The Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), Prof. Tunji Olaopa, has urged members of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations ( NIPR) to give attention to development communication to fix the country.
Olaopa made the call on Tuesday in Abuja during a meeting of public relations experts under the auspices of the Professional Platform of the Federal Capital Territory’s chapter of the NIPR .
In a goodwill message Olaopa delivered as a special guest on the occasion, he acknowledged the vital role of NIPR members in the success of corporations and governments.
According to Olaopa, development communication is unarguably a core component of any national change programme to reset Nigeria as it touches on national values remodeling and culture change.
He lamented that due to the culture of ‘something for nothing’ which supplanted what was a culture that valued national sacrifice as service and as deferred gratification up unto the mid-70s in Nigeria, before the onset of the era when the oil boom created a culture of entitlement, Nigerians have ceased to understand what development is all about.
Olaopa who said that he had shown interest in strategic and development communication for a long time commended Prof. Osita Ogbu of University of Nigeria for his seminal work Development As Attitude: How National Progress is Shaped by Leadership Philosophy and Citizens Orientation for addressing his concern so profoundly.
He said: “Let me observe from the outset by saying that I have more than a casual interest in your core competence as professionals and as an institute. Strategic and development communication, in my estimation, is core critical to delivering on my institutional reform model as public service change imperative and catalyst to national socioeconomic transformation .”
He decried a situation where government communication or what information officers do has been largely oriented to a denial of what people know as truth rather than communicating to build public trust .
He said that he was worried, as a reformer and change agent, about the expanding reputational risks and national de-marketing that the nation suffers through misplaced social media activism rooted largely in the recycling of ignorance as activism.
” With just smartphones and internet connection, virtually anyone can circulate information, whether true or false, to global audiences within seconds thus inflicting reputational damage that will take ages to correct .
“All of these are my challenges to the NIPR to rise up to raise the bar of practice and professionalism in our joint efforts to fix Nigeria”, he said.
In the same vein, a former Director of Public Affairs at the Nigerian Communications Commission ( NCC), Dr Tony Ojobo, urged public relations experts to recalibrate their strategic communication in the public sector.
Drawing from his experience at the NCC, he urged public relations practitioners to communicate with integrity in order to earn the trust of stakeholders such as the citizens .
According to Ojobo, the citizens are already aware that the government is faced with challenges and that what is required is a communication strategy that would assure them that the authorities are working on finding solutions.