NIPR
NIPR Set to
NIPR
NIPR Set to Prosecute Fake PR Practitioners, Host AGM in
Abuja
The Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) has reached an
advanced stages towards the prosecution of unqualified and fake
public relations practitioners in the country.
The President of NIPR, Mallam Mukhtar Sirajo made the disclosure
at Press Conference on the forthcoming 2019 Annual General Meeting
(AGM) of NIPR in Abuja, which was themed: “Optimizing Public
Relations Strategies for National Cohesion.”
Sirajo said that the regulatory body had taken some
spokespersons and quack image-makers, who lack necessary PR
qualification and professional certifications before the court for
bastardizing the image of the profession.
The NIPR helmsman noted that the Institute adopted a carrot and
stick to remedy the desecration and reckless abuse of Nigeria’s PR
firmament by persons of other disciplines and professions.
“The Institute is firming up strategies to properly identify its
certified members in preparation towards a total crackdown on
quacks. More codes and identities shall be unveiled and handed over
to qualified members at the AGM to further validate their licenses
to practice the profession.
“Through the carrot approach, we have been relentlessly in
advocating to government, relevant stakeholders and law enforcement
agencies to do the right thing. Let them ensure that they recruit
or appoint persons who are legally certified to practice PR, as
their spokespersons.
“As for the stick approach, we have resolved to mercilessly deal
with quacks who are masquerading as public relation experts, crisis
managers and communication officers. We will ensure that fake PR
practitioners and unqualified spokespersons are tried in law courts
and summarily convicted. We would make sure they pay heavy fine or
are imprisoned for disparaging the image of our noble profession,”
the NIPR helmsman said.
On the theme of the AGM, Mukhtar Sirajo, said NIPR, as the sole
body entrusted with the responsibility of managing reputation,
promoting friendship, deepening relationship, and regulating
activities of Public Relations in the country, is poised to once
more lend its professional competence on efforts towards restoring
the trajectory of peaceful co-existence in Nigeria.
He remarked that current developments in various aspects of the
system are signs of imminent danger that threaten our social
co-existence as a people and as a nation, saying “from politics
through security to religion, the sound in the atmosphere is echoes
of hatred, war and reckless wastage of human lives.”
He added that in the light of the need for urgent solutions to
issues confronting our national integration, the NIPR is convening
a National Conference on the theme “Optimizing Public Relations
Strategies for National Cohesion,” stating that Nigeria has come to
a point where sustained Public Relations interventions are needed
to salvage the situation.
He disclosed that the Institute, in its current resolve to offer
real time value to the society, has decided to engage both the
government and the governed on critical areas of
nation-building.
The NIPR President also expressed displeasure that the recent
elections across the country generated a lot of hatred and disunity
among Nigerians, along the lines of ethnicity, tribe, religion and
other factors that have left the country more divided than
before.
He emphasized the need to draw the attention of political actors
on the dangers of politics of bitterness and hatred that keep
undermining the unity, integrity and corporate existence of
Nigeria.
He urged the government to employ services of professionals in
handling reputation issues as the current spate of encouraging
quackery in the system is totally unacceptable.
By PRNigeria