organise themselves into a second oldest association on the continent.
The first PR department of the United African Company (UAC) was set up in 1947, and later in 1963 the Public Relations Association of Nigeria (PRAN) emerged. With these developments and the transformation of PRAN into the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) in 1972, PR in Nigeria has grown in leaps and bounds. Thousands of practitioners have been professionally prepared for the ever growing PR challenges in the country. The quality of PR practice has also improved with top professionals engaged by indigenous and multi-national companies to handle complex communication issues. PR consultancies have also sprung up, doing very well and affiliating with some of the world’s best PR agencies. The Mike Okereke’s, Jibade Oyekans and Sabo Mohammeds of our PR world are alive and kicking. Successful Nigerian PR practitioners in government, banking, energy and telecommunications sectors as well as agencies have continued to make Nigeria shine in the international arena.
The title of this article presupposes that all may not be well with our Institute and that the law of diminishing returns has caught up with the sole regulator of PR practice in the country. Beginning from the end of the last presidency leading up to the controversial annual general meeting held in Uyo, Akwa-Ibom State a couple of years ago, the Institute has painfully not been the same again.
Some of the challenges the Institute has had to grapple with in the last couple of years include the decision of the immediate past Federal Government to suspend the annual subvention to the national PR association. Following which the Institute has found it rather difficult to monitor the over 6000 registered members across the country due to insufficient resources. Though PR is regulated in the country via Act 16 1990, the law has not been effectively enforced. This has therefore thrown up the issue of non-registered people practicing without the law taking its course. The Institute has also been deprived of the revenue that should have accrued to it as thousands of practitioners operate outside the professional umbrella.
A sizeable number of those operating outside may be qualified people who have been unable to register due to the cumbersome nature of the registration requirements. There is also the shortage of the much-needed infrastructure that could make the Institute’s work easier and more efficient. The drive to maintain membership recruitment, secure sponsorships for workshops, publications and conferences at the national level has come short of what it should be over the years. The reasons for these developments are well known to all of us who earn our living by the virtue of the Institute.
Unfortunately, many, if not a sizeable of PR professionals in the country, have remained aloof to the travails of the Institute. They have not been very forthcoming in putting heads together to salvage the situation. We have simply been unable to manage ourselves over the years as unnecessary bickering has always characterised our elections. Succession has become a “do-or-die affair” (apologies to the former President) which has always resulted in our inability to elect committed people to Council whose motive should be to serve and move the Institute forward. Many of us find it more expedient to patronise other countries’ national associations to the detriment of our home-grown Institute.
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