manji yarling dissertation final
TRANSCRIPT
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TOWARDS PROFESSIONALISATION:
A REVIEW OF THE PUBLIC RELATIONS INDUSTRY
IN NIGERIA.
By
YARLING MANJI LYDIA
MA International Public Relations and Global Communications Management
This dissertation is submitted to the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media & Cultural
Studies, Cardiff University; in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts in International Public Relations and Global Communications.
August 2014
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DECLARATION
CANDIDATE’S ID NUMBER: 1316956
CANDIDATE’S SURNAME: YARLING
TITLE: Miss
CANDIDATE’S FULL FORENAMES: MANJI LYDIA
This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not
concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree.
Signed ………………………………….… Date …………………………
STATEMENT 1
This dissertation is being submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree
of MA.
Signed ……………………………………. Date …………………………
STATEMENT 2
This dissertation is the result of my own independent work/investigation, except where
otherwise stated.
Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references. A Bibliography is
appended.
Signed …………………………………… Date …………………………
STATEMENT 3
I confirm that the electronic copy is identical to the bound copy of the dissertation
Signed …………………………………. Date …………………………
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STATEMENT 4
I hereby give consent for my dissertation, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and
for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside
organisations.
Signed …………………………………. Date …………………………
STATEMENT 5 - BAR ON ACCESS APPROVED
I hereby give consent for my dissertation, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and
for inter-library loans after expiry of a bar on access approved by the Graduate
Development Committee.
Signed ………………………………… Date …………………………
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
To the Almighty God, my Jehovah Jireh, the one that chose to bless and favour me –
Ndinchi.
To the best gift God ever gave me after the gift of life; my parents – Mr. and Mrs. Andrew
Yarling; thank you for the financial, spiritual and emotional support.
To Elliot Pill, my dissertation supervisor; Nick Mosdell, my research methods tutor; and
Sara Robb, my personal tutor – I couldn’t have done it without your help. Thank you.
I appreciate the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission for granting me a one
year study leave to undertake this programme. In particular, I thank my head of
department, Mr. Olugbenga Odugbesan, for encouraging and motivating me non-stop till I
took this step.
To the twelve extremely busy individuals who took time off to participate in my key figure
interviews - your wealth of experience and honest answers to my questions made this
dissertation a reality. Thank you.
To my family and my friends – you have made life’s journey so beautiful; thank you for
your encouragement and for standing by me always.
IPR/GCM class of 2014 – you guys rock! We ‘embraced the pain’ and made it through
together. Jan Ajwang, the first day you walked into class (and late – lol), I knew we were
going to have a connection and we did! Coach as I fondly call you, thanks for your
friendship and genuine criticism of my work.
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ABSTRACT
This study carries out a relatively comprehensive review of the Nigerian PR industry in
terms of its history, dominant practice, factors that have affected and still affect the
practice, capacity of practitioners, type of education available to current and aspiring
practitioners and areas that need to be addressed as the industry strives towards
professionalisation. Primary research was carried out through key figure interviews, case
studies and qualitative content analysis methods. The interviews showed that PR in Nigeria
is still perceived by many as the giving of brown envelopes, advertising and/or journalism.
It also showed that the dominant PR practice in Nigeria is still the press agency and public
information models, especially within government cycles. However, in multinational
agencies, financial institutions, as well as fast moving consumer goods sectors for instance;
PR is understood and appreciated as a strategic management function. Case studies were
carried out on three universities that offer undergraduate PR courses; one in the UK and
two in Nigeria. The aim of the case studies were to establish the kind of education
available to current and aspiring Nigerian PR practitioners and benchmark this with global
standards. The case studies found that no university in Nigeria offers a fully-fledged PR
undergraduate degree, rather PR modules are offered under Mass communications
department thus giving the subject an undue emphasis on media relations. The qualitative
content analysis of the CIPR and NIPR code of conduct documents showed that the NIPR
code of professional conduct document has not been reviewed since 1992 when it was first
drafted. There is therefore an urgent need to review this document to reflect the current
challenges that the PR industry faces due to globalisation. In conclusion, the findings of
this research showed that the work toward the professionalisation of Nigeria’s PR industry
will be a combined effort by practitioners, scholars, the professional organisation and the
government.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Declaration ii
Acknowledgements iv
Abstract v
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background………………………………………………………………….1
1.2. Objectives of the study………………………………………………………2
1.3. Rationale of the study ………………………………..……………………..3
1.4. Scope of the study…………………………………………………..……….3
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 OVERVIEW OF PR
2.1.1 Defining PR ……………………………………………………………4
2.1.2 PR as a Management function…………………………………………5
2.1.3 What is a Profession? ………………………………………………….6
2.1.4 Is PR a profession? …………………………………………………….6
2.1.5 Professionalisation …………………………………………………….10
2.1.6 PR Global Best Practices………………………………………………10
2.1.7 The role of culture in PR ………………………………………………13
2.2 HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF PR…………………………………………..14
2.2.1 PR in America…………………………………………………………..14
2.2.2 PR in Britain …………………………………………………………...17
2.2.3 PR in Africa ……………………………………………………………19
2.3 PR IN NIGERIA
2.3.1 Profile of Nigeria ……………………………………………………….21
2.3.2 History and development of PR in Nigeria…………..………………..23
2.3.3 Current state of the PR industry in Nigeria……………………………26
2.3.3.1 Dominant PR practice…………………………………………..27
2.3.3.2 PR education and training………………………………………27
2.3.3.3 Trends in PR consulting ……………………………………… .28
2.3.3.4 Public sector in-house PR ……………………………………...30
2.3.3.5 PR practices and multinational oil companies ………………..31
2.3.3.6 The mass media and government influence……………………33
2.3.3.7 The relationship between PR and the media/Journalists ……..34
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research questions………………………………………………………….36
3.2 Methodology ……………………………………………………………….37
3.2.1 Key Figure Interviews…………………………………………….38
3.2.2 Case Study………………………………………………………..39
3.2.3 Qualitative content Analysis……………………………………..43
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CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION OF KEY FIGURE
INTERVIEWS………………………………………………………………………….46
CHAPTER 5: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION OF CASE STUDIES…………….58
CHAPTER 6: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION OF QUALITATIVE CONTENT
ANALYSIS
6.1 QCA of CIPR and NIPR official websites…………..................................70
6.2 QCA of CIPR and NIPR Code of Conduct Documents…..........................79
CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION, LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
7.1 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………84
7.2 Limitations…………………………………………………………………...86
7.3 Recommendations……………………………………………………………87
BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………….88
LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………………………93
APPENDICES
Appendix 1: Interview Guides (Questions) ………………………….......................108-119
Appendix 2a: Sample Pre-Interview Questionnaire/Schedule for PR Practitioners……120
Appendix 2b: Sample Pre-Interview Questionnaire/Schedule for PR Educators………121
Appendix 3: Case Study Design (Questions Answered) ……………………………….122
Appendix 4a: Coding Sheet for Qualitative Content Analysis of Code of
Conduct Document …………………………...…………………………........................123
Appendix 4b: Coding Sheet for Qualitative Content Analysis of Websites...................125
Appendix 5: Interviewees Definitions of PR.................................................................128
Appendix 6: Summary of Roles Carried Out By PR Nigerian PR Practitioners
(Obtained From Pre-Interview Questionnaires And During Interviews)……………… 129
Appendix 7: Sample Transcripts of selected Key Figure Interviews………………….. 130
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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. BACKGROUND
It is 6 April 2014, the world wakes up to an interesting BBC news headline; “Nigeria
becomes Africa's biggest economy.” The story reads in part:
Nigeria has ‘rebased’ its gross domestic product (GDP) data, which has pushed it
above South Africa as the continent's biggest economy. Nigerian GDP now
includes previously uncounted industries like telecoms, information technology,
music, online sales, airlines, and film production. GDP for 2013 totalled 80.3
trillion naira (£307.6bn: $509.9bn), the Nigerian statistics office said.
Sriramesh and Vercic (2003: 6) suggest that “a country’s economic development provides
PR professionals opportunities as well as challenges.” The opportunities that have been
provided for PR professionals in Nigeria as a result of the country’s economic growth is
reflected in the market size growth of PR estimated at N26b (£95m) in 2009, N31b
(£113m) in 2010; and a projected 20% increase in 2011, according to data provided by C
& F Porter Novelli (slide 16)1; ‘the trusted business advisor and leader in strategic
communications for West Africa.’
This clearly shows that Nigeria has a steadily growing local PR industry, but with the rapid
growth of consumer markets and influx of multinational corporations (MNCs) as a result
of globalisation, clients have become more demanding for professional PR services that
can contribute towards social and economic developments (Wells 2006; Skinner and
Mersham 2009:280), hence the challenge for Nigeria’s PR industry.
In addition to economic variables, Sriramesh and Vercic (2003: 1) further established that
the social and political environmental variable of a country affects the practice of PR. In
1 Conversion was done with http://www.oanda.com/currency/converter/ on 14 August 2014.
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Nigeria for instance, records from 1960-1997 shows that the country made about US$250b
from oil revenues alone (Enyinnaya, 1998 cited in Alozie 2004: 243). Sadly though,
Ihonvbere (1997) notes that within the same period of this oil windfall, the country was
plagued by dictatorial military leaderships, wars, instability, endemic corruption, economic
stagnation among other debilitating factors (Alozie 2004: 243). These factors (highlighted
in details in the next chapter) shaped the current practice of PR in Nigeria and have led to
its explosion; same factors will also affect its professionalisation.
This study seeks to review the state of the Nigerian PR industry as it strives towards
professionalisation. ‘Industry’ here covers practitioners (public and private sector in-house,
consultants), scholars, the educational system and the trade/professional organisations.
1.2 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The aim of this review is to examine/analyse the:
1. Predominant style of PR practice in Nigeria.
2. Capacity (knowledge, skills, and resources) of Nigeria’s PR industry so as to assess
its preparedness to take advantage of the growth in the economy.
3. Extent to which the Nigerian PR industry has met the criteria necessary for a
practice to be considered a profession.
4. Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) with the view to assess how well it
has performed its function to “regulate the practice/development of the PR
Profession and monitor professional conducts through an established Code of
Ethics and Professional Conduct regime.” (NIPR website 2014).
5. Type of education available to current and prospective PR practitioners.
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1.3 RATIONALE OF THE STUDY
Having examined and analysed the state of the Nigerian PR industry, this study will
suggest how the Nigerian PR industry can be better positioned in terms of capacity
(knowledge, skills and resources) to provide professional services in line with constantly
evolving global best practices. Some of these global best practices are enumerated in the
next chapter.
1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
Scholars have identified averagely six criteria that a practice should satisfy to be
considered a profession (detailed in literature review), this study will review the extent to
which Nigeria’s PR industry has achieved professionalisation by benchmarking with the
highlighted criteria.
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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 OVERVIEW ON PR
2.1.1 Defining PR
The task of defining PR is a difficult one owing not only to the diverse forms of PR
available in different parts of the world, but also to the various roles played by different PR
practitioners depending on their job description and needs of their organisations (Grunig
and Hunt 1984, Curtin and Gaither 2007: 2).
However in 1976, Harlow made an attempt to define PR using the 472 definitions that he
had found in books/journals/magazines in addition to speaking with 83 PR leaders. In the
end, he came up with a definition of PR summarised by Grunig and Hunt (1984: 7) as the
“management of communication between an organisation and its publics.”
The PR News defines PR as the “management function which evaluates public attitudes,
identifies the policies and procedures of an individual or an organisation with the public
interest, and plans and executes a program of action to earn public understanding and
acceptance” (Grunig and Hunt 1984: 8). While Cutlip et al (1985:4) suggest that PR is the
“management function that identifies, establishes, and maintains mutually beneficial
relationships between an organisation and the various publics on whom its success or
failure depends.”
Pohl (1995) on the other hand sees PR as the “management function which seeks to
establish and maintain mutually beneficial relationships between and among its publics.”
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More recently, Stephen Waddington (2014a), President of the Chartered Institute of Public
Relations (CIPR) defined PR as a “strategic management discipline focused on building
influence and reputation by promoting mutual understanding.”
Three major themes arise from a review of these definitions of PR; PR is a management
function, should be mutually beneficial and is concerned about relationship building.
2.1.2 PR as a Management Function
Dozier and Broom (1995) assert that PR is a management function, if it participates in the
governance of an organisation by making inputs into policies, programs and procedures
before they are adopted; adding that the PR manager’s role involves strategic planning,
issues management, environmental scanning and program evaluation.
In addition to the above stated roles of a PR manager, Hon (2007: 9,15) shares results of a
survey on excellence in PR conducted among top PR managers in which one of the
managers emphasised the importance of conducting research as key to practicing PR as a
strategic management function, prior to launching any campaign or programme. Another
participant noted the value of secondary research including “best practices, industry
standards/norms, and new trends.” However, another participant views it from the vantage
point of effective crisis management, saying, “The more high-profile problem you solve
with minimal pain, the more PR will be trusted and invited into the management suite.”
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Pearson (1990: 28) notes that despite the seeming global consensus about the role of PR in
contemporary organisations as a management function, there still remains a series of
unanswered questions as:
Is PR a profession? Should the practice of PR be regulated, licensed? What kind of
education is required for PR practice? Does the PR curriculum belong in journalism
departments, schools of business, schools of public affairs, or in a department all
[on] its own? To what set of values should PR adhere? What makes the practice of
PR legitimate? In whose interest should PR be practiced? What constitutes ethical
PR practice?
2.1.3 What is a Profession?
A profession as defined by Freidson (1970b: xvii) is “an occupation which has assumed a
dominant position in the division of labour, so that it gains control over the determination
and substance of its own work.” (L’Etang and Pieczka 2006: 266)
Kultgen (1988) cited in Cutlip et al (2000: 146) sees professions as having a social
responsibility toward society which is beyond the provision of skilled services and
knowledge but extends to being responsible for constantly improving the administering
their services. This is because, professions play an important stabilising role in the social
structure of the community (Durkeim, 1933 cited in L’Etang and Pieczka 2006: 266).
2.1.4 Is PR a Profession?2
Professionalism is described by Collins and Zoch (2002) cited in Sriramesh and Vercic
(2009: 645) as the ‘Achilles heel’ of the global PR industry with some PR practitioners and
scholars agreeing for most part that PR is not yet a profession. Some of these PR scholars
2 Some elements of this session have previously been used in my Focus Group report submitted in May 2014.
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and practitioners prefer to describe PR as a quasi-profession (ibid); a practice (Black 1995
cited in Sriramesh and Vercic 2009: 382), an occupation (L’Etang and Peiczka 2006: 276),
or an emerging profession (Dozier and Broom 1995: 24).
Pieczka and L’Etang (2001: 224) note that starting from the early 1960s, researchers began
to log the traits that make professions different from occupations, some of these traits
according to Grunig and Hunt (1984); Cutlip et al. (2006); L’Etang and Pieczka (2006);
Sriramesh and Hornaman (2006: 156) include:
- A specialised and standardised education that aspiring practitioners must go
through as a prerequisite for qualifying to practice;
- An established body of knowledge and constant research to add to this knowledge;
- Availability of strong professional organisations that set standards, control
membership and liaise with wider society;
- Adherence to codes of conduct and ethics;
- Individual and group commitment to being socially responsible; and
- Community recognition as an essential service.
2.1.4.1 A specialised educational programme/training
A leading PR practitioner, Ferguson (1987: 49) points out that PR will not achieve
professional status as long as people from other fields can get in and practise successfully
without undergoing a comprehensive training. In addition, Hess (1950) cited in L’Etang
and Pieczka (2006: 276) suggests that modern society will be greatly disadvantaged
without the skilled practice of PR hence the importance of a proper PR education and
training.
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However, as much as PR practitioners do recognise the role that good educational
qualifications play as a means to improve the reputation of PR practice, L’Etang (1998b)
cited in L’Etang and Pieczka (2006: 276) notes for example that attempts in the UK in the
1960s to use PR qualification as a prerequisite for membership admission into professional
organisations failed, with experience remaining a ‘tradable commodity.’
2.1.4.2 An established body of knowledge and constant research to add to this
knowledge.
A profession is defined by its foundation on a body of complex formal knowledge
(Freidson 1986 cited in L’Etang and Pieczka 2006:279). It is for this reason that Heath
(2001) argued that PR practitioners and academics must out of necessity establish an
international body of knowledge, develop standards for entry into the field, share ethical
values and form a foundation of knowledge to provide practitioners with reasons to depend
on educational institutions for knowledge.
Cutlip et al. 2000, however notes that research so far in the field of PR has contributed
little to building and testing of theories resulting in the current body of knowledge been
inadequate to consider PR as a profession.
2.1.4.3 Availability of strong professional organisations
L’Etang (2004: 97) emphasises the importance of the roles that professional organisations
play in the “natural history” of any profession because “professional organisations are
stable elements in society … they engender modes of life, habits of thought, and standards
of judgement which render them centres of resistance to crude forces which threaten steady
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and peaceful evolution.” (Carr-Saunders and Wilson 1933 cited in L’Etang and Pieczka
2006: 266). Cutlip et al (2006) adds that the establishment of professional organisations is
part of the efforts being made by many practitioners to surround their practice with status
and promote competence among members through conferences, publications, seminars and
advocacy initiatives.
2.1.4.4 Adherence to codes of conduct and ethics
Friedson (2001) cited in Tench and Yeomans (2014: 222) suggests three duties under
which professional codes fall including: obeying laws and regulations; practicing
competently; and reflecting values in behaviour, such as care and trust. The Public
Relations Society of America (PRSA) emphasises that “successful PR hinges on the ethics
of its practitioners” having admitted that the practice of PR by its very nature “can present
unique and challenging ethical issues” but “protecting integrity and the public trust are
fundamental to the profession’s role and reputation” (PRSA website, 2014).
However, as much as all PR professional organisations emphasise the importance of codes
of conduct and ethics, the enforcement of these codes by various PR professional bodies
globally has been a major problem (Grunig and Grunig 2008 cited in Sriramesh and Vercic
2009: 644). Peiczka and L’Etang (2001) agree, stating that given the fact that entry into
PR practice is easy and there is difficulty in imposing ethical standards on members, it is
questionable whether PR can be considered a profession like law and medicine.
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2.1.5 Professionalisation
The Oxford Dictionary describes the word professionalisation as a derivative of the word
professionalise defined as: “Give (an occupation, activity, or group) professional qualities,
typically by increasing training or raising required qualifications.” While the Hughesian
approach defines professionalisation as “an attempt to translate one order of scarce
resources – specialist knowledge and skills – into another – social and economic rewards.”
(L’Etang and Pieczka 2006: 268)
According to Cutlip et al 2006, the professionalisation of PR is beneficial because it
institutionalises best practices and establishes standards of quality that will in turn serve
the best interest of the public by ensuring that there is more competent PR counsel. In
addition, professionalisation will increase the credibility and reputation of the industry and
provide practitioners the chance to contribute toward organisational decision making
processes (Sriramesh and Hornaman 2006: 156).
2.1.6 PR Global Best Practices
Globalisation has presented a scenario whereby the environment that PR operates is
constantly evolving and practitioners need to be both aware and prepared to take advantage
of these changes or become obsolete. Presented below are some current trends in the field
of PR.
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2.1.6.1 The Melbourne Mandate and Generally Accepted Practices (GAP)
Certain global PR best practices are enumerated by the Global Alliance for PR and
Communications Management. The Global Alliance seeks to raise professional standards
of PR world over through knowledge sharing of best practices, it achieves its mandate
through several activities/programmes, one of which is the World PR Forum (WPRF) that
started in 2001 and holds biennially. The WPRF is an assembly of PR and communication
professionals from around the world to discuss major issues affecting the profession and
also affected by the profession. Each edition of the forum presents important outcomes and
points at trends that the profession needs to note remain relevant (Global Alliance 2014).
As at the time of this study, the latest WPRF held in 2012 in Melbourne, Australia and
gave birth to the “Melbourne mandate”. The mandate was predicated on the fact that as a
result of exceptional public access to communication, organisations in a global society are
presented with challenges and opportunities. Hence the new mandate for PR and
communication management include defining and maintaining its organisation’s character
and values; building a culture of listening and engagement; and instilling responsible
behaviours by individuals and organisations (ibid).
Another programme of the Global Alliance by which it surveys current practices and
trend/developments in the PR profession within different countries and continents is the
Global survey called Generally Accepted Practices (GAP). This survey provides a world-
centric view of how PR is evolving in different settings as a basis for charting further
developments in the future (ibid).
One major finding of the GAP 2012 survey is the rise in the importance of measurement
and evaluation which has become a front burning issue because of the general acceptance
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of social media monitoring tools and increased use of primary research in program
planning and evaluation. The finding points clearly that the success of a PR campaign is
not determined by the measurement of just its output – for instance clips, impressions, and
advertising value equivalency (AVE), but by its ‘Outcomes’ (ibid).
This standard of measurement agrees with the ‘Barcelona Declaration of Measurement
Principles (Barcelona principles)’.
2.1.6.2 Barcelona Principles
The International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication
(AMEC), at its 2nd European Summit on Measurement held in Barcelona, Spain in 2010;
declared the widely accepted ‘Barcelona Principles’ which emphasised seven principles on
how PR measurement should be carried out for best practice. The principles state:
1. The importance of goal setting and measurement of all PR programmes
2. Measuring the effect on outcomes is preferred to measuring outputs.
3. The effect on business results can and should be measured where possible.
4. Media measurement requires both quantity and quality.
5. AVEs are not the value of PR.
6. Social media can and should be measured.
7. Transparency and replicability are paramount to sound measurement (AMEC
website 2014).
2.1.6.3 PR education undergraduate curriculum
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The executive summary of the Commission on PR Education’s Professional Bond report
(2006: 47) on undergraduate PR education in the United States made recommendations
that though not designed to be prescriptive, provides a set of objectives for excellence
identified by a cadre of distinguished educators and practitioners. It developed a set of
minimum standards for undergraduate PR education that include:
1) introduction to PR (including theory, origin and principles); 2) PR research,
measurement, and evaluation; 3) PR writing and projection; 4) supervised work
experience in PR (internship); and 5) an additional PR course in law and ethics,
planning and management, case studies, or campaigns. The Professional Bond also
addresses issues of diversity, rapidly advancing communication technology, and global
implications for PR education” (Cited in the Global PR Education Report, 2010: 4).
Developing countries like Nigeria can use above curriculum as a guide but with
consideration to the cultural context of their unique operating environment.
2.1.7 The Role of Culture in PR
In seeking to understand the professionalisation of PR in any jurisdiction, it is important to
note the significant role that culture plays in communication processes especially in non-
US settings (Heath 2001: 229; Curtin and Gaither 2007: 36). Sriramesh (2009: 48)
describes this role; “culture affects communication, and is affected by it. Because PR is
fundamentally a communication activity, it is logical to conclude that culture affects PR
also.” This is because culture, meaning and language are intricately linked as people will
usually draw meanings by linking to something they already know through their cultures
(Curtin and Gaither 2007).
Sriramesh (2003: pxxv) suggests that in order to be effective, every PR professional should
have a multicultural and global perspective because effective communication in a global
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market requires PR practitioners be sensitive to the “cultural heterogeneity of their
audiences … the result will be the growth of a culturally richer profession.” (Sriramesh and
White 1992: 611).
2.2 HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF PR
It is important to study how PR evolved because it will help in understanding its strengths,
weaknesses, functions and purposes in society. Such understanding is vital towards the
current professionalisation of the practice as the history and development of PR are
intertwined (Cutlip et al 2006:87).
Friedson’s approach to professionalisation recognises the importance of a unique set of
historical circumstances in determining the way a profession is practiced (Heath 2001:
229). However, it is important to note before delving into these histories, that no single
interpretation of the history of PR exist, rather, there are many perspectives on the subject
depending on the chosen point of view of the author (Pearson 1990).
2.2.1 PR in America
The practice of PR in America is arguably the most advanced worldwide as seen in the
number of educational institutions offering PR courses, large membership of the PRSA,
and the number of available PR journals (Heath 2001: 228). The American PR system was
born in a time of adversity and change when long before the revolution, talents for
promotion were visible in fund raising activities, sale of land, promotion of causes and
boosting commercial ventures (Cutlip et al 2006: 88).
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During the revolutionary war, the work of Samuel Adams and his fellow revolutionists
shaped the practice of PR at the time. This group garnered support using various PR tools
and techniques, proceeding on the assumption that “the bulk of mankind are more led by
their senses than by their reason” (Davidson cited in Cutlip et al 2006: 89).
Another event that led to the significant development of PR in America is the power
struggles evoked by political reform movements. Between the late 1920s and early 1930s
for instance, when President Andrew Jackson was in power, a key member of his “kitchen
cabinet” was Amos Kendall a former newspaper man. Kendall served as the President’s
counselor, ghost writer and publicist and was excellent at creating events that molded
public opinion (Cutlip et al 2006: 91).
It is clear from the American history of PR that it was taken more seriously by businesses
when their positions of power were threatened and by the government during periods of
crisis like World War 1, World War 2, the Persian War, Gulf War etc (ibid).
PR has clear origins in Press agentry which was a systematic effort to either attract or
divert people’s attention by the giving out of inaccurate or incomplete information
(Ibid:92). A key foundational contributor that made a drastic change to the press agentry
method and contributed enormously to the contemporary PR techniques and principles still
in use today is Ivy Lee (1877 – 1934). In 1906, Lee and Parker were hired by the anthracite
coal mine operators to tell management’s side of a strike; following which Lee issued the
famous “Declaration of Principles” in 1906 which states:
Our matter is accurate … our plan is, frankly and openly, on behalf of business
concerns and public institutions, to supply to the press and public of the United
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States prompt and accurate information concerning subjects in which it is of value
and interest to the public to know about (Cutlip et al 2006:99).
Lee made it clear that businesses could no longer fool or ignore the public but keep them
informed in the most open and accurate manner (ibid).
However, much of the roots of the practice of PR in America was before the 1900s, a time
described by Edward Bernays as the “public-be-damned” period of American enterprise.
But definitive beginnings of PR started from 1900-1916, a period described as the seedbed
era when America was in the “public-be-informed” period and muckraking journalism was
the order of the day. The muckrakers maximised new platforms like popular magazines,
national wire services and feature syndicates which had just enjoyed a surge in circulations
(ibid).
Bernays labeled the period following WW1 as that of “mutual understanding” when PR
practice was done based on lessons learnt from behavioral sciences. However, following
the increasing power of citizens through protests and demonstrations in the late 1960s, the
status quo drastically changed leading to an era of “mutual adjustment” which transformed
how PR was practiced in the later part of the 20th
Century and beginning of the 21st
Century (ibid:95).
Edward Bernays (1891-1995) often referred to in some quarters as the ‘Father of PR’; is
credited with having introduced the term “PR Counsel” in his first book ever published on
PR titled “Crystallising Public Opinion” published in 1923 (Bernays, 1965 cited in Cutlip
et al 2006:103).
17
The end of WW2 brought the postwar boom to PR from 1946 - 1964 as during this time,
PR was used in motivating military morale, garnering civilian support, and encouraging a
seamless flow in the conversion from a wartime to peacetime economy. The period from
1965 – 1985 was that of public protest and empowerment where powerful advocacy groups
pushed for social change, increased government oversight of business and industry,
environmental protection etc; a popular saying “power to the people” captured the essence
of this era. PR was no longer about just “telling our story” because there had to be a
balance of power (ibid: 108-113).
Cutlip et al (2006: 113) note that from 1986 to date, the internet radically changed
everything; providing unlimited access to a powerful and instantaneous system of
information distribution and consumption.
2.2.2 PR in Britain
While PR started and boomed in the USA in the business sphere, its development in
government, political and non-commercial fields started in Britain (Black 1989: 202),
where overall legislation is determined by the central government with local communities
allowed to work within their own budgets in the implementation of certain policies
(L’Etang 2004).
L’Etang (2004) point out that the 19th
century social reforms came with a need for Britain
to deal with the social problems caused by the industrial revolution, this resulted in greater
participation by local governments in communicating with the populace. Because of this
communication responsibility, local officials began looking for ways of giving their PR
function a professional status. Therefore by 1922, the local and central governments
18
formed the Institute of Public Administration and by 1930, there was a clear understanding
of the paramount role which PR played in facilitating smooth administration.
Peacetime propaganda by the central government was another important influence on the
practice of PR in Britain. At the time, the government reckoned that since propaganda
played a key role in educating and informing citizens during the democratic transition, it
could well be used even in peacetime for communication and campaigns (ibid: 231).
At the end of WW2, Britain was the largest debtor nation. By 1945, there was increased
infrastructure expenditure because of the government’s rebuilding efforts following
wartime destruction. This led to new legislations and economic policies that needed to be
explained to the public and as at 1947, the local government had created several PR roles
that were handled by different experts who eventually formed the Institute of Public
Relations (IPR) in 1948 (ibid). IPR sought to establish social legitimacy and respectability
and declared “the correct intelligent practice of PR is something without which modern
society would be immeasurably impoverished.” (Hess 1950: 5)
The British code of ethics was written in the 1920s by Basil Clarke but it was in 1963 that
IPR formulated a code that attempted to protect both public interests and those of
employers/clients (L’Etang 2004). In any case, membership of IPR is still not required to
practice PR in Britain, this presents a situation where the code has limited impact (White et
al 2009: 386).
Another key factor that led to the growth of PR in the British state in relation with other
countries was the challenges stimulated by the process of decolonisation. These challenges
19
also affected British businesses operating in the former colonies and as admitted by a
practitioner who worked for Unilever in Africa in an interview on March 26, 1997, PR had
to be used among other things to convince the Africans that “we were a good thing for
them and their country.” (L’Etang and Pieczka 2006: 275)
2.2.3 PR in Africa
Traditional forms of PR have existed in African societies for centuries. These have been in
the form of consultations, negotiations, conflict resolution processes, personal and group
visits, giving of gifts and intermarriages each aimed at fostering relationships and
achieving some level of mutual understanding among the parties involved (Alozie,
2004:245).
Skinner and Mersham (2009:286) emphasise that traditional forms of PR in Africa are
intricately linked to a culture of humanism - being one’s brother’s keeper, and
communalism - placing great value on inter-personal relationships. Other forms of PR
commonly used by religious and traditional African groups are the acts of ‘oration and
narration’ which are used to “influence people’s behaviour, especially related to fear
appeals probably stemming from a long tradition of naturalistic beliefs.” (Koper et al,
2009: 295)
Fobanjong (2004: 203,212) notes that the stories of Africa as told by the earliest explorers
who discovered the continent abounded with beautiful memories that were shared through
PR, such stories put a desire in the listeners to visit Africa at the time. However, as the
continent got more exposed to the outside world, these tales turned to those of woe with
Africa being described through negative PR as the “dark continent.” For emerging
20
economies like those found in Africa, a three pronged strategy that can encourage
competitiveness and attract FDI combines political stability, economic growth and the
development of effective PR strategies that can create demand and help gain market share.
PR plays a key role because globalisation has created a situation whereby the stimuli for
domestic economic growth are more external than internal, therefore, Africa needs to do a
lot of work in changing its prevailing external negative perceptions.
Fobanjong (2004: 209-210) suggests further that America has outdone Africa in its PR as
seen in the preference for western commodities by Africans rather than locally produced
items; this clearly points that what imperialism did not accomplish during the colonial
period –that is to “acculturate Africa and turn its peoples into dependent consumers of
Western products”, it is now accomplishing through the mass media.
In 2006, a UK based PR company called Gyroscope Consultancy developed the Africa
Communications Index (ACI). ACI is a composite index that measures the extent to which
PR and corporate communications can be planned and managed in any given African
country, and the extent to which messages can be effectively delivered to target audiences.
Factors within the ACI include ease of access to trained (or trainable) PR staff; the
presence and development of a professional body for the communications industry; and the
range and reach of traditional media channels. South Africa and Egypt had the highest
ACIs (89 and 81 respectively, with a maximum possible ACI of 100). Nigeria fell into the
next group with 75 (Wells 2006).
Wells (2006) concludes that although it is obvious that African countries have enormous
problems, yet the continent is a vast and untapped market with a mix of needs and
21
opportunities thus making managing communications critical to businesses seeking to
expand to Africa.
2. 3 PR IN NIGERIA
Before delving into details on Nigeria’s PR industry, it is important to give a brief profile
of the country in order to understand the political, economic, social and technological
environment.
2.3.1 Profile of Nigeria
Nigeria is often described as the “Giant of Africa” due not only to its large economy but
also its population of about 174m people making it the most populous African country and
the seventh most populous in the world. It is geographically located in West Africa and
surrounded by the Republic of Benin in the West, Niger Republic in the North, Chad and
Cameroun in the East, and the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean to the South. Nigeria
comprises 36 states with Abuja as the Federal Capital Territory. It has over 500 ethnic
groups with Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba been the most predominant languages spoken
(http://www.nigeriaworld.com/focus/).
British enterprises started being established in West Africa in the 1600s and by 1861, the
formal British administration had spread to the interior parts of Nigeria from the Lagos
coast with its greatest success being in the Northern part of Nigeria following resistance
from the South. Because of the acceptance that the British colonialist received in the North,
they tended to favour Northerners politically thus making other parts of the country feel
marginalised (Agbagha 1999 cited in Alozie 2004: 241).
22
At the expense of the overall welfare of the people, Britain began to consolidate Nigeria in
the 1800s and by 1914; it had finished the process and amalgamated the Northern and
Southern protectorates (Alozie 2004: 241). The amalgamation might have created what is
officially known today as the ‘Federal Republic of Nigeria’ but the highly heterogeneous
nature of the people in terms of tribe and culture is yet to foster a basis for real unity
(Madiebo 1980 cited in ibid). Alozie (2004) observes further that the several social and
political crises that Nigeria has suffered since its independence in 1960 can partly be
attributed to this heterogeneous nature of the people.
Following the country’s independence, it experienced a civil war in 1966 and several
military coups. The country enjoyed a brief period of democracy from 1979 to 1983, but
for most of its independence period, it has been ruled by several military juntas. Finally in
May 1999, following a successful election, Nigeria returned to democratic rule and has
since enjoyed a growing democracy (http://www.nigeriaworld.com/focus/).
Nigeria’s oil reserves play a key role in its growing wealth, potentially positioning it to
become one of the world's top 20 economies by 2050 (ibid). Although in addition to
petroleum resources, Nigeria has large mineral deposits of coal, bitumen, iron ore,
phosphates, columbite, gold, barite, kaolin, gypsum, tin ore and zinc. Besides mineral
wealth, Nigeria is rich in agricultural, marine and forest resources with its equatorial and
tropical vegetation zones enabling growth of food crops like cassava, maize, rice, melons;
and cash crops like cotton, groundnut, rubber (Koper et al. 2009).
Nigeria is a member of the so-called MINT group of countries, which are widely predicted
as the globe's next "BRIC-like" (Brazil, Russia, India and China) economies. MINT is an
23
acronym that refers to the economies of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey, originally
coined by Fidelity Investments, a Boston-based asset management firm but popularised by
Jim O'Neill of Goldman Sachs, who had created the term BRIC. In an interview with
O’Neil, he suggests that “Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey all have very favourable
demographics for at least the next 20 years, and their economic prospects are interesting”
(Business Insider; November 13, 2013).
The lack of adequate communication infrastructure is a bottleneck in international PR
campaigns especially in developing countries such as Nigeria (Sriramesh and Vercic 2003:
6). Skinner and Mersham (2009: 275) suggest that internet access in schools is a key
indicator of the ability to manage communications with specific audiences. In 2005, the
World Economic Forum (WEF) assessed internet access in Nigerian schools using a scale
where 1 denotes very poor and 7 denotes excellent; Nigeria fell dismally between 1 and 2.
2.3.2 History and Development of PR in Nigeria
Formal PR practices in Nigeria started in 1944 when the British colonial administrators
created the first PR department with the aim of enlightening the populace on government
activities. Following Nigeria’s independence, this PR department was put under the newly
formed Federal Ministry of Information (FMI) where it continued its function of
information dissemination through public campaigns (Nwosu 1990 cited in Alozie 2004:
244).
Generally, the early 1950s and 1960s witnessed the creation of many other PR units in
government ministries and corporations with some of the information officers who
worked in these departments becoming the first generation of home grown PR
practitioners and consultants in Nigeria which might have prompted the formation of
24
the Public Relations Association of Nigeria (PRAN) in 1963 by Dr. Samuel Epelle, who
also served as the first President of the association (Otubanjo and Amujo 2009). Epelle,
who at the time was the Director of PR at FMI played a central role towards the
development of PR practices in Nigeria. In 1967, he published the first influential book
on PR in Nigeria titled ‘Essentials of PR’ (Koper et al 2009: 290).
PRAN was renamed the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) in 1969. The NIPR
among other things, encourages the enforcement of the PR code of ethics in Nigeria as a
way of promoting and driving ‘professionalism and excellence’, in the industry (NIPR
Website 2014). Koper et al (2009) observe that while the setting up of PRAN was
commendable in consolidating the practice of PR in Nigeria, a series of events followed
that not only interfered with the professionalisation process of PR in Nigeria, but
significantly shaped the current style of practice. These events include, coups (January &
July 1966), a civil war (1967 -1970), on-and-off military dictatorships (1966-1979 and
1984 – 1999), a series of political and religious crises and the Niger-Delta crises in its oil-
rich region. More recently also, is the menace of the Islamic fundamentalist group called
Boko Haram.
When the Civil war ended on 20 January 1970, the Federal government under the then
Nigerian Head of state, General Yakubu Gowon, was faced with a dilemma on how to
launder the country’s battered image and improve its reputation both locally and
internationally. The Nigerian government opted for the use of PR and massively paid
advertisements to handle the situation; a decision which made the practise of PR that was
earlier limited to FMI explode to include private practitioners and international consultants
(Alozie 2004 and Koper et al 2009).
25
During the extended period of military dictatorship in Nigeria, human rights abuses,
nepotism and corruption were the order of the day, with the country’s economy and image
in sharp decline. Propaganda was employed by the government of the day in the hope to
repair the marred reputation of Nigeria; thus further damaging the credibility of PR
(George and Ogbondah 1999 cited in Alozie 2004: 247 and Koper et al 2009).
According to Shuaib (2006), the year 1984 brought some level of progress towards the
professionalisation of the Nigerian PR industry with the inauguration of the Public
Relations Consultancy Association of Nigeria (PRCAN) (Otubanjo and Amujo 2009).
PRCAN is a trade sectoral group for the PR industry in Nigeria whose primary objective
is the promotion of professional reputation management in Nigeria within the public and
private sectors. PRCAN draws legal backing primarily from Bye Law Number 3 1993 of
the NIPR Act 16, 1990, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, which makes membership of
PRCAN a legal requirement for firms wishing to offer PR services in Nigeria (PRCAN
Website 2014).
By 1986, the Nigerian government began encouraging the creation of an open market
economy through the privatisation and commercialisation of state owned corporations
leading to a competition in most sectors of the economy. Companies adopted fierce
marketing and PR strategies as a survival means causing an increased demand for PR
services (Otubanjo and Amujo 2009). This led to an influx of poorly trained people
scrambling to fill this demand. Noticing the trend, the then Federal Military Government in
the hope of bringing sanity to the industry promulgated decree 16 of 1990 that empowers
NIPR to control and regulate PR practices, making it illegal for non NIPR registered
individuals to practice (Molleda and Alhassan 2006; NIPR 2008 cited in ibid).
26
"June 1, 1990 was a memorable day for the PR profession in Nigeria" comments Black
(1991) on the NIPR decree 16 promulgation (Otubanjo and Amujo 2009). However in an
article written by Dangogo in the Nigerian newspaper Daily Trust of November 30, 2007,
he notes with concern “the institute has found it rather difficult to monitor the over 6,000
registered members across the country due to insufficient resources… the law [Act 16
1990] has not been effectively enforced… we’ve simply failed to develop our institute over
the years” (Koper et al 2009: 293).
In addition, Koper et al, 2009 notes with reservation the fact that following the enactment
of the NIPR Act in 1990, NIPR became integrated into the three tiers of government (local,
state and federal) with the aim of getting the body to support government programmes and
initiatives. This raises concerns over the level of control that the government has over PR
practice and if this control does not reduce the practitioners to government spokespeople as
typically practiced in propaganda.
Given the Nigerian experience of how PR developed, it can be said that PR has emerged as
a response to relational crises such as wars and conflicts rather than strictly business needs
as obtained in the US (Koper et al 2009: 294).
2.3.3 Current State of the PR Industry in Nigeria
“As Africa's most populous country, one would expect Nigeria to be a natural hotbed of
PR innovation. Instead the PR industry has languished behind advertising, hampered by a
risky commercial environment and slow strides towards professionalism”, writes Arun
Sudhaman in PR week of April 2010.
27
2.3.3.1 Dominant PR practice
The dominant PR practices in Nigeria are the press agency and public information models
(Nwosu 1990 cited in Alozie 2004: 246, Koper et al 2009); both one-way asymmetrical
communications techniques which involve the organisation ‘telling’ the publics without
‘listening’ to them. While the preferred professional model of PR is often described as
Grunig and Hunt’s two-way symmetric model. In the two-way symmetric model, PR
practitioners serve as intermediaries between organisations and their publics with the aim
of achieving mutual understanding among both parties through the use of theories of
communication rather than those of influence (Grunig and Hunt 1984: 41-42).
With Nigeria now a democracy, there are several opportunities for the development and
professionalisation of the PR industry hence moving it away from press-agentry and public
information communication models towards a strategic practice that is concerned with
relationship management and organisational positioning (Cropp and Pincus 2001 cited in
Koper et al 2009: 301).
2.3.3.2 PR Education and training
Most higher education institutions in Nigeria offer PR modules under Mass
Communications and/or Journalism programmes (Koper et al 2009: 296; Skinner and
Mersham 2009: 276). This trend gives the subject of PR in Nigeria an undue emphasis on
media relations rather than management, social psychology, strategy and organisational
behaviour which are the skills that graduates require to perform core PR functions like
28
campaign planning, strategic communication and evaluation methods among others (Koper
et al. 2009: 296)3.
Some participants in a survey on excellence in PR conducted by Hon (2007) were
concerned about the kind of relationship that existed between PR and businesses, and
suggested that more business courses should be included in the University PR curriculum
to help PR practitioners better understand business.
Where PR training is concerned, a critical challenge the NIPR faced especially in the
early 1990s was the lack of holistic and structured PR body of knowledge and
professional training programs for aspiring practitioners, this they addressed by designing
professional PR certificate and diploma programs for students and short training courses
for practitioners (Otubanjo and Amujo 2009).
However, Koper et al (2009: 296) finds “NIPR’s influence on education worrying as it
seems to serve only short-term practice needs rather than contributing to the establishment
and progress of a more advanced body of knowledge.”. Adding that although national and
state chapters of NIPR have Research and Education departments saddled with the
responsibility of publishing books, journals and newsletters; these publications
demonstrate a lack of academic approach to PR practice despite the fact that Nigeria has a
good number of critical thinkers, social critics and large body of original literature.
2.3.3.3 Trends in PR consulting
As is the predominant practice among PR practitioners in advanced economies, Otubanjo
and Amujo (2009) observed an emerging trend of specialisation in Nigeria’s PR
3 Please refer to table 1 (p93) for higher institutions offering PR programmes and modules in Nigeria.
29
consulting in areas like media relations, financial PR and marketing PR for various
industry sectors. Another interesting trend is in corporate affiliations between local firms
and top multinational PR firms for the purposes of capacity building, professionalism,
access to a global network companies and development of insights into new approaches to
PR management. Examples of such affiliations are JSP corporate communications
(Nigerian) and Hill and Knowlton, UK; Sesema PR, Nigeria and Edelman PR, UK. (Ufot
2004 cited in Otubanjo and Amujo).
According to C & F Porter Novelli, the public sector accounts for 60% of Nigeria’s PR
market size, sadly the local PR industry does not seem to be the greatest benefactor of this
market. Fabonjang (2004: 210) notes the penchant of African governments for spending
billions of dollars in hiring the services of western PR firms thus inhibiting the
development of their local PR industries because for most African leaders, “self-promotion
and self-preservation [is] far greater than the quest for national development.”
More recently on August 13, 2014; Jeffrey Scott Shapiro of the Washington Times notes
that this engagement of foreign PR consulting by Nigeria in particular is on the increase.
Shapiro says “the opportunity for American advisers is clearly found in the Foreign Agents
Registration Act filings at the Department of Justice. Over the last eight years, there have
been 24 reports filed by American firms documenting foreign agent work for Nigeria, 11
of them in just the last year.”
He gave examples of such engagements to include the engagement of AKPD, the Chicago
political firm, by All Progressives Congress (APC) from December 2013 to March 2014.
APC is the strongest opposition party to Nigeria’s ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP);
30
and in preparation for the 2015 general elections in Nigeria, APC hired AKPD to better
position it to contest the forthcoming elections. This could have prompted the ruling PDP
to hire Levick, a political and legal crisis managing firm in the summer of 2014, to provide
international media advice.
Skinner and Mersham (2009: 280) commenting on this trend opine that it does not help to
develop the viability of local firms and ignores the components that are important for the
successful execution of any PR programmes which includes “local knowledge of the
people, environment, language, history, culture and philosophy.”
This trend has been kicked against by Nigerian local practitioners. In a chat with Raheem
Akingbolu of Thisday newspaper published on 17 July 2014, the President of the PRCAN,
Mr Chido Nwakanma, emphasises the need for the Nigerian government to obey the
Nigerian law which requires that for any individual or organisation to practice PR in
Nigeria, it has to be registered with the NIPR, adding that both NIPR and PRCAN are not
aware that any of these firm are registered in Nigeria. He noted with dismay that while
other countries use their economic resources to build local capacities and provide jobs for
their citizenry, Nigeria does the opposite, stating that “it is not in the best interest of
Nigerians or Nigeria … to be paying money to external bodies for jobs that can be
executed by Nigerian firms.”
2.3.3.4 Public sector in-house PR
The Nigerian state and federal ministries are staffed with information officers whose main
functions include generating support for government programmes and policies by sending
31
out messages, gauging the public’s reaction to these messages and then using feedback to
refine subsequent messages. However, it is yet to be determined whether government
information officers do perform the feedback function leading to the poor development and
implementation of PR strategies by Nigerian governments. Policy and structural factors
such as budgetary constraints, lack of communication facilities, and inadequate training of
government information officers are also prevalent among public-sector in-house PR
offices (Nwosu 1990 cited in Alozie 2004: 244).
2.3.3.5 PR practices and multinational oil companies
“The country's massive oil industry means that companies such as Shell, Total, Mobil,
Chevron and Oando play an important comms role. ‘Big Oil' has, though, attracted
vociferous criticism for some of its alleged activities in Nigeria, and has invested millions
in PR firms to defend its reputation.” (Sudhaman 2010)
Nigeria has constantly experienced crises in its Niger-Delta oil producing region. The
region consists of six states - Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross river, Delta, Edo and Rivers;
whose people have over many years had a frosty relationship with multinational oil
companies that operate in the region (Henderson and Williams 2004). As pointed by Koper
et al (2009), the Niger Delta crises and the Nigerian Government’s selfish and brutal
response to it has continued to impact the profile of PR practice and its professionalisation
in Nigeria.
The Shell Petroleum Development Corporation (SPDC) is a case in point.
32
SPDC is the dominant, oldest and largest of the six oil companies that operate in Nigeria.
SPDC has drilled oil in Nigeria since 1958 making billions of dollars in profits but heavily
polluting the environment in the process. The host communities, feeling that SPDC had not
behaved like a good community neighbour started a wave of hostage taking, vandalism,
killing of oil company workers, and other activities that hampered the business of SPDC
and made it lose millions of dollars (Ogbondah and George 2004).
Ogbondah and George (2004: 272) comment that SPDC’s initial response to these crises
can best be described as a ‘PR Disaster’ because they denied responsibility for the
environmental/ecological damages that resulted from their activities and instead, connived
with the Nigerian government in the blatant use of force to quell host community
uprisings. A typical example of Shell’s poor PR strategy at the time can be seen in the
handling of the Ogoni crisis.
The Ogoni people, tired of the squalor that they lived in demanded for more benefits from
the natural resources tapped from their land by SPDC and rather than listen and negotiate,
SPDC connived with the Nigerian government at the time to quell the uprisings by the use
of brute force (Ogbondah and George 2004; Coombs and Holladay 2007; Curtin and
Gaither 2007).
The situation was compounded when in 1995, the Nigerian government hanged Ken Saro
Wiwa and eight other environmental activists for their alleged involvement in the
assassination of four of its community leaders whom they suspected were receiving
financial favours from SPDC and compromising. The killing led to a series of militant
revolts among the Ogoni people but SPDC, knowing it had the full backing of the Nigerian
33
government which has a 55% stake in the company, kept quiet (Moss and DeSanto 2002;
Curtin and Gaither 2007). This incidence led to international condemnation of both Shell
and the then Nigerian military government and also a global boycott of Shell’s products
(Ogbondah 1999 cited in Ogbondah and George 2004: 267).
Donkin (1997) cited in Coombs and Halladay (2007: 124) notes that SPDC came to realise
the power and influence of its publics through the Ogoni experience and has subsequently
learnt to listen, understand and try to meet their reasonable needs. As at 2006, SPDC
introduced a new PR strategy with their host community which gives the host greater
decision power and control over their own development. In this new strategy, communities
identify their need areas, collectively decide how the set amount will be utilised, and
implement these projects using local content (SPDC Nigeria website 2013).
It can be noted that, although SPDC had more than sufficient capability to contribute to the
socioeconomic development of its host communities, it did not do so until crisis erupted.
The lesson to be learnt by other multinationals is that a sound corporate PR strategy must
of necessity incorporate two-way model of communications (Grunig and Hunt 1984)
between the organisation and its publics, giving the publics an opportunity ab-initio to
voice their concerns (Ogbondah and George 2004: 271).
2.3.3.6 The mass media and government influence
According to the BBC (2008), Nigeria has a vibrant media landscape which includes over
100 newspapers (local, regional and national), several state-run radio and TV stations
(national and regional), as well as a few privately owned stations; with the “publish and be
34
damned” principle still firmly entrenched within the Nigerian press (Koper et al 2009:
300).
Koper et al (2009:301) note with concern that the widest reaching media agencies are
government owned like Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), News Agency of
Nigeria (NAN), Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) etc. This makes it almost impossible
for these groups to report government stories without bias compared to independent news
outlets like CNN, BBC and CBC. Despite above scenario, the Nigerian press can still be
viewed as agents of socio-political change as the debates they cover increase the awareness
of the average Nigerian towards government programmes, actions and inactions
2.3.3.7 The relationship between PR and the media/Journalists
There exists a critical relationship between the mass media and PR; which is ‘symbiotic’
but sometimes also ‘contentious’. Symbiotic in the sense that PR practitioners wish to use
the media for the purpose of publicity, while the media also depends on PR for information
subsidies (Sriramesh and Vercic 2003).
In Nigeria, the relationship between Journalists and PR practitioners is not only critical, it
is complex because of woven interests and idealism may be ethically compromised; the
journalist may no longer be seen as the “watchdog” of society but as an in-house PR
professional paid to “cover-up” the truth in corporate and governmental organisations
especially during crises (Koper et al 2009: 301).
This payment to skew the opinion of the Nigerian media in reporting events is described as
the ‘Brown Envelope Syndrome’ (BES). BES is derived from the nomenclature called
35
“Brown envelope …. [which is] derived from the underworld business of wrapping of
wares in brown envelopes” (Ekeanyanwu & Obianigwe, 2012: 514).
BES borders on the violation of media professionalism and ethics; and describes “a system
whereby journalist collect money or other material gifts from news sources, company
executives or event organisers to cover such events and probably give it the [widest]
publicity”. BES most and generally tampers with the journalists’ “responsibility of
informing the members of the public objectively and accurately” as it influences them to
write in “favour of the givers” (ibid).
In conclusion, Sriramesh (2013) cited in Abeywickrema (2013: 64) notes:
Every country in the world has deficiencies. Developed countries may be ahead in
some respects as far as PR education and practice are concerned but they are not
there yet by any stretch of the imagination ... most practitioners in developed
countries are struggling to cope with the demands of globalisation and operating in
emerging markets … [while] developing countries have infrastructural problems
and most have rather fledging PR programmes at the university level with scope for
a lot of improvement [but] both sides need to work toward bridging gaps – albeit in
different ways.
36
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND METHODOLOGY
3.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
In order to do a thorough appraisal of the current state of the Nigerian PR industry with the
view to identify gaps that may exist and suggest how these gaps may be filled by the
concerned stakeholders, the following research questions were put forward:
Research Question 1 (RQ1): What are stakeholder perceptions of PR in Nigeria?
Research Question 2 (RQ2): What is the current professional profile of the PR industry in
Nigeria?
Research Question 3 (RQ3): Is PR in Nigeria part of a management process or still a low
level tactical role?
Research Question 4 (RQ4): How effective has the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations
been in the role of contributing to the growth and progression of the Nigerian PR industry?
Research Question 5(RQ5): What forms of educational trainings are available to current
and aspiring PR practitioners in Nigeria?
Research Question 6 (RQ6): What areas/issues if addressed could facilitate the
professionalisation of the Nigerian PR industry?
37
3.2 METHODOLOGY
This study used three qualitative research methods for data collection including key figure
interviews, case studies and qualitative content analysis.
Qualitative research “usually emphasises words rather than quantification in the collection
and analysis of data …. [with] an inductive view of [showing] the relationship between
theory and research … [aimed] at understanding the social world through an examination
of the interpretation of that world by its participants.” (Bryman 2012:380). This study
chose to use qualitative methods because the “sampling techniques in qualitative research
are rarely probabilistic or random as in quantitative methods … [instead], they are …
strategic … [and] directly related to the purpose of the research” (Daymon and Holloway
2011: 209).
Strengths of qualitative research methods
Daymon and Holloway (2011:5) believe that the method has the “ability to delve into
meaning, and the critical or interpretive ways of thinking which are concerned with the
social construction of reality”. It also provides a rich account of the subject matter.
Weaknesses of qualitative research methods
Some of the weaknesses of qualitative methods are that they are “too impressionistic and
subjective” making it difficult to replicate because “qualitative investigators are the main
research instrument” with the researcher been more concerned about the integrity of his
38
findings than “generalisability” (Bryman 2008 cited in Daymon and Holloway 2011:10-
11). The method also tends to lack transparency because it has “few well-established and
widely accepted rules for the analysis” and for arriving at conclusions (Bryman 2012: 565).
3.2.1 KEY FIGURE INTERVIEWS
Interviews were described from an interpretive stance by Webb and Webb (1932) as
“conversations with a purpose” (Daymon and Holloway 2011: 220). Interviews are a
useful tool for gaining ‘cultural knowledge’ on a particular issue (Moisander and Valtonen,
2006 cited in ibid: 222).
Sample
In order to ensure a fairly all round revision of the Nigerian PR industry from all
stakeholders at least one participant each was selected from academia, media,
multinational company, indigenous company, PR consultants, PR professional
organisations and both public and private sector in-house PR practitioners. The samples
are top decisions makers in their organisations with substantial years of industry
experience and were therefore capable of giving informed points of view on the subject.
Please see table 2 (p98) for mini profile of interviewees.
Interview methods
Daymon and Holloway (2011: 220) suggest that interviews can be conducted face-to-face,
by telephone, through video conferencing or using online programmes. For this project,
39
fifteen e-mails requesting for interviews were sent. Out of these, one person declined, one
did not respond and the third person accepted too late into the research and was therefore
not interviewed. Out of the twelve interviews conducted, one was face-to-face, four were
via telephone, two were via Skype, three were via e-mail, two were via both e-mail and
telephone.
In all cases ‘qualitative interview’ method using a ‘semi- structured’ approach was used.
This method starts with a scheduled set of questions (called an interview guide) with the
view to get the interviewees detailed point of view on the subject but gives room for
‘rambling’ as a means of providing insight into what is important to the interviewee. This
method also allowed for an interviewee to be spoken to on more than one occasion
(Bryman 2012: 470-471).
To help develop a mini-profile for the interviewees, a pre-interview questionnaire was sent.
A standard format was not used, it was adjusted slightly to fit the type and purpose of the
interview. Please see appendix 1 for interview guides and appendix 2a, 2b for sample pre-
interview questionnaires
Ethics/Consent
Before the start of each interview, participants were informed that the study was designed
purely for academic purposes, their participation was voluntary and they could withdraw at
any time during the discussion. The permission of participants was sought to electronically
record the interviews and quote their views in the report either by their names or
anonymously depending on their preference.
40
Advantages of interviews
Interviews tend to be flexible thus allowing the interviewer to gain understanding
of the viewpoints of the interviewees because of the opportunity it provides to
“prompt for more information if something interesting … emerges” (Daymon and
Holloway 2011: 220-221).
E-mail interviewing provides interviewees the opportunity to reflect and review
their answers and make changes as appropriate before sending them to the
interviewer while telephone and online interviews make it easy to reach people that
are geographically distant or otherwise difficult to reach face-to-face because of
their activity schedule, hence saving the researcher time and money (ibid).
Disadvantages of interviews
Wimmer and Dominic (2006: 134) & Daymon and Holloway (2011: 238) highlight some
of the disadvantages of interviews to include:
It is time consuming and labour intensive because of the quantity of data
usually collected and also the amount of time required to transcribe and analyse
this data.
The interviewer can have an effect on the interview such that the respondent
could chose to modify certain responses to give the impression of positivism to
the interviewer.
There is the possibility of misinterpreting the words of the participants during
data analysis; which could be due to cultural differences.
41
3.2.2 CASE STUDY
Bryman (2012: 66) states that “the basic case study entails the detailed and intensive
analysis of a single case”. According to Merriam (1988) cited in Wimmer and Dominic
(2006:137), this analysis is done with the aim of discovering new relationships between
variables rather than verifying existing hypotheses. Wimmer and Dominic 2006, notes that
this method draws from several data sources so as to investigate an event and understand
certain phenomenon.
Samples and sampling methods
Three universities that offer undergraduate PR courses or modules (under other
programmes) were selected as samples including the Mass Communications Department of
University of Jos, Nigeria (Unijos); the Mass Communication Department of Covenant
University, Nigeria and the PR and Communications Department of Leeds Metropolitan
University, UK (LeedsMet).
As suggested by Wimmer and Dominic (2006:138-140) the following were taken into
consideration in carrying out the case study:
Design: This answered “what to ask” and “what to analyse”; using available resources. For
this study, the design analysed the three samples and answered the questions in appendix 3.
Data collection: Data was collected from the websites of sample Universities; any
additional data was collected by contacting relevant persons/offices in the institutions.
42
Data analysis: According to Yin (1994) cited in Wimmer and Dominic (2006:139-140),
broad analytical data analysis can be carried out by ‘pattern-matching strategy’ -
comparing one or more predicted patterns; and/or ‘explanation building’ - seeking to gain
understanding through making statements about cause or causes of a phenomenon.
For this research, both pattern matching and explanation building were used to answer the
design questions.
Sampling challenges
Initially, the researcher selected University of Lagos as one of the samples of a Nigerian
Public University because research showed that it has one of the oldest Mass
Communications department in Nigeria and has a record of having produced the highest
number of Journalists, Broadcasters and PR practitioners in the nation (Unilag website
2014). The researcher however had to change this sample in the process of the research
because the information available on the programme on the University’s website was very
scanty. For example, the course curriculum was not available online. An e-mail and several
follow-up calls to the Head of Department requesting for these information proved abortive
as he was always very busy; even though he was kind even to grant a key figure interview.
The researcher also wishes to note that the revised curriculum (March 2013) found on the
website of the Department of Mass Communication, Unijos stated that it was ‘proposed’.
Contacts made to the department to confirm the current status of the curriculum showed
that the old one is gradually being phased out and the new is introduced. Currently, it has
been fully implemented for first and second year students. The idea of making it gradual
was to observe where changes will be needed before full implementation.
43
Advantages of case studies
According to Wimmer and Dominic (2006: 137), case studies offer a tremendous amount
of details for exploratory, descriptive or explanatory purposes as required; they can also
provide an explanation as to why something has occurred. Case studies give the researcher
an opportunity to deal with a wide spectrum of evidence ranging from historical artefacts,
documents and direct observations among others.
Disadvantages of case studies
Case studies have the disadvantage of producing a lot of data which might be time
consuming and therefore difficult to summarise. There is also a “general lack of scientific
rigor in many case studies” hence the possibility of a biased view by the researcher which
in turn might affect the results of the study, thereby making such results difficult to
generalise (Wimmer and Dominic 2006: 138).
3.2.3 QUALITATIVE CONTENT ANALYSIS
Walizer and Weinir (1978) cited in Wimmer and Dominick (2006: 150) define content
analysis as “any systematic procedure devised to examine the content of recorded
information.”
Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) is one of the methods available for interpreting
documents which “comprises a searching-out of underlying themes in the materials being
analysed.” Documents in this case refer to “materials that have not been produced at the
44
request of a social researcher… but are ‘out there’ waiting to be assembled and analysed.”
(Bryman 2012: 543, 556-557)
“Coding is the starting point for most forms of qualitative data analysis” says Bryman
(2012: 575) because “codes … serve as shorthand devices to label, separate, compile, and
organise data.” (Charmaz 1983 cited in Bryman 2012: 568). This study used coding sheets
to collect data; samples are attached as appendix 4a and 4b.
Sample
The study carried out two QCAs on the following:
1) ‘CIPR Code of Conduct and Complaints Procedure Document 2013’ and
the ‘NIPR Code of Professional Conduct Document 1992’;
2) CIPR official website and NIPR official website.
Advantage of Qualitative Content Analysis
According to Priest (2010: 108-109); QCA exposes the researcher to latent content which
can help in understanding the nuances of certain communication, especially through
cultural context rather than as separate elements.
Disadvantages of Qualitative Content Analysis
Miles (1979) cited in Bryman (2012: 565) describes QCA as an ‘attractive nuisance’
because as much as it helps generate attractive data, it is difficult to find analytic paths
through the data richness hence leaving the researcher at the risk of “failing to carry out a
true analysis.” And in any case, Wimmer and Dominick (2006: 138-139) emphasise that
the data gathered will largely depend on the categories used in the analysis, therefore QCA
45
cannot be used solely as a basis for drawing conclusions about the effects that a particular
content has had on an audience.
46
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Wimmer and Dominick (2006: 144) note that it is not possible to say everything in a
research report, this study has therefore selected quotes and examples that most vividly
answer the research questions and “illustrate the variety of information collected, including
situations that were uncommon or atypical.”
The research presents its findings in three chapters; each chapter discussing one of the
research methods used.
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION OF KEY FIGURE INTERVIEWS
Interviews were used to answer RQ1, RQ2 & RQ3 and part of RQ4, RQ5 and PQ6.
RQ1: What are stakeholder perceptions of PR in Nigeria?
The Managing Director of an indigenous company (anonymous indigenous 2014) observed
from a business leader’s point of view:
The way and manner that PR is practiced these days has been ‘bastardised’ in the
sense that it has become the only means of getting favour or securing the execution
of an otherwise procedural task by organisations or the government or even
individuals … The usual cliché of ‘wetting the ground' before an orchestrated and
transparent procedure could produce result has become the norm … In my own
opinion, PR and marketing functions are interwoven. I see PR as the
communication aspect of marketing.
From a public sector in-house PR point of view, Mr. Olugbenga Odugbesan (Odugbesan
2014) the Head of Communications of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory
Commission remarked:
If you are talking to practitioners, it connotes some level of confidence … but if
you are talking to non-practitioners, two things are striking in their responses -
number one … brown envelopes and number 2 … advertising.
47
Discussing the brown envelope phenomenon, Odugbesan 2014, argued, “It doesn’t matter
how newsworthy your activities are, if you want to be on cover, you pay to be on cover …
which makes the job of a professional PR practitioner very difficult.”
Engr. Mansur Ahmed (Ahmed 2014), the Executive Director, Stakeholder Relations and
Corporate Communications at Dangote Group, described BES as an “unfortunate
development in the Nigerian PR landscape … organisations who do not participate tend to
get unfair media coverage because stories emanating from these media bodies tend to be
lope sided in favour of those who give brown envelopes.”
From a journalistic perspective, Mr. Mohammed Momoh (Momoh 2014), a Deputy Editor-
in-Chief at the News Agency of Nigeria notes in frustration:
Many PR persons do not know what they are doing; they rely on their bosses to tell
them what to do and in many cases, the journalists too tell them what to do … it is
because of such inadequacies that you give money to journalist; if you have a good
story, you do not have to give money to get it published.
Mr. Nnemeka Maduegbuna (Maduegbuna 2014), a seasoned PR Consultant and two-term
President of the PRCAN referred to a PRCAN 2010 report that “observed the growing
acceptance and importance of PR practises in Nigeria”. He noted though that in the
selection of government spokespeople and in-house PR staff, the government “assumes
that anyone who has some understanding of journalism or broadcasting is automatically
qualified to manage PR and communications programmes, the result is that public sector
communications leaves much to be desired.”
Describing further the perception that journalists can carry out PR roles, Dr. Ikenna Nwosu
(Nwosu 2014), Managing Director, Mooregate Nigeria Ltd explains, “The first word that
48
comes to my mind once I hear of PR is journalism … the PR industry is beginning to
complain that journalists are encroaching their territory.”
Both Dr. Olutayo Otubanjo (Otubanjo 2014), a Senior Marketing Lecturer at the Lagos
Business School in Nigeria and Maduegbuna 2014 noted from their years of experience in
PR consulting, that most organisations run to PR as a last resort when in crises. The
exception is with businesses in the fast moving consumer goods, telecoms and financial
sector services, which understand and utilise PR services.
Discussion:
Clearly, PR in Nigeria, especially among non-PR practitioners is still largely perceived as
the giving of brown envelopes, advertising and/or journalism as pointed earlier in the
study’s literature review. Ekeanyanwu 2014; Ahmed 2014; Momoh 2014 and Olugbenga
2014 note that the brown envelope syndrome (BES) is reflective of the endemic corruption
in Nigeria as a whole, in addition to the fact that the salaries of some journalists are not
regularly paid.
Ahmed 2014; Momoh 2014 and Olugbenga 2014 add that for PR practitioners to practice
ethically and refrain from getting caught up in BES, it is important for them to develop
personal relationships with the media. Most of all, PR practitioners must aim to send out
not just accurate information about their organisations, but package such information in a
news worthy manner, making it irresistible to the more serious media organisations.
Ekeanyanwu (2014) however argues:
I have done a lot of work around the subject and come to the conclusion that it’s
not always okay to consider the media in isolation of the wider society, it’s an
49
aberration … BES is not just a communication/PR issue but a societal problem that
has permeated the whole cultural ethos so much so that people no longer see it as a
bad thing … if you don’t play along, you will not survive but continue to suffer.
Of the six personal definitions of PR (appendix 5) by Nigerian interviewees, only three
saw it as a ‘mutually beneficial’ process, others saw it as a tool for influencing their
stakeholders for the benefit of their organisations. This aligns with Koper et al (2009)’s
views that the dominant PR practices in Nigeria been press agency and public information
models, both one-way asymmetrical communications techniques described by Grunig and
Hunt (1984).
RQ2: What is the current professional profile of the PR industry in Nigeria?
Dr. Rotimi Oladele (Oladele 2014), the President of NIPR states categorically, “I can
gladly tell you that PR in Nigeria has meet up with levels and requirements of been a
profession, an example is our chartered status”. He assessed the skills/knowledge/capacity
level of practitioners:
We cannot generalise, there are organisations and individuals that are doing very
well and can compete with professionals from any part of the world; we also have
several multinational companies in Nigeria whose PR desks are manned by
Nigerians, if they are not doing very well, they would have not spent five, ten,
years in that role … I can therefore confidently tell you that in the whole of West
Africa, Nigerian PR practitioners are in the forefront.
Odugbesan 2014 partially agrees with Oladele 2014, he notes:
Efforts by government to make PR a profession started decades back with an
enabling Act of parliament setting up the NIPR … but we haven’t really had much
adherence to the ethical principles upon which the profession is based … we have
had a situation where everybody is a PR practitioner … the level of professionalism
is still far far below what is expected… you have so many charlatans.
Maduegbuna 2014 argues that:
50
Gone are those days when the focus was essentially on media relations. We now
have a situation in which quite a number of Nigerian practitioners are able to
provide services in the essential disciplines … We are beginning to see more use of
research and planning in the development of PR programmes and an increasing
foray into digital communications … [though] the numbers of PR consultants who
provide services well beyond the tactical aspects of the practice are not as should be
the case.
Dr. Nnamdi Ekeanyanwu (Ekeanyanwu 2014), a Senior Lecturer and immediate past Head
of Mass Communications Department at the Covenant University, Nigeria disagrees:
Your question is … suggestive of the existence of a PR industry. It is only in our
imagination and in name only. I am a practitioner and educator in this area for more
than ten years. The industry does not exist and the worst scenario is a total lack of
professionalism amongst so-called practitioners. With regard to media relations
activities, we cannot easily move away from propaganda because professionals do
not man the industry as it stands now. It is currently an all comers affair … more
than 80 percent of practitioners in the field today do not have relevant or adequate
training to be so called or addressed as PR professionals.
A General Manager, Corporate Affairs in a multinational company in Nigeria (anonymous
multinational 2014) also disagrees, “PR does not attract the brightest and the best. It makes
recruitment very difficult and de-values the discipline.”
Discussion:
The NIPR has been empowered by the government to regulate the Nigerian PR industry
and ensure professional practice, they need to adequately use the powers they have been
given. Nwosu 2014 puts it thus:
A lot more fundamental work needs to be done on the drawing board in the area of
rigorous enforcement of the standards, let us see every trace of … [NIPR’s] ability
to bite as much as they bark, by that action, any PR firm that contravenes will face
dire consequences.
Of the twelve interviewees, Six are Nigerian PR practitioners, and of this number, five
practiced journalism before going into PR practice while four have Mass Communication
backgrounds (please see table 2). As observed by Koper et al. (2009), the focus on Media
51
Relations by the Nigerian PR industry might not be unrelated to the fact that a good
percentage of Nigerian PR practitioners have journalism backgrounds and studied Mass
Communication degrees; giving the practice an undue emphasis on media relations rather
than management, strategy and organisational behaviour.
The researcher however wishes to stress that interview participants have had various
trainings and work experiences in PR and therefore carry out PR functions that are beyond
media relations as seen in the summary of the roles they perform in their organisations
(Please see appendix 6) which include research, stakeholder management, crisis
management and reputation audit among others.
RQ3: Is PR in Nigeria part of a management process or still a low level tactical role?
Anonymous multinational (2014) comments, “As General Manager, Corporate Affairs, I
am benchmarked at the same level as my counterparts in commercial parts of the business
and I have an equal role/participation at executive level.”
Odugbesan 2014 shared his experience:
Given the valuable contributions that I made at meetings and the way I positioned
the communications unit, my management realised how significant
communications is to the success of the organisation … the unit was therefore
recently upgraded from being just a member of the General Management Team to a
fully-fledged member of the Executive Management Team.
Maduegbuna 2014 observed that:
There is an increasing understanding that PR should be managed in a more strategic
manner than was hitherto the case. It has to be observed that this development is
more evident in the private sector. Given the dominant role of the public sector,
the relatively lower level of appreciation of PR in the sector, has meant that the
various governments in the federation have not effectively used PR in the discharge
of their mandates.
52
Momoh 2014 concurred with Maduegbuna (2014)’s view on the state of PR in public
sector agencies, he explained, “The PR department is usually very large … with a
directorate cadre but in Nigeria, even when you have it as a directorate, the director in
charge does not attend management meetings.”
Dr. Abayomi Charles Daramola (Daramola 2014), Acting Head, Mass Communications
Department, University of Lagos, Nigeria, from a scholar’s viewpoint argued that “most
managements are yet to embrace PR as an important aspect of contemporary practice so
PR in most organisations is yet to be elevated to the level of executive management”.
Daramola 2014 explains further that the problem could partly be because “most of the
practitioners in Nigeria do not have the academic preparation for handling PR at a
management level.”
Discussion:
It can be concluded from these responses that, whether PR is part of a Management process
of an organisation or remains tactical, is largely dependent on the value that PR adds
towards meeting strategic organisational goals. The ability of PR teams to add such value
is heavily dependent on the capacity that they have as pointed by a participant in Hon’s
(2007:15) survey on excellence in PR, “the more high-profile problem you solve with
minimal pain, the more PR will be trusted and invited into the management suite.”
Out of the eleven roles listed by Nigerian PR practitioners (appendix 8), five have the
word management therein, this emphasises the importance of PR as a management
function as highlighted in this study’s chosen definitions of PR. Therefore, it is important
53
that Nigerian University PR curriculums be reviewed to include management as
recommended by Koper et al (2009).
RQ4: How effective has the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) been in the
role of contributing to the growth and progression of the Nigerian PR industry?
Outlined below are responses of some participants on how they view NIPR as a body
and/or benefits of membership:
“Unfortunately, I am a member. In the last ten years, the body has not had any significant
or insignificant impact in my career as an academic/scholar.” (Ekeanyanwu 2014)
“I am not sure I am a proud member of the NIPR … For me, it is still not an organisation
to associate oneself with.” (Otubanjo 2014)
“NIPR does not do much to add value to our professions.” (Daramola 2014)
“Membership may be nice-to have for some. However, on a personal level I am yet to see
the value of the membership. In recruitment decisions, membership of the organisation
confers no advantage.” (Anonymous multinational 2014).
During discussions with Oladele (2014), the researcher asked how NIPR handles PR
practitioners that are not members of the institute as the NIPR Act of 1990 states that
illegal to practice PR in Nigeria without first been registered with NIPR.” He disclosed:
We are doing what I can call ‘step by step approach to managing quackery’. Our
first step is to put in place value adding training programmes that will formalise
54
membership of those who are willing but are not members yet. We also have an
additional approach called ‘Windows of Opportunity’ [WOO]. WOO are those
programmes that will allow people who are already doing a PR job at top
management level … to come in for a week or two and go through rudiments of
principles and practices and then be able to get membership … we have a one year
window for all those in that category to normalise their membership after which our
Compliance and Advocacy Committee will be able to challenge these individuals
and their employers … by way of taking them to court through the Attorney
General of the Federation.
Oladele 2014 highlighted one of the major achievements of NIPR:
The Federal government has [further] recognised our body … [by asking] the
Ministry of Education to equate our diploma with a first degree of any university in
the commonwealth. So if you have a diploma with NIPR, you have no business
doing a first degree in Mass Communications you can go for your masters straight,
this shows the level of development and recognition of NIPR.
Odugbesan 2014 however feels that “NIPR in its decades of existence has not found it
important to form alliances and partnership with training institutions to boost the
professionalism of people who studied Mass Communications … this is stunting the
growth of PR practice and professionalism in the country.”
Maduegbuna 2014 enumerated how PRCAN, entrusted by NIPR with the responsibility to
administer PR consultancy in Nigeria has contributed to the growth of the industry:
- Providing an umbrella for sharing best practice amongst registered firms,
- Insistence on compliance with the legal requirements for practicing PR in Nigeria,
- Capacity development for the industry which has helped in grooming a cadre of
professionals with sound theoretical grounding in PR,
- Advocacy for PR through advertising campaigns, stakeholder engagements,
collaboration with various professional bodies etc.
Discussion:
This finding points that NIPR may be in operation but falls short of what members expect
from a chartered professional organisation and industry regulator in an increasingly global
world. Some of these gaps may be breached by NIPR joining an international PR body like
55
the Global Alliance whose mission among others is to raise the professional standards of
PR practices all over the world through knowledge sharing (Global Alliance 2014).
Oladele 2014 comments on NIPR’s membership in Global Alliance:
We have been members since 2001, but along the line, one of the leadership was
sentenced from the body and then discontinued. But by the grace of God in
September 2014, I will be in Spain to renew our membership and pay all our arrears
because if you want to be relevant, you must be global, if you don’t have a global
perspective, then you are not a current professional.
Cutlip et al (2006:132) note that the establishment of professional organisations is part of
the efforts been made by many practitioners to surround their practices with status and
promote competence among members through conferences, publications, seminars and
advocacy initiatives. The NIPR could add more value to its members by making the
aforementioned activities well-structured and well thought through so that members can
through these build capacity.
RQ6: What areas and issues if addressed could facilitate the professionalisation of the
Nigerian PR industry?
1. Focus on global and digital practice
Quentin Langley (Langley 2014), a Senior Marketing Lecturer, at the University of
Bedfordshire, UK lends his voice from an international perspective “Current practice is
increasingly digital and global. Even though the digital platforms will continue to change,
they will still be governed by similar principles such as interactivity, wisdom of crowds”
Olugbenga (2014); Momoh (2014) and Maduegbuna (2014) agree with Quentin’s view on
the importance of digital media to PR practice. Maduegbuna (2014) says “It is clear that
56
the social and digital media is vibrant, active and is becoming a more potent force –for
good or ill- in Nigeria. PR practitioners must adapt or be lost in the crowd.”
2. NIPR as Regulator and Trade Association
Maduegbuna 2014 observes:
It has become clear that the current institutional arrangement for PR practice in
Nigeria needs to be reviewed … The problem lies in the hybrid nature of the NIPR.
It is both a regulator and a trade association. Standards remain the benchmark for
professional practice and should be strictly adhered to. A body different from the
trade association should therefore be charged with the responsibility of setting
standards, determining who can practice, monitoring whether practitioners adhere
to the standards, and sanctioning those practitioners who err. Such a body has to be
isolated from the trade unionism and politicking of the trade association.
Nwosu (2014) and Momoh (2014) stressed same point.
3. Raising the bar of practice through professional training
“I think we should raise the bar of PR practice in this country by setting enviable standards
that will make it difficult for charlatans to survive.” He suggests that for NIPR exams and
certification to have value for its holders, the institute should consider building
partnerships with reputable local and international training institutions such that the
training curriculum will be in line with contemporary PR practices (Odugbesan 2014).
Nwosu (2014) concurs; “NIPR needs to develop collaborations or have MOUs with similar
regulators in other countries in order to domesticate global best practices.”
Anonymous multinational (2014) stresses that “PR can improve its status by putting a
‘science’ around reputation management, developing & communicating the strategic link
between PR and bottom line, the development of intelligent/relevant training programs &
57
case study, speaking the language of business and attracting those who have backgrounds
that speak to intellectual rigour at the moment.”
These views agree with what Koper et al (2009: 302) suggested that NIPR should embark
on training and educational programmes tailored to get its members prepared to cope with
modern trends and global demands.
4. Improving PR capacities through on-the-job training
Otubanjo (2014) notes with dismay the tendency by business organisations to have neither
the time nor patience to train fresh graduates. He opines that Nigerian Universities within
the limitation of their resources are doing their best, but business organisations must be
willing to invest in their staff if they hope for good results as obviously, people cannot give
what they do not have.
5. Ensuring synergy among industry players
“The desired synergy between in-house practitioners and external consultants seems to be
lacking. There is an urgent need for the development and sustenance of mutual trust
amongst PR practitioners regardless of whether they are in-house practitioners or external
consultants” Maduegbuna 2014 suggests.
58
CHAPTER 5: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION OF CASE STUDIES OF
UNIVERSITIES OFFERING UNDERGRADUATE PR
PROGRAMMES/MODULES.
Case studies were carried out on undergraduate PR curriculum because “Undergraduate
programs are basically designed to prepare future practitioners ... [and] cultivate a person
who can assume technical and managerial positions.” (The Global Public Relations Report
2010: 2,14-15). This method was used to partly answer the following research questions:
RQ5: What forms of educational trainings are available to current and aspiring PR
practitioners in Nigeria?
RQ6: What areas/issues if addressed could facilitate the professionalisation of the
Nigerian PR industry?
The method was used to gather and analyse data by comparing trends and/or patterns using
“pattern-matching strategy.” (Yin 1994 cited in Wimmer and Dominic 2006:139).
Table 3: Sample Universities that offer undergraduate PR programmes or PR
modules under other programmes and details of these programmes.
University Leeds Metropolitan
University, UK
University of Jos,
Nigeria
Covenant University,
Nigeria
Programme title PR and
Communication
Mass
Communications
Mass
Communications
University type Public Public Private
Year PR course/module
started
1991 1999 2002
Is PR offered as a fully- Yes No No, but after 200
59
fledged undergraduate
degree?
level, students can
specialise in either
Print and online
journalism, Broadcast
Journalism or PR and
Advertising.
What programme is the
PR module under?
Not applicable Mass
Communication
Mass Communication
What Faculty/College? Business and Law Arts Development Studies
What School? Strategy,
Marketing and
Communication
N/A Human Resource
Development
Degree awarded after
the programme
BA (Hons) PR and
Communication
BA (Hons) Mass
Communication
B.Sc (Hons) Mass
Communication
Full time course
duration
3 years 4 years 4 years
Modes of attendance Full time, part time
and sandwich
Full time Full time
Current student
population
Not stated 711 269
Academic staff strength Not stated 23 (20 full time
and 3 Art fellows)
20 (17 full-time and 3
adjunct)
Are internships/media
attachments part of the
programme?
Yes Yes Yes
As suggested by Yin (1994) cited in Wimmer and Dominic (2006: 140), “explanation
building” was used to seek to gain understanding about cause or causes of certain
phenomenon in the samples.
The findings are presented below.
5.1 BA (HONS) PR AND COMMUNICATION, LEEDS METROPOLITAN
UNIVERSITY, UK
An analysis of the curriculum (see full curriculum attached as table 4 on page 100) of this
programme shows that:
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PR offered as a fully-fledged programme: The programme is a fully fledged PR degree
with an emphasis on business communication which may not be unrelated to the fact the
programme is domiciled in the Faculty of Business and law.
Interdisciplinary aspect of the curriculum: the core modules of the course cover
marketing, social psychology, media environment, internal communication etc. It also has
optional modules that prepare students for careers in political communications, celebrity
management, arts marketing or media marketing making it interdisciplinary though strictly
related to PR, Communication and Marketing fields.
Research Programme: Leeds Met is currently the only UK University that has two PR
Professors; Prof Anne Gregory and Prof Ralph Tench both very research active. As noted
by Prof. Ralph Tench, academic research is vital to PR education hence the constant
collaboration between Leeds Met and other researchers across Europe on the current
developments and issues of professional PR practice which continues to influence the
course module content (Leeds Met website 2014).
Internships: Students are expected to gain work/volunteering experience for a minimum
of two weeks per academic year; this is evidenced with a portfolio (both physical and
digital) that provides students with an opportunity to develop their employability skills
with proof to prospective employers.
Engagement with industry and other institutional collaborations: The course team
constantly engages with PR practitioners on current issues and trends in the industry and
share same with students through guest lectures and module inputs.
Key unique features of the course:
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1. Mentoring programmes are available for students through guest lectures, work
placements slots, and graduate jobs using alumni from the course that are industry
players in senior positions internationally. The scheme also offers second and third
year students opportunity for regular industry contact as a means to help them
understand the rules of engagement and provide them with support that will
enhance their employability.
2. The curriculum has a core module that prepares students for “Digital
Communications Management” (DCM) which is a key skill in any given
contemporary work environment given the explosion of the internet and
globalisation.
3. Accreditation: the programme is accredited by CIPR; the department is also a
member of the educational chapter of the PRCA both in the UK. The programme
receives many benefits from this accreditation and/or collaborations. For instance,
changes in technology and work practices are monitored by these bodies and shared
with this institution with the aim of making inputs into the curriculum hence
embedding employability firmly in the programmes.
5.2 BA (HONS) MASS COMMUNICATION, UNIVERSITY OF JOS,
NIGERIA.
An analysis of the curriculum (see full curriculum attached as table 5 on page 101) of this
programme shows that:
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PR not a fully-fledged programme: PR is offered in this institution as one of the six
sequences of the Mass Communication programme and even then, it is lumped with
advertising.
Sequences in the programme include:
Broadcast and New Media,
Cinematographic Arts,
Media and Society/Media Institutions and Policy,
Print/Publishing,
PR and Advertising, and
Research.
Looking through the curriculum, out of thirty-one core modules spread across the first two
years of the programme, only one, ‘Principles of PR’ is directly PR related and out of the
twenty-seven electives during same period, only two are PR related. This arrangement is
not sufficient to adequately prepare students for PR roles and functions.
Interdisciplinary aspect of the curriculum: It is clear that the course is highly
interdisciplinary as seen in the sequences available not as electives but core modules.
Research Programme: Research is one of the six sequences of the programme. The
curriculum is such that between 100 – 400 levels, there are four core modules for
Communication Research and one elective module for Advertising and PR Research. This
should be sufficient training to carry out research when in the field.
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Internship/Media Attachment: Media attachment and Project have the highest credit of
six units each in the curriculum; it shows the importance attached to these items. The
Media Attachment is done through working with media institutions and organisations
throughout the second semester 300 level. This attachment is supervised and graded.
Engagement with industry and other institutional collaborations: No specific
institutions mentioned on the website where industry collaborations are concerned but
there is a commitment by the department to “endeavour to provide students with
opportunities for intensive practical hands-training … in liaison with media houses and
similar training institutions located in the immediate vicinity of the University …” (Unijos
website 2014).
5.3 BSC (HONS), MASS COMMUNICATION, COVENANT UNIVERSITY,
NIGERIA.
An analysis of the curriculum (see full curriculum attached as table 6 on page105) of this
programme shows that:
PR not a fully-fledged programme: The degree awarded at the end of this programme is
a BSc. Mass Communication, with three optional areas of specialisation namely Print and
Online Journalism, Broadcast Journalism and PR & Advertising. It is structured such that
in the first two years, courses are general with only two core modules directly PR related
offered in 100 level and one elective PR course offered in 200 level.
However, it is commendable that in 300 and 400 levels, students have the option of
focusing fully on PR and advertising as an area of interest.
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Interdisciplinary aspect of the curriculum: The course is interdisciplinary as seen in the
various subjects covered especially in the first and second years. This is in line with the
department’s objective of striving to “raise communication experts with diverse
competencies and potentials for leadership positions in the industry and other sister
industries”, says the Head of the Department, Prof. Idowu Sobowale (Covenant university
website 2014).
Research Programme: The research mission of the programme is to “train students …
who would be competent to carry out research into relevant social issues that would
address the developmental needs of the Nigerian citizenry. In like manner, our faculty
would be encouraged to embark on rigorous research, not only to ensure their academic
advancement, but also to be fountains of resources to their students” (ibid).
The course curriculum has three compulsory research modules and the department has
three research clusters namely, Content Analysis, Survey and Qualitative Methods
Research Groups each chaired by departmental lecturers who are PhD holders (ibid).
Internship/media attachment: Students are expected as part of their course to undertake a
media attachment in their 300 level aimed at helping students understand the operations of
an advertising and/or PR Agency or an in-house advertising/PR department of any
recognised organisation. The arrangement is carefully monitored by the University to
ensure that the student gains valuable experience at the end of which they are expected to
submit a comprehensive account of their experiences in a report.
Engagement with industry and other institutional collaborations: As a means to bridge
the gap between the classroom and practical industry experience, staff and students
regularly engage in industry-based facility tours, excursions and field trips to related
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industries. Students are in the process made aware of industry needs and challenges and
therefore have the option to pattern their dissertations towards addressing these needs.
The department has a “growing relationship” with the Institute of International Journalism,
School of Communication, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio.
5.4 IDENTIFIED GAPS IN THE NIGERIAN CURRICULUM AND OTHER
ISSUES:
1. Digital Communications Management (DCM): In the University of Jos
curriculum, there are three courses available to students that seem related to DCM
titled ‘Introduction to basic computer operations’, ‘Basics of Blogging and Web
Casting’ and ‘Introduction to New Media & Digital Communication’.
Of particular interest is the module description for the ‘Introduction to New Media
& Digital Communication’ which reads in part “introduces students to the key
issues in the study of new media and digital communications. The key concepts that
have shaped new media’s brief history, differentiating new media from older media
forms, are discussed” (Unijos website 2014). This is simply historical not practical.
For Covenant University, only one general university course is available to students
that seems related to DCM titled ‘Use of library study skills and information
communication technology.
Both arrangements might teach students basic computer skills but it is grossly
insufficient for the complexities and skills required for DCM. The Global Public
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Relations Education report (2010:4) explains the importance of social and digital
media in modern communication:
Clearly, today’s PR is a global profession, and multi-national agencies
continue to close geographic gaps by utilising social media, virtual
conferences, and other innovations in technology and communication. To
keep up with these global changes, and indeed, to initiate leadership for the
global markets, PR education and training must be structured along a global
perspective: educators must meet the demands for skilled workers who are
inter-culturally competent and technological savvy, and who hold a world
view.”
A curriculum that provides DCM training can help prepare students for the
technology savviness required by the industry.
2. A key skill requirement for PR and communication is “Issues and Crises
management”. There is no module in the current curriculum of both Universities
that prepares students for managing issues and handling crisis.
3. Communications audit: As a means of evaluating the effectiveness of
communication among stakeholders, it is important to arm students with the skills
for communications audit. This is absent in both curriculums.
4. The Covenant University curriculum has three elective courses in the final year; PR
in government, PR in practice and PR in commercial organisations. These could
have each been made compulsory because at this stage in an undergraduate’s life, it
is not likely that he/she already knows what aspect of PR they will be going into, so
might be helpful that they are introduced to all.
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5. Available modes of attendance: both Nigerian Universities do not have the option
of sandwich or part time mode of attendance, what that means is that people
interested in getting a PR undergraduate degree on a part-time bases might be
unable to benefit from this programme.
5.5 Further Discussions from Excerpts of Interviews
During key figure interviews, some interesting insights were gained on the likelihood of
PR becoming a fully-fledged undergraduate degree in Nigerian Universities. Ekeanyanwu
2014 said:
By the time I took over as the Head of Department, my intention was that we have
a fully-fledged PR programme, so we invited the National Universities
Commission (NUC) to approve the programme before we begin to run it, they told
us they do not have a template to evaluate PR programmes in Nigeria … so they
did not have any standard to use; but for Mass Communications, they already had a
template … so we had to go back to Mass Communication and just include the PR
and advertising option.
Ekeanyanwu (2014) suggested that NIPR should partner with Universities in Nigeria to
develop a ‘workable PR curriculum’ and present this as a template to NUC who may then
consider approving and using it to regulate the delivery of fully-fledged PR courses.
Ironically, NIPR does not have any plans to encourage the development of fully-fledged
PR degrees. Oladele 2014 explains:
You should understand that employment is a great challenge for developing nations
like Nigeria and by the time you go through an education that gives you a very
narrow perspective, your chances of getting a job becomes slimmer because of that,
for now, we will not be recommending that all Universities should be offering
degree fields that will only address PR. Offered as modules in marketing and Mass
Communications gives students a broadened opportunity of getting employment or
practising on their own in a very wide spectrum rather than a narrow perspective.
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The Global Public Relations Education report (2010:3) notes that, “barriers to development
of the ideal PR program include resources, government, country culture, program structure,
and inadequate or ineffective relationships with practicing professionals.”
Some of these inadequate or ineffective relationships with practicing professionals within
the Nigerian context were exposed in the response to a question on the existence of an
‘institutional relationship between NIPR and the Mass Communications departments of
universities.
Daramola 2014, pointed that there was no institutional relationship between NIPR and the
Mass Communications department of University of Lagos, Nigeria; “we only have
lecturers who are NIPR members and that is as far as it goes”. Ekeanyanwu 2014, from the
Mass communications department of the Covenant University, Nigeria, said; “none
currently. Although I initiated training our students, in conjunction with the body, on
writing the professional examinations, but because this comes with no clear benefits, it
never worked.”
Oladele 2014 however emphasises:
We have very very cordial relationships with all Universities and Polytechnics in
these forms. Number one, the NIPR has her accreditation team that works with the
National Universities Commission [NUC]. The NUC accredits all courses in
Nigerian Universities and they go with their team of professional academics in a
particular profession to accredit those courses. So we have a robust membership
team that go along with them … we have a very cordial relationship with regulators
of tertiary institutions and with individual universities and polytechnics. We have
gone beyond that level now, from next year, we have a Joint Certification
Committee. That committee is to plant the curriculum of NIPR into the modules of
Mass communication departments so that when you give them their HND or their
first degree, they are just inducted as associate members of NIPR.
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It is clear therefore from this finding that the Nigerian PR industry and academia need to
develop a more robust exchange as prescribed by Stephen Waddington (2014b), the
President of CIPR. Waddington (2014b) suggests that for PR to function at the highest
level in a modern organisation, practitioners must “call themselves to account to the same
standards as set by other professionals such as finance, humans relations and lawyers …
that’s foundation knowledge, ethics, a community of knowledge, qualifications, continuous
professional development and a robust exchange between academia and practice.”
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CHAPTER 6: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION OF QUALITATIVE CONTENT
ANALYSIS
Two Qualitative Content Analyses (QCA) were used to partly answer the following
research questions:
RQ4: How effective has the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations been in the role of
contributing to the growth and progression of the PR Nigerian industry?
RQ6: What areas/issues if addressed could facilitate the professionalisation of the
Nigerian PR industry?
6.1 QCA OF CIPR AND NIPR OFFICIAL WEBSITES
Websites are top among the owned media spaces available for an organisation to market its
products and services (Oldershaw 2013, slide 16). “A good website grabs your attention …
and gives you easily what you need.” Good websites are also well organised, simple to
navigate, contain original content, have an outstanding design, easy to read, use effective
link building and also search engine optimisation strategies in order to be easily found by
their target audiences (m5 Design studio).
With these is mind, I analysed the content, layout and images on the NIPR and CIPR
websites with the view to note how elements work together to make the website a one-stop
resource centre for current global information on PR and PR related issues.
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The findings are presented as follows:
1. Contact details
Phone number: All contact phone numbers on the CIPR website were easy to find
and functional. On the NIPR website, there are two contact numbers, the first was
dialled at 12 noon on 17/07/2014 and 9.45am on 18/07/14 and both times, it was
switched off. The second line was functional but it is a cell phone number and call
was answered by a marketing officer who was not available to have any discussion
at the time because he was at an official NIPR function. The research recommends
that NIPR should have a dedicated official land line and receptionist to attend to
calls during working hours.
Email: For both websites, there is a contact e-mail address and the researcher
presumes both are functional. It is a presumption because separate mails were sent
to both organisations and as at the time of compiling this report, none had
responded and the mail did not bounce back.
On the CIPR website, apart from the general contact details on ‘contact us’ on the
homepage, there are specific contact people with their contact details available for
specific enquiries including media enquiries, lodging a complaint, membership,
marketing and events.
2. Social media platforms
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According to Oldershaw (2013. Slide 16), some of the owned spaces for an organisation
aside from its website include “owned Facebook pages”, “owned Linkedin groups”,
“owned Twitter accounts” and “owned Youtube channels”. It is in these spaces that “social
media publishing” takes place. Social media publishing is the activity of managing a
company’s messaging on owned spaces (Oldershaw 2013, slide 17).
CIPR has links to all these social media platforms while NIPR has not opened such
platforms, thus limiting its ability to interact with its stakeholders. The research though
showed there exist a Facebook page named “Lectures for the Nigerian Institute of Public
Relations (https://www.facebook.com/NIPRLecturesLagos), which is a “a platform set up
to give you information on how to become a member of the PR regulating body in
Nigeria”.
3. Home Page
Items on the home page can give an idea on what is most important to an organisation,
hence the study’s interest in finding out what items are available on each institute’s
website.
Table 7: What items are available on the institute’s homepage?
CIPR NIPR
About the Institute Yes Yes
Welcome from the President’s desk No Yes
Upcoming events Yes Yes
Membership joining details Yes Yes
Training calendar Yes Available but when clicked, returned
no results.
Latest news Yes No
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4. About Us: How detailed is the information on the institute?
Table 8: Items available on the ‘about us’ page
CIPR NIPR
Profile of the Institute Yes Yes
History Yes Yes
Mission, vision and values Yes Mission and aim available
Details of governance and
administration structure
Yes No
Profile of Council members Yes Only names available, no profiles
Profile of Board members Yes No
List of fellows of the institute Yes Yes
Admin staff and their profile Yes No
Latest membership figure Yes (2013) No
5. Academics/Qualifications/Courses
One of the core mandates of both institutes is to provide capacity building opportunities for
their members; hence the study’s interest in finding out the amount of information
available on PR diplomas and certificates on the institute’s website.
Table 9: Items available on the academics/qualifications page
CIPR NIPR
List of courses Yes Yes
Profile of trainers Yes No
Calendar Yes Yes
Examination requirements Yes Yes
Study centres Yes Yes
Cost Yes They asked to contact the organisation
for latest details of fees.
What students say Yes No
6. Training/Workshop
Trainings and workshops are another means through which professional institute provide
opportunities for its members to build capacity and network.
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Table 10: Items available on the training/workshop page
CIPR NIPR
List of available trainings Yes No
Profile of trainers Yes No
Training calendar Yes No
Training centres Yes No
Workshop cost Yes No
Special offers/discounts Yes No
Course finder Yes No
7. Resources (General and Member)
These are reference materials that practitioners can find very useful in the course of their
work.
Table 11: Items available on the resources page of the website
CIPR NIPR
Books Yes No
Case studies Yes No
Guides Yes No
Policies Yes No
Best practice Yes No
Skills guide Yes No
8. Resources available to members only
CIPR website has a “members only” area which gives members access to business and
legal advice, case studies, skills guides, members directory, webinars, jobs/IT placement
notices etc. NIPR has none. It may be useful to have these as that will give members better
value for their membership and experience-sharing opportunities.
9. Branding
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Given the importance of branding in PR and marketing communications, the researcher
analysed NIPR’s logo to see if it is aesthetically appealing and suggest that a new logo
should be designed.
Figure 1: NIPR’s logo.
10. Use of images on the website
This study compared the use of images on both websites and found that CIPR uses images
minimally while NIPR is generous with the use images however, they are not engaging.
For instance, under ‘membership of NIPR’ and ‘about NIPR- the Council’, images used
seem randomly sourced/bought online with no consideration of the cultural context in
communications. NIPR has or can have access to local but relevant pictures for the
Nigerian context, for example images from pass events or locally shot pictures with real
Nigerian faces or themes.
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Figure 2a: Image used on the membership page of NIPR website
Figure 2b: Another image used on the membership page of NIPR’s website
Figure 2c: Image used on council members page on NIPR’s website
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Figure 3: NIPR Homepage
Figure 4: CIPR Homepage
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11. Other items on CIPR’s website that make it user friendly
As shown in figure 4, CIPR’s homepage is not cluttered, making it easy to read.
For quick and easy access to items on the CIPR’s website, there is provision for a
‘search’ box.
There is a proper use of hyperlinks on the CIPR’s website, making it easy to
navigate further information on subjects of interest to the website visitor.
6.1.2 Further Discussion from Excerpts of Interviews
Otubanjo 2014 describing the NIPR website said “nothing takes you to that website but
eventually, if you find yourself in that website … it gives a minus zero representation of
PR in Nigeria … the quality is poor.”
Oladele 2014, the National President of NIPR comments:
A contract has been awarded to a company to build us a robust website for our
headquarters in Abuja, the website you are looking at now is the Lagos office
website, so in the course of a few months ahead, we are going to have an
overbearing website in which on a daily basis, an update will be made and all our
affairs, both external and internal would be incorporated in a giffi. What we have
now is what we meet on ground and it’s not the best.
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6.2 QCA OF CIPR CODE OF CONDUCT AND COMPLAINTS
PROCEDURE DOCUMENT OF 2013 AND NIPR CODE OF
PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT DOCUMENT OF 1992
L’Etang (2004) notes the contribution that the development of codes of conducts and ethics
makes towards professionalism in any occupation as it puts regulations on ground that
serve as a uniform practice guide for practitioners.
With this in mind, a QCA of the CIPR and NIPR code documents were carried out with the
aim to compare and contrast them and find in the process certain things that the NIPR
could learn from the CIPR as it aims towards professionalisation.
The findings are presented as follows:
1. Purpose of the document
People tend to misuse information when they do not know the purpose for it; the study
therefore checked and found that both the NIPR and CIPR codes stated the purpose of their
codes in the introductory notes of both documents.
For the NIPR, the purpose is to “determine what standards of knowledge and skills are to
be attained by PR practitioners. For high standards of practice”; while for CIPR, the
document is “one means by which the CIPR and its members fulfil the purpose set out in
the institute’s royal charter: to promote … standards of practice and professional conduct.”
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2. Last date of review of the documents
It is general knowledge that globalisation has brought opportunities as well as challenges
to various aspects of human existence. For the PR profession, it has brought about a rapid
evolution in communication styles and channels; this is one reason why the expected codes
of conduct by members of a PR professional body needs to be continuously reviewed to
keep members both informed and prepared.
As at the time of this research, the latest CIPR code was that of 2013 while the latest NIPR
code was the first one prepared in 1992. The NIPR document has never been reviewed
despite the fact that it is stated in the citation of the document that “the institute must from
time to time update its code of professional conduct.”
3. Social Media Best Practice Guide
In line with the foregoing, as an “advisory note to accompany the [CIPR] Code of
Conduct”, the institute in 2011 designed a “Social Media Best Practice Guide” to help
members “navigate a rapidly evolving communications landscape … and ensure that the
challenges faced by the PR profession have been reviewed against an evolving set of tools,
technologies, legal and governance framework.” (CIPR Social Media Best Practice Guide
2013)
It will be important that the NIPR develops a similar guide bearing in mind the unique
Political, Economic, Social, Technological and Legal environment it operates.
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4. Definition of words and expressions
To avoid confusion or misinterpretation of words and ensure proper understanding of
expressions, the CIPR code has a section (page 11 of 24) called definitions. The NIPR
document does not have this.
5. Increase and maintain professional standards
Both the NIPR and CIPR codes encourage members to increase and maintain theirs and
other aspiring professional standards by participating in Continuing Professional
Development (CPD) programmes. However, in addition to participation in CPD, CIPR
encourages its members to
Participate in committees of the institute,
Offer work experience to PR students,
Participate in online interaction with members,
Show a preference for the institute’s applicants for staff vacancies, and
Encourage colleagues to join and support the institute.
The NIPR code is silent about these.
6. What NIPR and CIPR members agree to
In both the NIPR and CIPR documents, members agree to:
Maintain the highest standards of professional conduct;
Deal honestly and fairly with employers, employees, clients, fellow
professionals, other professions and the public;
Respect and abide by the codes and ensure that subordinates and sub-
contractors answerable to them do same;
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Uphold the reputation of the institute and do nothing to bring it to disrepute;
In all dealings, respect other people, the legal and regulatory frameworks
and laws of countries where they practice;
Conduct professional activities with consideration to public interest.
Make promises to deliver (to employers or clients) only what is within their
abilities and/or resources.
7. Penalties for breach
Depending on the type of breach, both the NIPR and CIPR have the following penalties:
Reprimand,
Suspension, or
Expulsion/Termination.
In addition to the above, the CIPR code specifies other ways of handling complaints or a
breach that NIPR could consider adopting, these include:
Advise the member that the compliant was brought about;
Make member return to a client all or part of a fee which client has paid for
a service;
Drop the case.
8. Complaints lodging procedure
The NIPR document is a “Code of Professional Conduct” while the CIPR document is a
“Code of Conduct and Complaints Procedure” hence the detailed complaints procedure
found in the CIPR document including:
Notes on who may make a complaint and who may be complained about,
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Laid down procedures for reporting, handling and resolving complaints,
Procedure for initial checks and informal attempt at reconciliation by a
“Regulatory Consultant” failing which a compliant will be forwarded to the
“Professionals Standards Panel”
Provision of step by step process of appeal against a decision of the
“Professionals Standards Panel” by an “Appeals Panel”.
6.2.1 Further Discussion from Excerpts of Interview
During the researcher’s key figure interview with Oladele 2014, he informs that:
We have the by-laws of the code of ethics which members normally adhere to …
members of NIPR who are practising lawyers have been formed into a committee
to review all the by-laws of the constitution, they are called the ‘Law Review
Committee.
He said in addition to lawyers on the committee, there were other members from Nigerian
law enforcement agencies like the State Security Services and the Navy.
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CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION, LIMITATION AND RECOMMENDATION
7.1 CONCLUSION
The study found that PR in Nigeria is still very much perceived as the giving of brown
envelopes (BES), advertising, journalism and/or media relations. BES is reflective of the
endemic corruption in the Nigerian system as a whole while the undue emphasis on media
relations as the paramount function of PR might not be unrelated to the fact that a good
number of Nigerian PR practitioners have a journalism background.
An analysis of the requirements for professionalisation showed that the Nigerian PR
industry has met the criteria of having a professional organisation - the NIPR, which
attained charter status in 1990 with Decree 16 (now Act of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria). The NIPR has developed codes of professional conduct that ought to guide its
members but the enforcement of these codes is still a challenge.
The industry is yet to meet the criteria of having a specialised and standardised PR
education, an established body of knowledge and community recognition as an essential
service. As a result of these gaps, people from other fields are able to get into PR and
practice without undergoing any specialised education and/or training. As argued by
Ferguson (1987), cited in Cutlip et al. (2000:49), this is a pointer that PR is yet to achieve
professional status.
The case studies and interview findings showed that the current arrangement where PR
modules are embedded within Mass communications departments in Nigerian
undergraduate university programmes is inadequate to meet the needs of the industry given
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the influx of multinationals into various business sectors, global best practices, the
importance of PR as a management function and the paradigm shift that digital and social
media has introduced to communications. Hence the need to establish PR as an
independent discipline in Nigerian universities.
There is also the need to review the current institutional arrangement of NIPR as both a
regulator and trade association. Participants recommended that a body different from the
trade association should be charged with the responsibility of setting standards,
determining who can practice, and sanctioning defaulters among others. Such a body has
to be isolated from the trade unionism and politicking of the trade association.
The qualitative content analysis (QCA) of the NIPR and CIPR codes of conduct documents
shows clearly that the NIPR code of professional conduct document of 1992 is overdue for
a review. The QCA of the NIPR and CIPR websites also showed that NIPR website needs
to be reviewed in terms of content, layout and design; given the importance of branding as
an aspect of PR.
The study found that if the Nigerian PR industry professionalises, then it can be better
positioned to take advantage of the economic growth that the country is currently
undergoing. As noted in the background of the study “a country’s economic development
provides PR professionals opportunities as well as challenges.” (Sriramesh and Vercic
(2003: 6).
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7.2 LIMITATIONS
Because of the selected samples of the key figure interviews, the views expressed are
limited to the opinions and experiences of the sample, all of whom are top management
cadre PR practitioners or MDs/CEOs of big organisations. This is a limitation in that the
opinions of middle management and fresh graduates were not represented and the study
could have benefitted from getting perceptions from different cadre of stakeholders.
As a result of time and resource limitations, the study could not consider in-depth how the
Nigerian PR industry is coping with the increasing demands that come with managing of
communications through digital and social media. Cutlip et al (2006: 113) note that from
1986 to date, the internet radically changed everything; providing unlimited access to a
powerful and instantaneous system of information distribution and consumption.
The study could have also benefitted more from a wider sample of case studies by
including about two US universities and one more UK university, but given the dissertation
word count limit and the fact that the study used three major methods of primary data
collection, the samples for the case studies were limited to only three Universities.
Finally, given the insufficiency of PR modules offered under Mass Communication
programmes, this study could have been enriched by researching professional
trainings/workshops that are available to practitioners who wish to build capacity.
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7.3 RECOMMENDATIONS
Following the highlighted limitations of this study, future studies could be carried out in
the following areas:
1. Globalisation and the Nigerian PR industry: Prospects and challenges.
2. PR Professionalism in Nigeria - the importance of codes of conduct and ethics.
3. Professionalisation of PR in Nigeria: the role of education, research and a body of
knowledge.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Abayomi Charles Daramola 2014, Personal Interview.
2. Abeywickrema, K. D. 2013. Public Relations in Sri Lanka: Its current state and
movement towards professionalisation. MA thesis, JOMEC, Cardiff University.
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33. Mansur Ahmed 2014, Personal Interview.
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40. Nigeria becomes Africa's biggest economy. BBC News. [Online]. Available at:
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2014].
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http://www.nigeriaworld.com/focus/ [Accessed on 31st May 2014].
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46. Olugbenga Odugbesan 2014, Personal Interview.
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49. Pieczka, M & L’Etang, J. 2001. Public Relations and the question of
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international Public Relations. Pearson: 255-278.
93
LIST OF TABLES
TABLE 1: HIGHER INSTITUTIONS RUNNING PR PROGRAMMES/MODULES IN
NIGERIA
NO INSTITUTION DIPLOMA/DEGRE
E/ MODULES
UPDATE
1. Nigerian Institute of Public
Relations Professional
Certificate and Diploma in
PR
2. Nigerian Institute of
Marketing Professional
Diploma in Marketing
(PR modules)
3. Nigerian Institute of
Journalism, Lagos
OND/HND/PgD
Public Relations
4. University of Lagos, Akoka,
Lagos
BSc/PgD/MSc/PhD
Mass
Communications (PR
modules)
5. Bisi Onabanjo University,
Ago Iwoye
Dip/BA/PgD Public
Relations
My checks show that
course offered is Mass
Communication, not PR.
http://www.jamb.org.ng/un
ifiedtme/Management/Prin
t.aspx?ReportType=11
6. University of Ibadan, Ibadan BA/MA/MCA/MPhil/
PhD Communication
and Lang. Arts (PR
modules)
7. University of Nigeria, Nsuka BA/PgD/MA/PhD
Mass Communication
(PR modules)/MSc
PR
8. University of Port Harcourt BA/PgD/MA/PhD
Mass
Communications (PR
modules)
9. University of Maiduguri BA/PgD/MA/PhD
Mass
Communications (PR
modules)
10. Lagos State University,
Lagos
BA/PgD/MA Mass
Communication (PR
modules)
11. Imo State University, Owerri MBA Public
Relations
12. Abia State University M.Sc. Corporate
94
Communications (PR
modules)
13. Enugu State University of
Technology
MBA Public
Relations
14. Ambrose Alli University Masters in
Communication Art
(PR modules)
15. Nnamdi Azikiwe University BSc, MSc, PhD Mass
Comm(PR Modules);
MBA Advertising and
PR
16. Bayero University, Kano M.Sc Mass
Communication
(Public Relations)
17. Benue State University,
Makurdi
M.A. Public Relations
and Advertising
18. University of Uyo, Akwa
Ibom
MA/PhD Mass
Communication
(Public Relations)
19. Federal University of
Technology, Owerri
M.Tech (Public
Relations and
Advertising)
Checked online on
28/07/2014, course not
offered by school.
http://www.jamb.org.ng/un
ifiedtme/Management/Prin
t.aspx?ReportType=11
20. Federal University of
Technology, Akure
Postgraduate Diploma
in Public Relations
21. Covenant University, Otta BSc Public Relations
and Advertising
Offered as BSc Mass
Communications. PR and
advertising option in 3rd
year.
http://www.jamb.org.ng/un
ifiedtme/Management/Prin
t.aspx?ReportType=11
22. Lead City University, Ibadan Diploma in Public
Relations
23. University of Jos BA, MA Mass
Communication (PR
Modules)
24. Business Education
Examination Council
(BEEC)
Diploma in Public
Relations
25. Igbinedion University, Benin BA, MA (Public
Relations and
Advertising)
Claims to offer PR and
advertising from checks on
http://www.jamb.org.ng/un
95
ifiedtme/Management/Prin
t.aspx?ReportType=11
But no information
whatsoever on course on
the institution’s website.
26. Delta State University BA, MA Mass
Communication (PR
Modules)
27. Ebonyi State University BA, MA Mass
Communication (PR
Modules)
28. Edo State University, Edo BA, MA Mass
Communication (PR
Modules)
29. Adekunle Ajasin University,
Akure
BA, MA Mass
Communication (PR
Modules)
30. Nasarawa State University BA, MA Mass
Communication (PR
Modules)
31. Ajayi Crowther University BA, MA Mass
Communication (PR
Modules)
32. Cross River University of
Technology
BSc, MSc, PhD Mass
Communication (PR
Modules)
33. Bingham University,
Nasarawa
BA, MA, PhD Mass
Communication (PR
Modules)
34. University of Benin BA, MA, PhD Mass
Communication (PR
Modules)
35. Ibrahim Babangida
University, Lapai
BA, MA, PhD Mass
Communication (PR
Modules)
36. Western Delta University,
Oghara
BSc, MSc, PhD Mass
Communication (PR
Modules)
37. Critas University, Enugu BSc, MSc, PhD Mass
Communication (PR
Modules)
38. Ahmadu Bello University,
Zaria
BSc, MSc, PhD Mass
Communication (PR
Modules)
96
39. Anambra State University of
Science and Technology
BSc, MSc, PhD Mass
Communication (PR
Modules)
40. Benson Idahosa University BSc, MSc, Mass
Communication (PR
Modules)
41. Kaduna State University BSc, MSc, Mass
Communication (PR
Modules)
42. Times Journalism Institute,
Lagos
Diploma in Public
Relations
43. Federal Polytechnic, Oko OND, HND Mass
Communication
(Public Relations
Modules)
44. Ogun State Polytechnic OND/HND Mass
Communication (PR
modules)
45. Ibadan Polytechnic OND/HND Mass
Communication (PR
modules)
46. Kwara State Polytechnic,
Ilorin
Postgraduate Diploma
in Public Relations
47. Institute of Management and
Technology, Enugu
OND/HND Mass
Communication (PR
modules)
48. Kaduna Polytechnic, Kaduna OND/HND Mass
Communication (PR
modules)
49. Moshood Abiola
Polytechnic, Abeokuta
OND/HND Mass
Communication (PR
modules)
50. Federal Polytechnic, Bida OND/HND Mass
Communication (PR
modules)
51. Osun State Polytechnic, Iree OND/HND Mass
Communication (PR
modules)
52. Federal Polytechnic, Offa OND/HND Mass
Communication (PR
modules)
53. Wolex Polytechnic, Lagos OND/HND Mass
Communication (PR
modules)
97
54. Lagos State Polytehcnic,
Lagos
OND/HND Mass
Communication (PR
modules)
55. Hassan Usman Katsina
Polytechnic, Katsina
OND/HND Mass
Communication (PR
modules)
56. Nasarawa State Polytechnic,
Nasarawa
OND/HND Mass
Communication (PR
modules)
57. Universal College of
Technology, Ile Ife
OND/HND Mass
Communication (PR
modules)
58. Rufus Giwa Polytechnic,
Owo
OND/HND Mass
Communication (PR
modules)
59. Our Saviour Institute of
Science and Technology,
Enugu
OND/HND Mass
Communication (PR
modules)
60. Federal College of
Education (Technical),
Lagos
Certificate in Public
Relations
Sourced table from Otubanjo and Amujo (2019) who adapted table from Joint Admissions
Matriculation Board (2007) brochure. JAMB (2008), Joint Admissions Matriculation Board
Brochure, Lagos, Nigeria, available at: http://www.jambng.com/index.php, March 1, 2008.
NB: Original table was adjusted by Yarling Manji. Adjustment is the addition of a column called
“Updates” following my checks on the Joint Admissions Matriculation Board Brochure of 2014.
http://www.jamb.org.ng/Unifiedtme/CheckInstitutionCourses.aspx Accessed online on 28 July
2014, to indicate status of the courses.
98
TABLE 2: MINI PROFILES OF KEY FIGURE INTERVIEWEES
NO NAME ORGANISA
TION
SECTOR POSITION YRS
OF PR
EXP.
FIRST
DEGREE
SECOND
DEGREE
INT.
DETAIL
S
1 Mohammed
Momoh
News Agency
of Nigeria
Broadcast
Journalist
(Govt)
Deputy
Editor-in-
Chief
30 Political
Science
Int.
journalism
20 June
2014.
Face to
face
2 Olugbenga
Odugbesan
Infrastructure
Concession
Regulatory
Commission
Government Head of
Comms
14 English
and
literary
studies
Comms
studies
24 June
2014.
Skype.
3 Dr. Abayomi
Charles
Daramola
Lagos state
University,
Nigeria.
Scholar and
PR/
advertising
practitioner
Acting
Head, Mass
Communica
tion
department
20 Mass
Comm
Advertisin
g
29 June
2014.
Phone
4 Dr. Rotimi
Oladele
Nigerian
Institute of
Public
Relations
Professional
body
National
President
and
practitioner
28 Mass
Comm
Marketing
, PR,
Corporate
Governan
ce and HR
30 June
2014.
Phone
5 Quentin
Langley
University of
Bedfordshire,
BrandjackNe
ws and CIPR
(UK).
Scholar/
CIPR
/Consultant
Senior
lecturer,
Marketing,
Editor of
BrandjackN
ews, author
and
entrepreneu
r.
27 Politics
and Law
Public
Relations
2 July
2014. E-
mail.
6 Mansur
Ahmed
Dangote
Group
Multination
al
(Manufactur
ing)
Executive
Director,
Stakeholder
Relations
and
Corporate
Communica
tions
N/A Mechanic
al
Engineeri
ng
Industrial
Engineeri
ng and
Administr
ation
5 July
2014.
Phone
7 Dr. Tayo
Otubanjo
Lagos
Business
School,
Pan-Atlantic
University,
Lagos -
Nigeria.
Scholar
(Marketing)
and Brand
managemen
t consultant
Senior
Lecturer
19 Accountin
g
Marketing
:Corporate
Communi
cations
7 July
2014.
Skype
8 Nn’emaka
Maduegbuna
C & F Porter
Novelli and
Public
Relations
Consultants
Association
of Nigeria
(PRCAN)
Consultant CEO C & F
Porter
Novelli
and past
president of
PRCAN
28 Mass
Comm
8 July
2014. E-
9 Dr. Nnamdi
Ekeanyanwu
Covenant
University,
Scholar and
PR/
Senior
Lecturer,
10 Mass
Comm
Mass
Comm
8 July
2014 e-
99
Nigeria. Advertising
practitioner
Department
of Mass
Communica
tion and
two-time
Head of
Department
mail and
follow-up
via phone
on 9 July.
10 Anonymous Multinational Multination
al
General
Manager,
Corporate
Affairs
13 11 July
2014. Via
e-mail.
11 Dr. Ikenna
Nwosu
Mooregate
Limited
Business
man
MD/CEO N/A Law Law 13 July
2014. Via
phone.
12 Anonymous Indigenous
company
Indigenous
company
MD N/A Via phone
on 16
July.
Concluded
via e-mail
on 22
July.
N/A: Means not applicable because interviewee has many years of industry experience in their sector
which is not PR.
100
TABLE 4: FULL UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM FOR BA (HONS) PR AND
COMMUNICATION, LEEDS METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY, UK
YEAR CORE MODULES
Year 1 Contemporary PR skills
Foundation for marketing
PR trends
Writing for communication
PR & the Media Environment
Global Business Environment
Year 2 Internal Communication and employee engagement
Managing Resources for PR & Marketing
Social psychology of communications
Marketing Communications
Digital Media & Communication
Communication Campaigns, Strategy & Tactics
Year 3
Year 3
PR Management & Consultancy
Issues and Crises Management
PR dissertation/Research Project
Corporate Communications: Communications Audit
OPTIONAL MODULES
Political Communication & Public Affairs
Celebrity & the Media
Work Placement
Retail Marketing
Arts Marketing
101
TABLE 5: FULL UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM FOR BA (HONS) MASS
COMMUNICATION, UNIVERSITY OF JOS, NIGERIA.
100 LEVEL
Compulsory Introduction to Mass Communication 2
History of Nigerian Mass Media 2
Writing for the Mass Media 2
African Communication System 4
Use of English 4
Introduction to Logic and Philosophy 2
Nigerian People and Cultures 2
History and Philosophy of Science 2
Media English I/II 2
Introduction to Basic Computer Operations 2
Fundamentals of Broadcasting 2
Introduction to New Media & Digital Communication 2
Introduction to Sociology of Mass Communication 4
Electives - Faculty (2 courses) and outside faculty (2 courses)
Introduction to Psychology 4
History of Psychology 2
Spoken English 3
West Africa, 1500 – 1800 AD 3
Beginning Theatre Design and Technology 2
Introduction to Play Writing 2
Departmental electives (at least 4 credit units)
Speech communication 2
Introduction to cinematography techniques 2
Elocution: Art of reading 2
200 LEVEL
Compulsory Newswriting and Reporting 2
Critical & Review Writing 2
Editing & Graphics of Communication 2
Editorial Writing 2
Theories of Mass Communication 2
102
Foundation of Communication Research 2
Principle of Public Relations 2
Features Writing 2
Media English I/II 2
Foundation of Communication Research II 2
Development Communication 2
Use of English 4
Introduction to Logical & Philosophy 2
Nigerian People & Culture 2
History & Philosophy of Science 2
Peace Conflict Resolution Studies 2
Entrepreneurial Studies 2
Electives (at least 8 credit units)
Organisational Psychology 2
Introduction to Social Psychology 2
Developmental Psychology 4
Psychology of Ethnicity and Ethnic Group Relations 2
Creative Writing 1 2
Fundamental of Film and Video Making 2
Theatre, Festival and Tourism 2
Departmental electives
Live Radio/Television Presentations 2
Specialized Reporting 2
Announcing & Performance 2
Introduction to Publishing Sequence 2
Consumer Affairs 2
Introduction to Radio & TV Script Writing 2
Basics of Blogging & Web Casting 2
Digital and Convergence Culture 2
Introduction to Film Scriptwriting 2
Reality TV Development 2
Marketing Foundations for Advertising and Public Relations 2
300 LEVEL
103
Compulsory International Communication 4
Communication & Society 2
Issues in Nigerian Mass Media History 2
Newspaper Management & Production 2
Science & Technology Reporting 2
Photo Editing 2
Economics of Mass News Reporting 2
Screen Directing 2
Advanced Communication Research 4
Magazine Management & Production 2
Broadcast Commentary & Critical Writing 2
Foreign Correspondence 2
Media Attachment 6
Departmental electives
Community Newspaper 2
Manuscript Assessment 2
Photo Journalism 2
Advertising Techniques 2
Advertising & PR Research 2
Protocol & Event Management 2
Techniques of Television Production 4
Techniques of Radio Production 4
Techniques of Film Production 4
Web & Desktop Publishing 4
Book Publishing & the Law 2
Investigative & Interpretative Reporting 2
Citizen Media 2
Non-Linear Editing 2
Television News Broadcast & Webcast Production 2
Broadcast Management& Programming 2
Magazine Editing & Production 4
400 LEVEL
Compulsory Mass Media Law & Ethics 2
104
Data Analysis in Communication Research 2
Issues in Broadcasting 2
Radio TV Documentary Production 2
Educational Broadcasting 2
Community Broadcasting 2
Documentary Film Production 2
Project 6
Issues in Publishing 2
Advanced Feature Writing 2
Departmental Electives
Economic & Social Issues in Advertising
& Public Relations
2
Broadcast Station Management & Operations 2
Organization & Management of Advertising and Public
Relations Agencies
2
Multinational Advertising 2
Television Production Workshop 4
Gender & Communication 2
Politics of International Mass Communication 2
Radio Production Workshop 4
Advanced Photography 2
Designing for Mass Media 2
Media & Conflict Reporting 2
Television Directing 2
Film Directing Workshop 4
Advanced Public Relations 2
International Public Relations 2
105
TABLE 6: FULL UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM FOR BSC (HONS), MASS
COMMUNICATION, COVENANT UNIVERSITY, NIGERIA.
TYPE TITLE CRED
IT
100 level (Ist semester)
Compulsory (C) Introduction to Mass Communication I C 2
Writing for the Mass Media I C 2
African Communication Systems C 2
History of Nigeria Mass Media C 2
Principles of Public Relations C 2
Foundation of Broadcasting C 2
Electives (E) Spoken English E 2
Introduction to English language E 2
Introduction to oral literature E 2
College Courses Fundamentals of Human Development I C 2
University courses Use of Library, Study Skills and Information
Communication Technology I
C 2
Entrepreneurial Development Studies I C 1
Total man concept 1 C 1
Total man concept 2 - sports C 0
NUC General
courses
Communication in English I C 2
100 level (2nd semester)
Compulsory Introduction to Mass Communication 2 C 2
Writing for the Mass Media 2 C 2
Introduction to Advertising C 2
Nigeria Legal System C 2
Writing and Production for Public Relations C 2
Electives (Chose 1) Basic writing skills E 2
Basic English grammar & composition E 2
Introduction to Nigerian literature E 2
College Courses Fundamentals of Human Development 2 C 1
University courses Use of Library, Study Skills and Information C 2
106
Communication Technology 2
Entrepreneurial Development Studies 2 C 1
Total man concept 2 C 1
Total man concept Sports C 0
NUC General
courses
Communication in English 2 C 2
NUC General
courses
Communication in French C 2
200 level (Ist semester)
Compulsory courses Introduction to Statistics for Social Science I C 2
News Writing and Reporting C 2
Editorial Writing C 2
Introduction to Research Methods 1 C 2
Theories of Mass Communication C 2
Specialized Reporting 1 & 2 C 2
Introduction to Film and Cinema C 2
Introduction to Psychology I & II C 2
Electives Radio and television news writing, reporting
and production
E 2
Studio management, operations & program
production
E 2
College courses Culture and Human Development I C 1
University courses Entrepreneurial Development Studies III C 1
Total man concept 3 C 1
Total man concept - sports C 0
NUC General
Courses
Logic, Philosophy and Human Existence C 2
200 level (2nd semester)
Compulsory Introduction to Statistics for Social Science 2 C 2
Editing and graphics of communication C 2
Specialised report writing C 2
Research Methods 2 C 2
Feature writing C 2
107
Introduction to publishing C 2
Speech writing and rhetoric C 2
Electives Marketing Foundation for Public Relations &
Advertising
E 2
Sociology of Mass Communication E 2
College courses Culture and Human Development 2 C 1
University courses Entrepreneurial Development Studies 4 C 1
Total man concept 4 C 1
Total man concept - sports C 0
NUC General
Courses
Nigerian people and culture C 2
Peace studies and conflict resolution C 2
300 level (1st semester)
Compulsory
Courses
Public Relations Evolution, Theory, and
Practice
C 2
Advertising Creative Strategies & Tactics C 2
Media Analysis for Public Relations C 2
Advanced Copywriting for Advertising and
Public Relations
C 2
Public Relations Policy, Planning, and Strategy C 2
Brand Management C 2
Mass Media and Society C 2
Electives Consumer Behaviour E 2
Business Communication and Management E 2
Industrial Training Media Attachment C 2
College Courses Communication and Human Development C 1
University Courses Entrepreneurial Development Studies V C 1
Total man concept 5 C 1
Total man concept - sports C 0
NUC General
Courses
History and Philosophy of Science C 2
300 level (2nd semester)
Compulsory Public Relations Campaign Planning & C 2
108
Management
Financial Public Relations C 2
Corporate Social Responsibility and Business
Ethics
C 2
Community Relations C 2
PR Research and Evaluation C 2
PR and advertising ethics C 2
Integrated Marketing Communication C 2
Advertising production and techniques C 2
Electives Advertising design, copy and layout E 2
PR workshop E 2
College Courses Communication and Human Development 2 C 1
University Courses Entrepreneurial Development Studies V C 1
Total man concept 6 C 1
Total man concept - sports C 0
400 level (1st semester)
1st semester Mass Media Laws C 2
Data Analysis in Communication Research
Multinational/International Advertising C 2
PR in Non-Commercial Organisations C 2
Organization & Management of Advertising &
Public Relations Agencies
C 2
Economic and Social Issues in Advertising and
Public Relations
C 2
Academic Writing in Mass Communication C 2
Electives Public Relations in Government E 2
Public Relations in Practice E 2
Public Relations in Commercial organisations E 2
College Courses Contemporary issues and development 1 C 1
University Courses Entrepreneurial Development Studies VI C 1
Total man concept VII C 1
Total man concept - sports C 0
Compulsory Research Project in PR/Advertising C 6
109
Legal Aspects of PR & Advertising Practice C 2
International Public Relations C 2
Advertising Campaign Management C 2
Public Relations Consultancy C 2
Electives Political Advertising & Social Marketing E 2
Case Studies in Advertising Management E 2
Special Topics in Advertising and PR E 2
College Courses Contemporary Issues and Development II C 1
University Courses Entrepreneurial Development Studies VIII C 1
Total man concept VIII C 1
Total man concept - sports C 0
110
APPENDICES
APPENDIX 1: INTERVIEW GUIDES
Mohammed Momoh
1. In your course of work as a journalist, have you had extensive interaction with PR
practitioners?
2. What is your perception of PR?
3. Form a journalist’s point of view, will you say that the PR industry is respected and
considered an ethical profession in Nigeria?
4. Kindly rate the relationship between PR practitioners and journalists in Nigeria.
5. Any idea what could have led to the high number of journalist in PR practice? Do
you think journalistic skills are adequate for handling PR responsibilities?
6. Do you find the writing skills of PR practitioners in Nigeria for instance through
press releases sufficient for your standard as a seasoned Editor?
7. What can you say about the “Brown envelope syndrome” where journalists are paid
to write stories from an angle that favours the person/organisation paying even if it
half-truth?
8. Broadly speaking, what can be done to improve the status of PR and journalism
thus dissociating it from propaganda or brown envelopes?
9. How has the explosion of the internet affected the practice of PR and journalism in
Nigeria?
10. Any other thoughts or advice to the Nigerian PR industry?
Follow up question (vis e-mail): Using the models that have worked in other professions
in Nigeria (eg journalism, law, medicine), what is your opinion on the NIPR's dual
function as a professional organisation and also a regulatory of the Nigerian PR industry?
Olugbenga Odugbesan
1. How do you personally define Public Relations (PR)?
2. Describe the top three PR functions in your organisation.
111
3. Does the PR unit in your organisation participate in strategic decision making
processes? Is it part of the core management team?
4. What value has PR added towards meeting your organisation’s overall strategy?
5. What methods does your organisation use to get the opinions/feedback of its
stakeholders?
6. Describe the level of professionalisation of PR practice in Nigeria and how the
industry can improve its status thus dissociating it from propaganda.
7. With personal examples, please state what factors make the practice of PR in
Nigeria difficult and how you have overcome them in the course of your work.
8. As a member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), can you
describe how beneficial the membership of the body has been in terms of
adding value to you as a practitioner?
9. Any suggestions as to how the NIPR can be repositioned to perform better?
10. Can PR be successfully practiced without an education/training in the field?
11. Considering the needs of your organisation, what skills set do you rate highly in
someone you are looking to employ in your PR unit? What PR skills do you
think will be key in the next decade in Nigeria?
12. Coming from a background of Journalism, please discuss why a good number
of PR practitioners in Nigeria have journalism as a background. Are journalistic
skills sufficient for the professional practice of PR?
13. Describe how the explosion of the internet has affected the way you carry out
your PR functions as an individual and as an organisation.
Abayomi Charles Daramola
1. Has PR education and research in Nigeria added to the global PR body of
knowledge? Please describe with specific examples.
2. In the past decade, has your institution adjusted its PR curriculum to reflect the
changes that globalisation has introduced to the practice?
3. Your institution offers PR as modules under its mass communication programme,
why is that? Do you think this is sufficient to prepare students for the challenges of
the PR industry?
112
4. There seems to be disagreements in some quarters between PR scholars and
practitioners about the role of PR education. Practitioners see it simply as a tool to
“serve business and industrial interests” and “produce qualified people for the
industry” while some educators are resisting because it can be lead to a threat to
academic freedom and hamper on critical research potentials of Universities
(L’Etang and Pieczka 2006, pp433-442). To which side do you belong? To which
side does your institution belong?
5. From a scholar’s point of view, describe the level of professionalisation of PR
practices in Nigeria and how the industry can improve its status thus dissociating it
from propaganda.
6. Are you a member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR)? Can you
describe how beneficial the membership of the body has been in terms of value
addition to you as a scholar and/or practitioner? Any suggestions as to how the
NIPR can be repositioned to perform better?
7. What institutional relationship exists between Unilag and NIPR?
8. Using specific examples, please state how your institution has structured its PR
modules to prepare students to practice as managers rather than technicians.
9. Finally, what advice do you have for Nigerian PR practitioners, consultants and
scholars as we aim towards professionalisation of PR in Nigeria?
Rotimi Oladele
1. In the past decade or more, can you kindly discuss the contributions that NIPR has
made towards the development of the PR industry in Nigeria?
2. How does the institute stay aware of global changes in PR practice in order to keep
its members informed and subsequently trained to cope with these changes?
3. What is your view on the value that membership in Global PR bodies like the
“Global Alliance for PR and Communication Management” may add to NIPR?
4. Please discuss the extent to which the practice of PR in Nigeria has achieved
professional status stating efforts that NIPR has made towards this achievement.
5. How does the institute handle practitioners who practice without NIPR
membership?
113
6. Currently, what sort of relationship exists between NIPR and educational
institutions offering PR programmes/modules and how does NIPR ensure that
educational institutions’ curriculum meets the needs of the industry?
7. Kindly discuss how effective the NIPR codes of conduct have been towards
ensuring ethical standards of PR practices in Nigeria.
8. Under citation in the NIPR code of professional conduct, it states “The Institute
must from time to time update its Code of Professional Conduct”; the current
document on the NIPR website is that of 1992, why is that?.
9. The NIPR practitioners decree No. 16 of 1990 empowers the Council of NIPR “to
determine what standards of knowledge and skills are to be attained by PR
practitioners. For high standards of practice”. Since the promulgation, what steps
has the Institute taken in determining these standards?
10. Please describe the working relationship between NIPR and PRCAN.
Quentin Langley
1. How do you personally define PR? Would you say that PR has met all the criteria
necessary for it to be considered a profession?
2. Considering the current and likely future needs of the industry, what skills/modules
should be included in an undergraduate and postgraduate PR curriculum to better
prepare aspiring practitioners especially in developing countries like Nigeria?
3. Given the role that professional bodies play towards ensuring best practices in any
field, are there lessons that to your knowledge, the Nigerian Institute of Public
Relations can learn from the CIPR bearing in mind cultural and environmental
differences?
4. Do you know of any contributions that Nigerian PR scholars have made to the
global PR body of knowledge? If any, kindly state examples.
5. Do you consider ‘PR experience’ as sufficient to practice professionally without an
education and/or certification in PR?
6. From your teaching and practice experience, what school will you say is most ideal
to house a PR course and why?
7. There seems to be disagreements in some quarters between PR scholars and
practitioners about the role of PR education. Practitioners see it simply as a tool to
“serve business and industrial interests” and “produce qualified people for the
114
industry” while some educators are resisting because they think it can be lead to a
threat to academic freedom and hamper on critical research potentials of
Universities. To which side do you belong? (L’Etang and Pieczka, Public Relations
– Critical debates and contemporary practice 2006, pp433-442).
8. Any other advice you might have for the Nigerian PR industry (scholars,
practitioners, NIPR) as they aim towards professionalisation?
Mansur Ahmed
1. How do you personally define Public Relations (PR)?
2. Please describe the top 3-5 PR/corporate communication functions in your
organisation.
3. Please describe the value that PR/corporate communication has added towards
meeting your organisation’s overall strategy.
4. Discuss how the explosion of the internet has affected the way you carry out
your PR/corporate communication functions as an organisation.
5. Considering the needs of your organisation, what skills set do you rate highly in
someone you are looking to employ in your PR/Corporate communications
unit? What PR skills do you think will be key in the next decade in Nigeria?
6. Describe the level of professionalisation of PR practitioners in Nigeria and
please share how you think the industry can improve its status thus dissociating
it from propaganda.
7. With personal examples, please state what factors make the practice of
PR/corporate communication in Nigeria difficult and how you have overcome
them.
8. In the course of your work in various organisations, how have you handled the
‘brown envelope’ expectation that borders on the ethics of both PR and
journalism practice in Nigeria?
9. Are you a member of NIPR? Have you found membership in the organisation
beneficial? Any suggestions as to how the body can improve and be better
positioned as the regulatory of the Nigerian PR industry?
10. Any final thoughts and/or advice to the Nigerian PR industry as it aims towards
professional practice?
115
Tayo Otubanjo
1) From your observation, would you say that the term ‘Public Relations’ in Nigeria
carries with it a negative or a positive connotation? Do you think that generally, the
roles and importance of PR in Nigeria are understood and appreciated?
2) Kindly describe how the NIPR has so far performed as the regulator of the Nigerian
PR industry. Any suggestions as to how it can be repositioned to perform better?
3) You cited in your write-up (150 years of modern PR practice in Nigeria) that since
1990 when NIPR got professional charter, PR has been recognized by successive
governments in Nigeria as a professional discipline but will you say that the
Nigerian PR industry has met all the other criteria necessary for a practice to be
considered a profession? NB: Please see notes below.
4) Do you consider the Nigerian PR practitioners as well trained? What gaps may
need to be filled? What advice do you have for PR professionals as they strive
towards reaching the ‘maturity stage’ of the profession?
5) Has PR education and research in Nigeria added to the global PR body of
knowledge? If yes, please give examples.
6) Most Universities and Polytechnics offer PR as modules under their mass
communication programme, do you think that this is sufficient to prepare students
for the needs, challenges and opportunities of the PR industry?
7) Any final thoughts you will like to share with Nigerian PR practitioners,
consultants and scholars on the issue of professionalisation?
Notes:
Starting from the early 1960’s, researchers began to log the traits that make professions
different from occupations (Pieczka and L’Etang 2001. p224).
Some of these traits include:
- A specialised and standardised education that aspiring practitioners must go
through as a prerequisite for qualifying to practice;
- Availability of strong professional organisations that set standards, control
membership and liaise with wider society;
- An established body of knowledge and constant research to add to this knowledge;
- Adherence to codes of conduct and ethics;
- Individual and group commitment to being socially responsible; and
- Community recognition as an essential service; etc.
116
(Grunig and Hunt, 1984, Cutlip et al. 2006, L’Etang and Pieczka 2006, Sriramesh and
Hornaman 2006 p157 cited in Tench and Yeomans 2014.p 219).
Nn’ememeka Maduegbuna
1. How do you personally define Public Relations?
2. Please describe the level of professionalisation of the Nigerian PR industry -
practitioners and scholars. How can the industry improve its status thus dissociating
it from propaganda?
3. Is PR in Nigeria understood and practiced as a management function?
4. As a past President of PRCAN, could you kindly share the progress that the
PRCAN has made towards contributing to the professionalisation of PR practices
of its members?
5. What key challenges do you face as a PR consultant given Nigeria’s unique
environment and cultural diversity?
6. Do you think that PRCAN member organisations have the capacity and experience
to adequately handle various briefs for the government, multinational corporations
and other international companies? Why do the Nigerian government prefer to
engage international PR consultants to manage its reputation? What is PRCAN
doing to reverse this trend?
7. Please describe the relationship between PRCAN and NIPR.
8. Are you a member of NIPR? If yes, can you describe how beneficial the
membership of the body has been in terms of adding value to you as a consultant?
Please suggest ways in which the NIPR can be repositioned to contribute better
towards the professionalisation of the Nigerian PR industry.
9. Given your years of experience in PR consulting, what PR skills do you consider
most valuable for the current needs of the Nigerian market? What skills will be key
in the next decade or two?
10. Please describe how the explosion of the internet has affected the practice of PR in
Nigeria.
Nnamdi Ekeanyanwu
1. How do you personally define PR?
117
2. With specific examples, please describe the level to which you think the PR
industry in Nigeria has met the criteria necessary for it to qualify as a
profession.
3. How can the industry dissociate itself from propaganda and deliver results in
the aspect of media relations without participating in the BES with journalists?
4. Has PR education and research in Nigeria contributed extensively to the global
PR body of knowledge? Please describe with examples.
5. In the past decade, has your institution adjusted its PR curriculum to reflect the
changes that globalisation has introduced to the practice?
6. Your institution offers PR as modules under its mass communication
programme, do you think this is sufficient to prepare students for the challenges
of the PR industry?
7. There seems to be disagreements in some quarters between PR scholars and
practitioners about the role of PR education. Practitioners see it simply as a tool
to “serve business and industrial interests” and “produce qualified people for
the industry” while some educators are resisting because it can be lead to a
threat to academic freedom and hamper on critical research potentials of
Universities (L’Etang and Pieczka 2006, PR critical debates and contemporary
practice pp433-442). To which side do you belong?
8. Are you a member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR)? Can
you describe how beneficial the membership of the body has been in terms of
value addition to you as a scholar? Any suggestions as to how the NIPR can be
repositioned to perform better?
9. What institutional relationship exists between Covenant University and NIPR?
10. Finally, what advice do you have for Nigerian PR practitioners, consultants and
scholars as we aim towards professionalisation of PR practices in Nigeria?
Follow up questions (via telephone).
1. From your definition of PR, you have described it as a management function, will
you say that the modules available for your students under the PRAD programme
provides sufficient background training for them to handle PR as a management
function?
2. How has the explosion of the internet affected the practice and lecturing of PR in
Nigeria? Do you have any modules that pre
118
3. In the past 2-3 years, what issues have been covered under “Special topics in
advertising and PR”?
Anonymous multinational
1. How do you personally define Public Relations (PR)?
2. Describe the level of professionalisation of PR practice in Nigeria and how the
industry can improve its status thus dissociating it from propaganda.
3. With personal examples, please state what factors make the practice of PR in
Nigeria difficult and how you have overcome them.
4. Either as a member or non-member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations
(NIPR), can you describe how beneficial membership of the body can be
towards adding value to you as a PR practitioner? Any suggestions as to how
the NIPR can be repositioned to perform better?
5. Describe the top three PR functions in your organisation.
6. Does the PR unit in your organisation participate in strategic decision making
processes? Is it part of the core management team?
7. What value has PR added towards meeting your organisation’s overall strategy?
8. What methods does your organisation use to get the opinions/feedback of its
stakeholders?
9. Can PR be successfully practiced without an education/training in PR? How do
you and your PR colleagues improve your capacity to perform better?
10. Considering the needs of your organisation, what skills set do you rate highly in
someone you are looking to employ in your PR unit? What PR skills do you
think will be key in the next decade in Nigeria?
11. Describe how the explosion of the internet has affected the way you carry out
your PR functions as an organisation.
12. How has your company managed cultural diversity in terms of internal and
external communications?
Ikenna Nwosu
1. What is your perception of Public Relations (PR)? From your observation, would
you say that the term ‘Public Relations’ in Nigeria carries with it a negative or a
positive connotation?
119
2. What in your view is the real value that PR adds to an organisation especially in
terms of contributing towards achieving its overall business strategy?
3. Given your interaction with Nigerian PR practitioners, do you consider them
professional?
4. What skills will you look out for in someone you are looking to employ to man
your PR/Corporate communications desk?
5. In the recent past, have you heard anything about the Nigerian Institute of Public
Relations? What impression do you have of the body?
6. Finally, what advice do you have for Nigerian PR practitioners, consultants and
scholars as we aim towards professionalisation?
Anonymous indigenious
1. What is your perception of Public Relations (PR)? From your observation,
would you say the term ‘Public Relations’ in Nigeria carries with it a negative
or a positive connotation?
2. Is the head of your PR/Corporate communications/Corporate affairs unit part of
your core management team?
3. What in your view is the real value that PR adds to your organisation especially
in terms of contributing towards achieving its overall business strategy?
4. As an organisation, what skills are paramount in people who man your
PR/Corporate communications/corporate affairs unit?
5. Given your interaction with Nigerian PR practitioners, do you consider them
professional? What advice do you have for the industry as it aims towards
professional practice?
120
APPENDIX 2a: SAMPLE PRE-INTERVIEW QUESTIONNAIRE/SCHEDULE FOR
PR PRACTITIONERS
Date:
Time:
Name of interviewee…………………………………………………………………………
Organisation………………………………………………………………………………….
Designation……………………………………………………………………..……………
Brief description of your roles………………………………………………………………
Professional organisation membership:
1. ………………………………………………………………………………………
2. ………………………………………………………………………………………
3. ………………………………………………………………………………………
4. ………………………………………………………………………………………..
Number of years of PR/communication experience (if applicable) …………………………
Number of years in Journalism practice (if applicable) ……………………………………
Course of study (first degree) ………………………………………………………………
Course of study (second degree) ……………………………………………………………
Course of study (Phd) ………………………………………………………………………
121
APPENDIX 2b: SAMPLE PRE-INTERVIEW QUESTIONNAIRE/SCHEDULE
FOR PR EDUCATORS
Date: Time: Venue:
Name of
interviewee…..……………………………………………………………………...
Institution …….………………………………………………………………………………
Position in department…………………………………………………………………….…
Titles of PR/communication modules that you lecture (if applicable)
1. …………………………………………………………………………….………….
2. ………………………………………………………………………………….……
3. …………………………………………………………………………….…………
4. ………………………………………………………………………….……………
5. ………………………………………………………………………..………………
Professional organisation membership:
1. ………………………………………………………………….………………
2. ………………………………………………………………….………………
3. ……………………………………………………………………………………
4. ……………………………………………………………………………………
Years of experience as a PR/Communication scholar (if applicable) ………………………
Years of experience in PR practice and/or consulting (if applicable) ………….…………
Years of experience in Journalism (if applicable) …………………………………………
Course of study (first degree) ………………………………………………………………
Course of study (second degree) ……………………………………………………………
Course of study (Phd) ………………..…………………………………………………….
122
APPENDIX 3: CASE STUDY DESIGN (QUESTIONS ANSWERED)
1. What is the Programme title?
2. What is the University type?
3. What year did the PR course/module start?
4. Is PR offered as a full-fledged undergraduate degree?
5. What degree is awarded after the programme?
6. Is PR a full-fledged programme or module/option under another programme?
7. What Faculty/college is the course under?
8. What School is the course under?
9. What is the full time course duration?
10. Are there optional modes of attendance?
11. What is the current student population?
12. What is the academic staff strength?
13. Are internships/media attachments part of the programme?
14. How interdisciplinary is the curriculum?
15. What is the research programme for the course?
16. How does the department engagement with industry?
17. What other institutional collaborations exists?
18. What are the key unique features of the course?
19. What gaps exist in the curriculum?
123
APPENDIX 4a: CODING SHEET FOR QUALITATIVE CONTENT ANALYSIS OF
CODE OF CONDUCT DOCUMENT
Towards the Professionalisation of Public Relations practices in Nigeria: Journey so far –
Manji Yarling (2014)
Unit of Analysis = Codes of conduct document
Sample = CIPR code of conduct and complaints procedure document of 2013 and
the NIPR code of professional conduct document of 1992.
CIPR NIPR
1. Does document have a definition of PR for its jurisdiction?
Yes No
2. When was the code of conduct last reviewed?
…………………………………………………………..
3. Is the purpose of the document stated in it?
Yes No
4. Does the code have a section for operational definition of terms? (This helps to
avoid confusion or misinterpretation of terms).
5. Does the document discourage members from making unrealistic promises that are
beyond their abilities or resources to employers or clients?
6. How are members encouraged to increase and maintain theirs and other aspiring
professional standards?
a. Through Continuing Professional Development
b. Participating in Committee of the institute
c. By offering work experience to students
d. Encouragement of online interaction among members
e. Specifying a preference for the institutes applicants for staff vacancies
f. Encouraging colleagues to join and support the institute.
7. What are the stated principles in the code that members agree to?
a. Maintain the highest standards of professional conduct
b. Deal honestly and fairly in business with employers, employees, clients,
fellow professionals, other professions and the public
c. Do nothing that would bring the Institute into disrepute
d. Respect and abide by the Code and ensure that subordinates and sub-
contractors do same
e. Uphold the reputation of the institute and do nothing to bring it to disrepute
124
f. In all dealings, respect other people, the legal and regulatory frameworks
and laws of other countries where they practice.
g. Conduct his or her professional activities with proper regard and
consideration to public interest.
8. Does the code encourage members to bring to the attention of the institute
examples of unprofessional conduct? Does it encourage the sharing on good
practice with other members?
9. Depending on the type of breach, what penalties are stated in the code of conducts?
a. Advice the member
b. Expel
c. Terminate
d. Suspension
e. Reprimand
f. Severe reprimand
g. Return to a client all or part of a fee which client has paid for a service.
h. Drop the case
10. Are there laid down processes and procedures for reporting, handling and resolving
complaints?
Yes No
11. Does the document specify on who may make a complain?
12. Does the document state whom you may complain about?
13. Is there a body set up to handle disputes by the professional body?
Yes No
What are they called?
…………………………………………………………………………………….
14. Is there provision of a step by step process of appeal against a decision of this
body?
Yes No
15. When a final decision is reached on a defaulting member, is it made public?
125
APPENDIX 4b: CODING SHEET FOR QUALITATIVE CONTENT ANALYSIS
OF WEBSITES
Sample = CIPR and NIPR websites
When = One day
Website
Organisation………………………………………………………………………………….
Site
URL……………………………………………………………………………………….
Date Accessed………………………………………………………………………………..
Contact details
Phone number (available and functional) Yes No
E-mail (available and functional) Yes No
Address available Yes No
Online request form (available and functional) Yes No
Links to social media platforms (available and functional) Yes No
Social media platforms
Link to Facebook Yes No
Link to Twitter Yes No
Link to YouTube Yes No
Link to blogs Yes No
Link to Pinterest Yes No
Home Page: What items are on the homepage?
About the Institute
Welcome from the President’s desk
Upcoming events
Membership joining details
Training calendar
Latest news
About Us: Tick items available on the about us page.
Profile of the Institute
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History
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Details of governance and administration structure
Profile of Council members
Academics/Qualifications/Courses: Tick items available on the
academics/qualifications/courses page.
List of courses
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Study centres
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Exemptions
What students say
Others…………………………………..
Training/ Workshop: Tick items available on the training/workshop page?
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Resources (General and Member) - Tick which of the following are available on the site:
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Does the institute have a definition of PR on its website?
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Is there provision for “search” on the website for easy access of items?
Is the upcoming events section up to date? Is the information therein sufficient?
Is there a “members only” area on the site?
Is the current membership figure stated on the website?
Is there a list of Universities that have the institute’s accreditation?
Given the importance of branding as an aspect of reputation management in PR,
would you say the institute’s logo is aesthetically appealing?
Will you say the use images on the site is ideal (ie fit-for-purpose, tells a story etc)?
Yes No
Please explain
………………………………..………………………………………………………………
How easy was it to navigate through elements on the website? How many clicks
away were certain elements?
From the way items are arranged, what impression does it give about what is most
important to the Institute?
How up to date is information in specific and in general? When was the site last
updated?
Is there a list of fellows of the institute and their profiles?
Are admin staff of the institute listed with their designation, contact details and
profiles added?
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APPENDIX 5: INTERVIEWEES DEFINITIONS OF PR
“It is the process by which a company or an institution tries to project and protect its
reputation and image among all its stakeholders or its publics.” (Ahmed 2014)
“I personally see PR as a management function that helps organizations develop and
maintain mutual cordial relationship with its publics.” (Ekeanyanwu 2014)
“In a nutshell, targeted corporate reputation management through the use of various
communication channels &platforms i.e. – traditional & new media / sponsored events &
other initiatives that provide a platform to influence critical stakeholders and articulate a
company’s point of view.” (Anonymous multinational 2014)
“Is all about relationship building … usually between an organisation and its stakeholders.
It can also be between an individual and the person’s stakeholders, so it’s all about
relationship building founded on good reputation … and mutual understanding.”
(Odugbesan 2014)
“Public relations practice is about change and should therefore be focused on one thing:
Transforming people into advocates of causes and issues. Why? Advocates are more loyal
and involved with the cause or issue they recommend. People prefer a recommendation to
any other message that they received. People feel more confident to change after a
recommendation from someone they trust.” (Maduegbuna 2014)
“It is a way of creating an understanding between the company on one hand, and the
stakeholders on the other hand … to create a mutually beneficial understanding between
the sponsor of the PR programme or the PR initiative and stakeholders.” (Otubanjo 2014)
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APPENDIX 6: SUMMARY OF ROLES CARRIED OUT BY PR NIGERIAN PR
PRACTITIONERS (OBTAINED FROM PRE-INTERVIEW QUESTIONANAIRES
AND DURING INTERVIEWS).
1. Media relations
2. Stakeholder (Investors, government, community, staff) management
3. Internal/external communication management
4. Communication content development
5. Corporate events management, marketing and protocol
6. Development and delivery of marketing materials
7. Research
8. PR, reputation and communications audit
9. Strategic planning
10. Digital and social media management
11. Issues and crisis management
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APPENDIX 7: SAMPLE TRANSCRIPTS OF SELECTED KEY FIGURE
INTERVIEWS
1. DR ROTIMI OLADELE, PRESIDENT OF THE NIGERIAN INSTITUTE
OF PUBLIC RELATIONS
In the past decade or more, can you kindly discuss the contributions that NIPR has
made towards the development of the PR industry in Nigeria?
Answer: Well, NIPR has made very good mileage in terms of contributions to business
administration in Nigeria across sectors. To start with, PR as a career profession is already
established by way of examinations that qualify these people to join and be certificated and
be licensed to practice. Then also, it is a chartered body, already accepted at the
parliamentary level of government in Nigeria, by the Act 16 of 1990 which empowers it to
regulate the practise of the profession here in Nigeria.
We have professional members who through their career path became CEOs at public and
private sector agencies. I am an example, since 2003 January, I have been the MD/CEO of
a continental business in five English speaking countries of West Africa; the company is
Megavons West African Ltd. Before then, I was MD/CEO of Nigerian Tribune newspapers
for three and a half years, and all I kept on doing was PR/communications which took me
there … In the banking industry, NIPR was able to push beyond the ceiling, the promotion
cadre. Before 1980, PR people don’t go beyond Assistant Managers in the bank, but after
then, we have a lot of our colleagues who rose to the level of Assistant General Managers,
General Managers and off course Executive Directors.
Our members are doing very well at various parastatals in the aviation industry, we have
PR people at the GM level and board level, for instance, the head of NIMASA [Nigerian
Maritime Administration and Safety Agency] is a member of NIPR, also in SAHCOL
[Skyway Aviation Handling Company Limited], the GM Corporate Affairs is a member of
NIPR … also in the telecoms, we have a good representation. Then at the parastatals level,
all agencies that are doing very well like NAFDAC [National Agency for Food and Drug
Administration and control], FRSC [Federal Road Safety Commission], the Police, the
Army are members of NIPR. The current Director of Defence for Information, is a Major
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General and a Fellow of this institute who passed through the rank of membership from
associate to member, to fellow.
All the armed forces have PR departments that are manned by members of this institute.
Nigerian army has even gone far ahead to establish the Nigerian Army School of PR and
public information and I am a patron and director of that school and I also consult for the
school…then in the private sector, we have a lot of membership…
How does NIPR as the regulator of the institute PR industry handle the practitioners
that are not members of the NIPR, because it is clearly stated on your website that it
is illegal to practice without membership of the institute?
Answer: Well, my very young administration with my colleagues, we have introduced
what I call ‘step-by-step approach to managing quackery’. The first thing we are doing is
to put in place very formidable and value adding training programmes that will be
formalising membership of those who are willing but not members yet.
We also have additional approach which we call ‘windows of opportunity’. Windows of
opportunity are those programmes that will allow somebody who is already doing PR job
at senior management level with experiential qualifications to come in for a week or two
and go through the rudiments of principles and practices and then be able to get his
membership and then he will continue with the ‘Mandatory Continuous Training
Development Pogrammes which we have. So we also have a time table of one year for all
those in that category to normalise their membership and practise after which our
Compliance and Advocacy Committee will be able to challenge their employers and
individuals who fail to formalise their membership by way of taking them to court through
the Attorney General of the federation for prosecution after they must have failed within
that one year of tolerance for the Windows of Opportunities.
Are you impressed with the current profile of practitioners in PR in Nigeria at the
moment? Please discuss from the private sector part, consultants and scholars.
Answer: Well, we cannot generalise. There are some individuals and organisations that are
doing very well and can compete with professionals from any part of the world. I for one,
was the PR adviser to KPMG auditing firms in the whole of West Africa for two years,
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2000 – 2002 and I competed with professional colleagues from Canada where the
headquarters of KPMG was …
Then we also have a lot of multinationals here in Nigeria whose PR desk are managed by
Nigerians, if they are not doing very well, they would have not spent five, ten, years in that
role … we have so many members in NLG, Shell, Total and a host of other multinationals.
So if we are not doing very well, they would have been kicked out, they can compete
internationally. There are those who are local practitioners who may not have means of
international exposure who need to develop further but I can tell you that in the whole of
West Africa, Nigerian PR practitioners are in the forefront. And when we go for
international programmes, we find that our colleagues from other countries also learn from
us.
At the level of Nigeria, will you say that PR has met all the criteria to be considered as
a profession?
Answer: Oh yes, I can gladly tell you that PR in Nigeria has meet up with levels and
requirements of been a profession example our status is a chartered status like the
accountants’. Out of over 200 professional bodies in Nigeria, it is about 40 that are the
chartered ones and out of these 40, most were chartered after NIPR. NIPR is one of the
bodies who came into being around independence, it was formed in 1963 and chartered in
1990 … So we have done well in that regard. Secondly, the Federal government has
recognised our body … [by asking the] the Ministry of Education to equate our diploma
with a first degree of any university in the commonwealth. So if you have a diploma with
NIPR, you have no business doing a first degree in Mass communications you can go for
your masters straight, this shows the level of development and recognition of NIPR.
One of the traits for a practice to be considered a profession is an established body of
knowledge and constant research to add to this knowledge. So would you say that
Nigeria as a body has been able to add to the global PR body of knowledge through
constant research?
Answer: Well, I am happy to tell you that due to the hard work of the institute, the
University of Nigeria Nsukka, has just graduated the first PhD student in PR who is a
fellow of this institute in person of Dr. Okocha who is based in Port Harcourt. The
members of this institute believe in academic improvement as well as research work. We
also have a collaboration with institutions offering of master’s degrees in the form of a
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memorandum of understanding with three Universities; Bayero University, Kano and
University of Nigeria, Nsukka. These are research efforts of the institute.
Also, this new regime has put in place, a Research and Development committee which is
headed by a military officer interestingly who is a fellow of the institute and has a lot of
research experience... this shows you we do not joke. As an individual, I have also written
several papers and I am an external examiner and part time lecturer at the Lagos state
University…I also assisted the University of Calabar then to introduce a Post graduate
diploma in Mass communication which I was actually teaching then…
I have checked through schools that offer PR modules or courses in Nigerian
Universities and Polytechnics and I have seen that most of the schools do not have PR
as full degrees; rather, they have PR under Mass Communication programmes. Is
that sufficient training?
Answer: You should understand that employment is a great challenge for developing
nations like Nigeria and by the time you go through an education that gives you a very
narrow perspective, your chances of getting a job becomes slimmer because of that, for
now, we will not be recommending that all Universities should be offering degree fields
that will only address PR. Offered as modules in marketing and Mass Communications
gives students a broadened opportunity of getting employment or practising on their own
in a very wide spectrum rather than a narrow perspective.
Then at the masters level, we have Universities that offer Masters degrees in PR, they are
only few, because also, if you are to have a master’s degree but you don’t have the human
capital to handle it, the accreditation of Universities in Nigeria is very tight, the National
Universities Commission and also for the Polytechnics, the National Board for Technical
Education have very stringent conditions of the quality and volume of the students in
tertiary institutions there, but with the current situation, we are not doing very badly.
Because that is why also, the NIPR as a body, has a very good professional certificate and
diploma programmes. So those who have done modules of PR or those who didn’t even do
at all in their University and who want to embrace this profession, can come in and register
and we can… after giving them expertise.
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Please, I will like to have an idea of the kind of relationship that exists between NIPR
and universities offering PR programmes/modules. Does NIPR have an input into the
kind of content that is been taught?
Answer: I don’t know which institutions you have talked to but we have very very cordial
relationships with all Universities and Polytechnics in these forms. Number one, the NIPR
has her accreditation team that works with the National Universities Commission. The
National Universities Commission accredits all courses in Nigerian Universities and they
go with professional academics in a particular profession to accredit those courses. So we
have a robust membership team that go along with them to accredit PR courses in all
Universities offering Mass Communications and communication courses.
We also have the team for polytechnics. Three weeks ago, the National Board for
Technical Education finished its curriculum review and we were invited like any other
professional bodies were, not only that, we have our collaboration which I have told you
about that we have a joint programme with some Universities … So we have a very cordial
relationship with regulators of tertiary institutions and with individual universities and
polytechnics. We have gone beyond that level now, from next year, we have a Joint
Certification Committee. That Committee is to plant the curriculum of NIPR into the
modules of Mass communication departments so that when you give them their HND or
their first degree, they are just inducted as associate members because in their skills they
must have written their own academic exams, as well as professional exams. They will be
given exceptions in all the programmes that are accredited by NIPR in their schools
curriculum already. So if for instance you write 10 subjects in your school and six are
accredited NIPR courses, you only write four NIPR courses basically.
What is your opinion on the Nigerian government using international consultants
instead of local consultants in handling their PR briefs?
Answer: Well, if you followed the trend very well, you will have heard my official
reactions and read them in the newspapers. It was challenged though they also denied
saying that what they hired were political opinion researchers not PR professionals, there
was also another allegation from another quarter that APC, the political party, hired a
foreign consultant, it’s not only the Federal government. They also denied this saying that
what they asked for were political opinion researchers. But we told them that whether
political opinion researchers, or advertising consultants or PR consultants, we have
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individuals and corporate organisations competent and capable of handling whatever brief
it is. Even the consultants that they go and hire from abroad, they can’t do the job, they
only come here and use our own members to do the job, and the position of the law is clear
on this. Once we have evidences and it is clear that it is true, we will go to court because
the act is a parliamentary act and whosoever bridges it is liable … government has
cautioned itself … so we don’t joke with that stuff, we don’t. Even now that I am a
member of ongoing National Conference, myself and other eighteen colleagues who
belong to other professional bodies, there were nineteen in all represented at the
conference, so it is part of our recommendation and submission to the national conference
that no external consultant or practitioner should be hired by any company in Nigeria to
work without fulfilling the regulatory dictates of our professions. If you hire anybody to do
PR job, that person must come into Nigeria, register with NIPR for individual or corporate
membership and sign an undertaking in line with our rules and regulations.
Wondering, why does the NIPR still have the code of conduct document of 1992 on its
website?
Answer: A contract has been awarded to a company to build us a robust website for our
headquarters in Abuja, the website you are looking at now is the Lagos office website, so
in a few months ahead, we are going to have an overbearing website in which on a daily
basis, an update will be made and all our affairs both external and internal would be
incorporated in a giffi. So what we have now is what we meet on ground and it’s not the
best.
During your regime, are you planning to review the NIPR code of conduct document
of 1992?
Answer: Oh, you are talking about of the bye laws. Yes. We have three bye laws. We have
the bye laws codes of ethics which we normally adhere to. There is a committee on
constitutional and bye law review. Members of NIPR who happen also to be lawyers, who
are practising lawyers as well, so a couple of them have been formed into a committee to
review all the bye laws of the constitution. They are called the law review committee
…We have eight lawyers and other members from law enforcement agencies like the State
Security Services, a naval officer.
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What is your view on the value that membership in Global PR bodies like the “Global
Alliance for PR and Communication Management” may add to NIPR?
Answer: We have been a member since 2001, but along the line, one of the leadership was
sentenced from the body and then discontinued. But by the grace of God in September
2014, I will be in Spain to renew our membership and pay all our arrears because if you
want to be relevant, you must be global, if you don’t have a global perspective, then you
are not a current professional.
2. DR. NNAMDI EKEANYANWU, SENIOR LECTURER AND TWO-TERM
HEAD OF DEPARTMENT, MASS COMMUNICATION DEPARTMENT
OF COVENANT UNIVERSITY, NIGERIA.
How do you personally define PR?
Answer: I personally see PR as a management function that helps organizations develop
and maintain mutual cordial relationship with its publics.
With specific examples, please describe the level to which you think the PR industry
in Nigeria has met the criteria necessary for it to qualify as a profession.
Answer: Unfortunately, I do not think the industry has met the criteria to be so referred.
NIPR has not been able to elevate its activities as a professional body. More than 80
percent of practitioners in the field today do not have relevant or adequate training to be so
called or addressed as PR professionals. Another 50 percent do not even belong to the body
(NIPR) and still they are practicing “successfully” within their organizations and in the
country. In other words, anyone can practice irrespective of the body’s stance. All of these
examples suggest the industry is STILL NOT QUALIFIED as a PROFESSION. The only
index available is the existence of an enabling law on the practice, which has not been
driven by NIPR that is more or less a social gathering of interested members!
How can the industry dissociate itself from propaganda and deliver results in the
aspect of media relations without participating in the BES with journalists?
Answer: Your question is still suggestive of the existence of a PR industry. It is only in our
imagination and in name only. I am a practitioner and educator in this area for more than
ten years. The industry does not exist and the worst scenario is a total lack of
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professionalism amongst so-called practitioners. With regard to media relations activities,
we cannot easily move away from propaganda because professionals do not man the
industry as it stands now. It is currently an all comers affair. Therefore, until we return to
the question of professionalism, we will be begging the issue of dealing with propaganda.
Has PR education and research in Nigeria contributed extensively to the global PR
body of knowledge? Please describe with examples.
Answer: The PR education in Nigeria has not contributed to the global PR body of
knowledge because the industry in Nigeria lacks a coordinated effort. Currently, no
institution in Nigeria is awarding a Bachelor’s degree in Public Relations. What we have
are pseudo programmes that have largely remained inadequate to address needed level of
professionalism.
In the past decade, has your institution adjusted its PR curriculum to reflect the
changes that globalisation has introduced to the practice?
Answer: Not in real terms. An effort was made under my leadership as Head of
Department to introduce a special stream for Public Relations and Advertising sequence
(PRAD), which we started implementing from the 2013-2014 academic session.
Your institution offers PR as modules under its mass communication programme, do
you think this is sufficient to prepare students for the challenges of the PR industry?
Answer: We have improved, as I noted earlier, from just offering modules in PR to a 2-
year sequence in PRAD. Our Mass Comm students come in, spend the first two years
studying general mass communication courses, and spend the last two years of the 4-year
programme specialising in Print and Online Journalism, Broadcast Journalism, or PRAD.
There seems to be disagreements in some quarters between PR scholars and
practitioners about the role of PR education. Practitioners see it simply as a tool to
“serve business and industrial interests” and “produce qualified people for the
industry” while some educators are resisting because it can be lead to a threat to
academic freedom and hamper on critical research potentials of Universities
(L’Etang and Pieczka 2006, PR critical debates and contemporary practice pp433-
442). To which side do you belong?
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Answer: I don’t see how PR education will hamper critical research and offer threat to
academic freedom. It sounds absurd.
Are you a member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR)? Can you
describe how beneficial the membership of the body has been in terms of value
addition to you as a scholar? Any suggestions as to how the NIPR can be repositioned
to perform better?
Answer: Unfortunately, I am a member. In the last ten years, the body has not had any
significant or insignificant impact in my career as an academic/scholar. For
recommendation, the priority is to drive the implementation of the enabling law that seems
to professionalise the practice. Second, partner with existing Universities in Nigeria to
develop a workable curriculum and encourage the institutions to mount a full fletched PR
programme as a separate Dept from the regular mass comm programmes. Third, help NUC
to develop a template to regulate the delivery of the course in the universities, Fourth,
ensure that professional qualifications means SOMETHING TANGIBLE to the holder, not
just a title with no value, as it is right now. A chartered account is regarded similar to a
doctoral degree holder in the Universities. So, such gives you a Lecturer 11 status. But
with the highest professional qualification in NIPR, you still start from the very bottom of
the ladder in academics, unless you have a proper Masters degree to enable you start as an
Assistant Lecturer.
What institutional relationship exists between Covenant University and NIPR?
Answer: None currently. Although I initiated training our students, in conjunction with the
body, on writing the professional examinations. But because this comes with no clear
benefits, it never worked.
Finally, what advice do you have for Nigerian PR practitioners, consultants and
scholars as we aim towards professionalisation of PR practices in Nigeria?
Answer: I think you infer this from my recommendations above. We all need to come
together to drive TRUE PROFESSIONALISM in the practice and train or shove quacks
out of the scene.
NB: The above responses were e-mail to researcher on 8 July 2014 and on 9th
July 2014,
researcher and respondent had a telephone interview to respond to follow-up questions
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stated in the interview guide. Transcripts of that interview are not attached but audio is
included in CD submitted to JOMEC.
3. OLUGBENGA ODUGBESAN, HEAD OF COMMUNICATIONS,
INFRASTRUCTURE CONCESSION REGULATORY COMMISSION,
NIGERIA.
Can you give me your own definition of Public Relations (PR)?
Answer: Public relations from practical perspective from my own experience is all about
relationship building … usually between an organisation and its stakeholders. It can also be
between an individual and the person’s stakeholders, so it’s all about relationship building
founded on good reputation, trying to gauge how you are perceived by your stakeholders
and if how you are perceived is different from how you will like to be perceived, PR will
come in and break the gap, it’s all about relationships for mutual understanding.
In the course of your work sir, would you like to share a practical example of how you
have been able to bridge the gap for your organisation?
Answer: Well, when there is crises in an organisation, that is when things are not going the
way they should go, then there is crises, may be a minor crises, it may be serious crises
depending on how the crises affects your organisation, when there is a crises then you
know there is reputational gap.
There is a difference between how you want to be perceived and related with and how you
are actually perceived, treated and related with. I had worked in an organisation before
where we had serious crises between the organisation and its major stakeholders, with the
labour union, with its major partner which is the government, and you know, the job of the
PR professional in that instance is one: to do an appraisal of the system, you must do a PR
audit, a reputational audit which was what I adopted in addressing the situation and I
needed to know the situation of the company in relation to its stakeholders and in doing
that.
You need you need to identify the stakeholders and know how each of the segment of the
stakeholders affects your operations in terms of what they do, in terms of how they relate
with you, so I had to do this, identify the stakeholders then do a PR audit to say ok, how
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was the organisation communication with stakeholders pre-crises, ok and how was the
organisation communicating with the stakeholders immediately before the crises because
something must be wrong with the communication system which lead to the crises in the
first instance.
I was able to identify the stakeholders, able to audit the PR system to be able to know the
preferences of the stakeholders, how was the organisation communicating with the
stakeholders? Was the organisation communicating with the stakeholders in the language
they understood, the way they will like to be communicated with? Was the organisation
using the right channel, was the organisation using the appropriate tools in communicating
with the stakeholders? All these I had to analyse to say ok, for me to identify how the
problem actually started… you do a PR audit, … Which will also include survey…that is
reputational survey to know how each segment of the stakeholders perceive your
organisation.
Maybe there is distrust, maybe there is discontent, maybe there are environmental issues,
maybe there are social issues, maybe there are economic issues, all these things will have
to be looked into. When you do that, you do the survey, then you will be able to identify
where the problem actually started from in terms of communication with your
stakeholders. Communication is very key; but often times, the mistake we make is we
listen to reply, we don’t listen to understand, you should listen to your stakeholders to
understand…and you reason as one of them. Reason from point of view of public interest,
you put yourself in their position, then you will be able to understand … how you can win
their support.
Talking about how your organisation gets the opinions and feedback from its
stakeholders, you have pointed out survey as one way, is there any other way that its
gets its feedback that you will like to share?
Answer: Apart from survey, you can also have one-on-one interaction with them. You can
have like town-hall, you can arrange meetings and sit with them, in which case, you are
not speaking through statistics, you are not speaking through intermediaries, you are not
speaking through books, in that case too, you are able to put faces to your organisation and
people appreciate that more when they see faces been associated with the organisation they
are relating with, they see the CEO, they see the spokesperson talking to them, relating
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with them because you see, apart from the spoken words, they can also submit their trust to
you from your body language, they see you, they look at the sincerity of your presentation
then they are able to tell that oh these people mean well or these people deserve our
support, our sympathy/ so you can also do that apart from survey, which is very very good
where it is possible, it is good to bring the stakeholders together and sit with them,
fraternise with them, associate with them, empathise with them, relate with them.
Question: Does the PR unit in your organisation participate in strategic decision
making processes? Is it part of the core management team?
Answer: Thank you very much. The PR unit is part of the core management and not just
the core management, in my organisation, we have the General Management Team (GMT)
and we have the Executive Management Team (EMT) and I am glad to say that hitherto,
the PR unit was part of, the head of the PR unit that is my person was only part of the
general management team but given the valuable contributions that I have made at
meetings and given the way I have actually positioned the unit for the management to
realise how significant communications is in the success of the organisation, not too long
ago, recently anyway, the head of communications unit was invited to be part of the EMT
as an observer and just three weeks ago, I received an e-mail from the DG notifying me
that the communications unit has been upgraded as a full-fledged member of EMT of the
organisation, which tells you the significance of what we do in strategic decision making
of the organisation.
Question. Congratulations about that achievement sir. Is there anymore you will like
to add on the value that PR has added towards meeting your organisation’s overall
strategy? If possible with a practical example.
Answer: One, when the organisation started out, it didn’t start out to be an obscure
organisation, it started out to be an organisation with a recognizable brand, recognizable
identity, my organisation is a government regulatory agency. As a regulatory, the investing
public who need to know of your existence before they bring in their money into your
investment environment, so there is need for the organisation to reach out to the investing
community to say well, here is a regulator and these are the things we do, we are here to
protect your investment, we are here to ensure that your partnership with the government is
profitable, its rewarding and that in no way, will the investment be jeopardised whether
there is a change of government or not …
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Question: The next question is more general, it’s about the level of professionalisation
of PR practice in Nigeria, could you just describe from your 14 year experience in PR
and 10 years in journalism the state of the Nigerian PR industry in terms of
professionalisation?
As you know, the efforts by government to make Public Relations a profession started
decades back with an enabling Act of parliament setting up the Nigerian Institute of Public
Relations, this is in an attempt to ensure that PR is practiced as a profession and not just a
discipline or calling or vocation where anybody can just come into and practice because
there is a need for code of ethics among other things, there is need for minimum
qualification to be a PR practitioner, there is also need for continued professional
development of practitioners, so the effort started many years back but that is not to say
that the level of professionalism is at a point that we will want it to be for those of us in the
profession.
I am saying this because one, we haven’t really had much adherence to the ethical
principles upon which the profession is based, we have not had so much adherence, we
have had a situation where everybody is a PR practitioner, organisations ignore the
requirement of the law that for you to practice PR, one, you must have professional
certification by NIPR, so we see a situation where we even have PR agencies that are not
registered or recognised by the Institute which is meant to regulate the practice of the
profession in the country, that tells you that the level of professionalism is still far far
below what is expected… you have so many charlatans and the government is not also
helping the situation because you have a situation where even government in the
engagement of PR firms, government often times will not take cognizance of the fact that
we have a law specifying minimum requirements for the practice of PR in the country.
Even in the appointment of reputation managers, PR managers in the government agencies,
we fail to go by the provision of the NIPR Act in terms of minimum requirement for the
engagement of PR practitioners and we also have the misconception that once you are a
journalist, then you are a professional PR person that is why you have a very many
journalist in the PR profession and I have had to tell well, them being a Journalist, is
different from been a PR practitioners, they are two different things entirely, they are
completely different. I do not know if that answers my questions.
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Yes, it answers them and then raises there other questions that I will like to ask one
after the other.One, you have pointed out that the NIPR is a regulator for the PR
industry in Nigeria, so my first question will be, how has it actually performed as the
regulator of the industry, this is like an x-ray of the NIPR and how do you think they
can actually do better?
Answer: Thank you very much. As a regulator, the truth is NIPR is not doing enough for
the regulation of PR practice in this country or for raising the standard of PR practice in
this country. You sometimes find some adverts in the papers re-iterating the requirements
of the law in terms of who should be employed as a PR manager or who to deal with as a
PR agency and they don’t go beyond that.
Two, the certification by NIPR is not a requirement for the practice of PR in Nigeria, if
you go through PR vacancy announcements in the papers online, if you put together, five
hundred PR vacancies, chances are that you may not get more than one, if you get at all,
that will require membership of NIPR or NIPR certification … so for that reason, people
who want to practice PR don’t deem it necessary to go for NIPR certification or to consider
been a member of NIPR. Two. NIPR in its decades of existence, has not found it important
to form alliances and partnership with training institutions to boost you know
professionalism of people who actually go to university to study communications or Public
relations, as I talk to you today, the only University with partnership with PR is the
University of Nigeria, in South Eastern part of the country which accounts for maybe less
than 5% of total PR population in Nigerian Universities and even if you go to UNN, you
discover that very little concession is granted to people who have NIPR certification to
proceed for their degree starting from 200level … so you are just like every other person
who is coming in to study PR. So we don’t have that partnership with training institutions
in the country, which is stifling the growth of PR practice and professionalism in the
country.
We don’t. Then we also do not have, well ok, until very recently that we have noticed
some changes, for so many years, the CPD of NIPR was at zero level, the institute will just
gather member together for winning and dining annually in the name of annual conference
of NIPR without actually discussing professionalism, issues affecting PR practice in the
country and how they can raise the standard of PR but of late, I must confess that we are
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beginning to see some changes. It is going to be gradual anyway if we sustain the
momentum.
Question: I will like again to talk about the certification, because you were talking of
some courses that NIPR provides and certificates that they give, If you have attended
any of these have you found it beneficial because it is one thing for people to have
NIPR certification and it is another for it to be useful, something that is practical and
will make a difference in their job. Was it well structured and did it add value as a
person?
I want to say that for the programmes I have attended, I am not going to say that I didn’t
gain anything, for any programme of NIPR I attended, I did learn one or two things even
though that might not meet my expectations but beyond that what I want to say is that,
training is a serious task for NIPR to conduct trainings, workshops and seminar, there
should be a dedicated department to develop their curriculum in line with contemporary
realities, contemporary PR circumstances, a situation where you plan a training workshop
and you just chose any topic or any presenter or any professional so to speak to come and
talk on any area of HR is not good enough, it must be properly developed, you must have a
properly developed curriculum for training year in, year out that will focus on
contemporary issues in PR practice and your faculty members must be carefully selected to
address these issues, they must be voices that are respected in PR practice globally not just
locally, but what we have found so far is you want to organise a workshop, you just pick a
few people, sit overnight and decide what to talk on, no it shouldn’t be so, it should be
better structured that what we have now.
Talking about training, which you just mentioned a moment ago, it’s another thing
that I want you to please throw more light on. There seems to be a lot of journalists
that have gone into PR, including marketers, advertisers etc. Can you practice PR
successfully without training in the field and if so, does that make PR qualify to be
called a profession?
Answer: Training in Public Relations shouldn’t be restricted to formal University
education, the fact that somebody studied English, or Sociology or French is not to say the
person cannot be a good Relations person but then, the person will still have to be trained,
that is the essence of having the NIPR and I also believe you have similar institutions in
the UK and so many other countries. This is a platform to develop people either with PR
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background or without PR background in the art of PR and certify you as a professional to
practice PR. The difference between somebody with a PR background in the University
and somebody without PR background, will be in the area of waivers. So where you are
taking like 5 modules as somebody with PR background, somebody without a PR
background may be taking like 8 modules because the person will have to be taking
courses on like the fundamentals of PR, the basics of PR, which you must have learnt in
the course of studying in the University as a PR graduate, that is the difference. But then if
you look at you know, practical PR, that is what the institute is meant to provide not
academic PR.
Similar thing is available in law, you go to the University to get a degree in law, that
doesn’t make you a solicitor, that doesn’t make you a barrister, you still go to the law
school, where you study law practice and procedure then you are called to bar. So that is
what I am saying, having a degree in PR is not sufficient, you still have to go for that
certification where you will learn PR practice and procedure. And if you do not have a
degree in PR, you can still be a PR professional but you will have to go to the appropriate
institution to learn the practice and procedure of PR and then be certified. So certification
will come from that body to make you practice PR, so anybody can come whether you read
English, you read Geology, you read Medicine, you read accounting, it is no problem but
come and pass through the professional training and be certified.
Question: Where in your experience of the needs of PR do you think that a PR degree
should be domiciled? Business school, marketing, business management or
journalism/media?
Well, the classification of schools or faculties in Universities varies, that is one thing I will
like you to know, it doesn’t matter what name you call it. In some institutions for instance,
Mass Communications is in the faculty of Social Sciences, whereas in some institutions,
Mass communications is in the faculty of Arts, so it all depends on how you classify it but
that is not the issue, what they bring out the content of the programme, the quality of the
faculty, these are the things we are looking at.
For instance, even in the UK, if you go to the University of Leeds for instance, you have
Institute of Communications studies which is in the Faculty of Arts, but then they still run
Public Relations in the business school. And sometimes what you find is that some of the
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faculty members teaching you in the Business school are also available teaching in the
Institute for communications studies. So, I do not think where the school is situated really
matters. What matters is the course content how the curriculum is developed and the
quality of the faculty.
Question: Could you please describe how the explosion of the internet has affected the
way you carry out your PR functions as an individual but also as an organisation.
The advent of the internet has changed so many things. The first thing that has changed is
speed. The speed at which you communicate with your stakeholders as a PR person has
changed and that has also raised the expectations from your stakeholders. You can imagine
in those days, if you are printing your annual report, which is part of the materials you use
to sell your organisation to communicate with your stakeholders, your annual report may
not get to your shareholders or your publics until maybe a few months after publication but
things have changed.
As your are finishing your AGM, people already have the reports on the telephones, smart
phones, iPad, laptop, everywhere. Which means that in the practice of PR now, speed is
very critical, particularly when you are talking about crises management; the speed at
which you communicate during crises is very important, so that internet has actually made
that very possible so you do not have any excuse that well we tried to do this, it took us
one day to do this, to get this. No. So, time is no longer an excuse, that well, it took us time
to do this. Internet has changed that completely, so now we communicate with our
stakeholders speedily. And you have to do that because one, with the advent of the internet,
information is readily available to your stakeholders from many sources, so if you delay in
passing the appropriate message across to your stakeholders, chances are that they will get
the information from other sources and the information may be tainted and if the
information is tainted or corrupted, one it is likely to do some damage to your reputation so
now you have a task of communicating appropriate messages, not only that, you also have
the task of managing your damaged reputation and because as a PR person, it is critical for
you to be very proactive, it means that you have to communicate at the speed of the
internet. Now! Now! You don’t have to rely on the traditional means of communication to
deliver your message to your stakeholders, you don’t have to.
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Question: With personal examples, please can you state what factors make the
practice of PR in Nigeria difficult; after which could you describe how you have been
able to overcome them in the course of your work.
Answer: The main thing that affects the PR in the Nigerian environment is corruption, such
that most PR practitioners believe that they can buy reputation with money. So people
don’t believe that they can build reputation, they believe that they can buy reputation,
which boils down to corruption that is one major problem we are having, now is you want
to send out a message to your stakeholders, the language people understand is money.
If your message is without any reward, any financial colouration, chances are that the
message may not be delivered, or may not be well received and even if you look at the
media channel that PR practitioners use to disseminate information to stakeholders, in this
part of the world, you know that you buy space in the newspapers, it doesn’t matter how
newsworthy your activities are, if you want to be on cover, you pay to be on cover, if you
want your event covered, reported, you pay for everything, so people use money to buy
reputation in this part of the country which makes the job of a professional PR practitioner
very difficult, so what you now find in this part of the world would be propagandist, who
pretend to be PR professionals.
When they go out to represent their organisations, they are not keen on delivering the
message because the message does not really matter, they are keen on knowing what price
you require in order to deliver the message and they pay the price and sent the message to
you. So corruption is a major challenge.
The media that we rely on to disseminate the information is characterised by what we call
the Brown Envelope Syndrome in this part of the world. The second part of the question is
how I cope right?
Question: Yes, but before we go to that, could you just describe what the BES is all
about?
Answer: Exactly what I said earlier, for instance, if you invite a media organisation to
cover your AGM for instance, it is rather you give them money upfront, particularly the
broadcast media, you pay upfront before they come. For the print, when they come and are
going, they will ask you to pay for their fare, they will tell you that they are poorly paid by
their organisations, they sourced money on their own to come to the venue and that they
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will need that money back provision for their lunch in money terms and what they do is if
you do not give this to them, they are not going to write your report so that is how the BES
thing works. Then even for the desk officers, the editors and sub-editors, you also have to
grease their palms to determine the prominence that your story is get in the papers. If you
want it to be on cover, you have to pay for it. If you want your story to be ten paragraph
long, you have to pay for it. It has even got to a point that even news pictures, you have to
pay for it, even when they are not adverts, they are purely news items, you still have to pay
for them, so everything is commercialised, so that is what I mean by Brown Envelope
Syndrome … for journalist to attend your event, you must give them money, if you
organise an event today, they come with the hope of getting money and you do not give
them, if you invite them for the next event, chances are that they will not come. That is
what I mean by BES.
Question: So despite these challenges, how have you been able to practice PR
ethically?
Answer: My media experience has taught me that, one, even if journalist….you try to
create big stories from your event, if you create a big story from your event, and only one
or two organisations report the event, what I have found out in this country is that those
other media organisations that missed the story will have that correspondent queried.
If your story is big enough to sell the papers, to attract public attention and it is not in their
newspapers, the publishers will like to know why those stories were not reported by the
correspondents covering that bit. So what I try to do is that one: I do not just bring people
together for an event that is not newsworthy, what I do is I try to bring out something
newsy from my event such that even if I do not have the money to give you, you still will
have no choice but to report the event otherwise you will have a query when you get back
to your office, that’s number 1.
No 2 is reputation, if you are reputed for not giving Brown envelopes and for being
professional in the way you do your thing, overtime they will know you for that and they
will not tie you event to monetary reward … cos when you invite them they know that you
have something newsworthy and they will come and they will not have that expectation of
brown envelope. Three: what I also do is, rather than also giving them brown envelopes, I
seek for a means of giving them capacity development, in which case, I make them my
friends not by dolling out cash but my investing in their capacity development and by
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investing in their capacity development, you also elevate them over and above the brown
envelope syndrome. Though not all of them will be converted but you can be sure that if
you do that one or two of them will ….over and above the brown envelope syndrome, they
will have some loyalty even to your brand in appreciation of how much you have invested
in raising their standard of journalism practice. These are the things I do.
Any final words for fellow PR practitioners in Nigeria?
Well, I know that I have a lot to learn from them, just like I know they have a lot to learn
from me and from others, I think we should raise the bar of PR practice in this country, we
need to set enviable standards that will make it difficult for charlatans to survive in the
profession and like I also said, we need partnerships with reputable and accredited
institutions, not just locally, also internationally, reputable organisations where we can
train PR practitioners, that is when the certification of NIPR will have value, that is when
people will be very happy to sit for NIPR exams and gain NIPR certification …
4. MANAGING DIRECTOR OF AN INDIGENOUS NIGERIAN COMPANY
(ANONYMOUS INDIGENOUS)
What is your perception of Public Relations (PR)?
Answer: PR is a two pronged process essentially meant to facilitate the goodwill of an
organisation or even the individual. Thus, it enhances positive perception of the
organisation and promotes benign consideration from the public. But the way and manner
that PR is practiced these days has been "bastardised" in the sense that it has become the
only means of getting favour or securing the execution of an otherwise procedural task by
organisations or the government or even individuals, as the case may be. This is
unprofessional but it’s fuelled by so many factors, whilst spate of poverty and insecurity of
sustenance have been the most influential. The usual cliché of ‘wetting the ground' before
an orchestrated and transparent procedure could produce result has become the norms,
particularly in Nigerian marketing space.
In my own opinion, PR and marketing functions are interwoven. I see PR as the
communication aspect of marketing and this presupposes that virtually every entity
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requires some measure of positive communication to amplify embedded goodness in its
desired objectives or goals.
In your organisation, is the marketing and PR role handled by the same unit? What
is this unit called?
Answer: Essentially, we are not there yet as our organisation is still a 'growing concern’, so
we are yet to come up with a structured way of handling our marketing and corporate
communications effectively. What we do at the moment is basically what I refer to as
lubrication which is giving something to target organisations or government agencies to
facilitate result in our pursuit of permits and approvals.
Other forms of PR is embedded in the undertaken of corporate sponsorships to some
professional organisations/associations when they solicit our support to some related social
events.
Currently in your organisation, are there then a group of people who were employed
specifically to handle your PR/Corporate Communications functions?
Answer: No. For us, PR is intertwined within the responsibilities or functions of a job
holder. Take for instance, the Procurement Manager in my organisation is scheduled to
ensure effective discharge of imported refined product into our tank farm in Apapa,
Lagos. Thus, he is expected to facilitate efficiency by minimising or eliminating port
bottlenecks, etc. Thus, the roles of a PR Manager is not clearly defined in downstream
business of Nigeria in the interim.
Given your interaction thus far with Nigerian PR practitioners, do you consider them
professional? What advice do you have for the industry as it aims towards
professional practice?
Answer: The PR professionals in Nigeria has come a long way, and have developed
considerably to taking the practice to higher levels, but the macro system still remains the
platform upon which such aspirations can be achieved. Thus, I think the best for the
professionals is stick to the elements of the profession under whatever circumstance, and
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be more creative in the course of overcoming the inherent challenges permeating the
industry generally.
5. GENERAL MANAGER, CORPORATE AFFAIRS IN A MULTINATIONAL
COMPANY (ANONYMOUS MULTINATIONAL)
How do you personally define Public Relations (PR)?
Answer: In a nutshell, targeted corporate reputation management through the use of
various communication channels &platforms i.e. – traditional & new media / sponsored
events & other initiatives that provide a platform to influence critical stakeholders and
articulate a company’s point of view.
Describe the level of professionalisation of PR practice in Nigeria and how the
industry can improve its status thus dissociating it from propaganda.
Answer: Level of professionalism in Nigeria is poor. PR can improve its status by putting a
‘science” around reputation management, developing & communicating the strategic link
between PR and bottom line, the development of intelligent/relevant training programs &
case study, speaking the language of business and attracting those who have backgrounds
that speak to intellectual rigour at the moment, PR does not attract the brightest and the
best. It makes recruitment very difficult & de-values the discipline.
With personal examples, please state what factors make the practice of PR in Nigeria
difficult and how you have overcome them.
Answer: On a personal level PR was a personal choice made fairly late in my career after a
long career in the financial services sector giving me an extremely pragmatic & strategic
approach to PR. I have had no real challenges as I work for a company that understands
that the management of critical stakeholders is critical to business in order to ensure an
enabling environment to operate.
Either as a member or non-member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations
(NIPR), can you describe how beneficial membership of the body can be towards
adding value to you as a PR practitioner? Any suggestions as to how the NIPR can be
repositioned to perform better?
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Answer: Membership many be a nice-to have for some. However, on a personal level I am
yet to see the value of the membership. In recruitment decisions, membership of the
organization confers no advantage. The quality of experience is far more important.
Describe the top three PR functions in your organisation.
Answer: Corporate Communications (internal/external communication strategy & content
development), Media Relations, Corporate Events & Protocol.
Does the PR unit in your organisation participate in strategic decision making
processes? Is it part of the core management team?
Answer: Yes. As General Manager, Corporate Affairs, I am benchmarked at the same level
as my counterparts in commercial parts of the business and I have an equal
role/participation at Executive level.”
What value has PR added towards meeting your organisation’s overall strategy?
Answer: Multi Stake holder management & communication is absolutely critical to our
business for us to have the ‘license to operate.
What methods does your organisation use to get the opinions/feedback of its
stakeholders?
Answer: Reputation Audit.
Can PR be successfully practiced without an education/training in PR? How do you
and your PR colleagues improve your capacity to perform better?
As far as I am aware, there isn’t an “education” in PR. What is required is a set of skills
and certain exposure to excel. PR training in Nigeria seems quite elementary and does not
speak to the requirements of the business that I work in. The best training has been on the
job training by developing strategies that have served our own ends & constant updates on
best practise examples/case studies .e.g. BP etc.
Considering the needs of your organisation, what skills set do you rate highly in
someone you are looking to employ in your PR unit? What PR skills do you think will
be key in the next decade in Nigeria?
Business savvy & core understanding of value drivers/A world view & exposure
/understand of macro& micro socio- economic issues and the key drivers of critical
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stakeholder, superior written & oral communication skills, analytical mind and ability to
work through ambiguity. I look for people who combine sharp intellect, sophistication and
an impressive physical presence.
Describe how the explosion of the internet has affected the way you carry out your
PR functions as an organisation.
It means that media management is no longer confined to the traditional media. We have
had to develop a new media reputation management model which has completely different
rules and parameters from traditional media management. We have also had to utilize
sophisticated media monitoring and feedback mechanisms in order to track and respond to
trends very quickly.
How has your company managed cultural diversity in terms of internal and external
communications?
We have developed a Communication Code which enshrines the tone of our corporate
speak as distinct from marketing speak. Our corporate speak is engaging yet fairly formal
with due cognisance for the traditional rules of grammar and etiquette. No local nuances
are permitted. In that way the tone is easily understood and entirely neutral.
6. QUENTIN LANGLEY, SENIOR LECTURER, MARKETING,
UNIVERSITY OF BEDFORDSHIRE, UK
How do you personally define PR? Would you say that PR has met all the criteria
necessary for it to be considered a profession?
Answer: Public relations are the management of an organisation’s relationships with its
various publics.
Considering the current and likely future needs of the industry, what skills/modules
should be included in an undergraduate and postgraduate PR curriculum to better
prepare aspiring practitioners especially in developing countries like Nigeria?
Answer: There needs to be a strong focus on theory, but theory can only be understood in
the context of current practice. Current practice is increasingly digital and global. Even
though the digital platforms will continue to change, they will still be governed by similar
principles such as interactivity, wisdom of crowds, etc.
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Given the role that professional bodies play towards ensuring best practices in any
field, are there lessons that to your knowledge, the Nigerian Institute of Public
Relations can learn from the CIPR bearing in mind cultural and environmental
differences?
Answer: I am sure there are, but it would be hard for me to identify them, given my limited
knowledge of the Nigerian Institute. Recall that being in Nigeria does not prevent a
practitioner joining CIPR or PRSA. Practitioners who wish to demonstrate that they meet
the professional expectations of western institutes are welcome to join them, just as schools
in many parts of Africa teach GCSEs and A Levels run from Cambridge.
Do you know of any contributions that Nigerian PR scholars have made to the global
PR body of knowledge? If any, kindly state examples.
Answer: I do not know of any.
Do you consider ‘PR experience’ as sufficient to practice professionally without an
education and/or certification in PR?
Answer: Professional behaviour is sufficient.
From your teaching and practice experience, what school will you say is most ideal to
house a PR course and why?
Answer: If I were establishing a new course I would run it in two institutions based in
London and New York. I would then link this course with internships in both cities to give
students practical experience of professional practice in global business centres.
There seems to be disagreements in some quarters between PR scholars and
practitioners about the role of PR education. Practitioners see it simply as a tool to
“serve business and industrial interests” and “produce qualified people for the
industry” while some educators are resisting because they think it can be lead to a
threat to academic freedom and hamper on critical research potentials of
Universities. To which side do you belong? (L’Etang and Pieczka, Public Relations –
Critical debates and contemporary practice 2006, pp433-442).
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Answer: I think this is overstated if not wholly imaginary. Educators and students – quite
wrongly – believe that employers are not interested in theoretical studies and only respect
practical skills. My research suggests this is not true.
The desire to be business ready comes from students, not employers. Employers certainly
welcome qualified applicants but have literally no interest in whether courses are also
producing students interested in critical research. No-one hampers academic freedom by
employing students or places any barriers to critical research.
Any other advice you might have for the Nigerian PR industry (scholars,
practitioners, NIPR) as they aim towards professionalisation?
Answer: Focus on globalisation and study internationally.
7. EMEKA MADUEGBUNA, MD/CEO C & F PORTER NOVELLI AND
TWO-TERM PRESIDENT OF PRCAN.
Question: How do you personally define Public Relations?
Public relations practice is about change and should therefore be focused on one thing:
Transforming people into advocates of causes and issues. Why? Advocates are more loyal
and involved with the cause or issue they recommend. People prefer a recommendation to
any other message that they received. People feel more confident to change after a
recommendation from someone they trust.
Question: Please describe the level of professionalisation of the Nigerian PR industry
– practitioners and scholars. How can the industry improve its status thus
dissociating it from propaganda?
The level of professionalism evident in Nigerian public relations practice has improved
remarkably in the past decade. Gone are those days when the focus was essentially on
media relations. We now have a situation in which quite a number of Nigerian practitioners
are able to provide services in the essential disciplines: corporate affairs, marketing, and
public affairs. We are beginning to see more use of research and planning in the
development of public relations programmes and an increasing foray into digital
communications.
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However, more work needs to be done to improve the quality of services rendered by a
significant percentage of the practitioners. Efforts in this regard should focus on the
following areas:
Up-grading the skills of those practitioners who do not measure up to the desired
standards.
Ensuring effective training of potential Public Relations graduates.
Continuous re-training of practitioners in order to constantly up-grade their skills in
line with developments in the environment and new challenges.
Knowledge and experience sharing amongst practitioners.
Making the NIPR a more virile organisation. It has been argued that the fact that
the NIPR is both a regulatory agency and a trade association has affected its ability
to ensure that appropriate standards are maintained.
Question: Is PR in Nigeria understood and practiced as a management function?
A 2010 report in PR Review, journal of the Public Relations Consultants Association of
Nigeria, observed the growing acceptance and importance of public relations practise in
Nigeria. The experts attributed this to:
The rise of enlightened stakeholders and management.
Increased pressure on firms to account to stakeholders.
Tendency to more open societies through democracy.
More media channels that explore various issues and enable public discourse.
Many new channels, media and non-media, such as GSM, empowering the
populace.
These go to show that there is an increasing understanding that public relations should be
managed in a more strategic manner than was hitherto the case. It has to be observed that
this development is more evident in the private sector. Given the dominant role of the
public sector, the relatively lower level of appreciation of public relations in the sector, has
meant that the various governments in the federation have not effectively used public
relations in the discharge of their mandates. There is a tendency within these governments
to assume that anyone who has some understanding of journalism or broadcasting is
automatically qualified to manage public relations and communications programmes. The
result is that public sector communications leaves much to be desired.
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Question: As a past President of PRCAN, could you kindly share the progress that
the PRCAN has made towards contributing to the professionalisation of?
PRCAN has contributed to engendering growing professionalism in public relations
practice in Nigeria through a number of measures:
Providing an umbrella for sharing best practice amongst registered firms.
Insistence on compliance with the legal requirement for practicing public relations
in Nigeria. PRCAN insists that the CEO and key executives of member agencies
and prospects must be registered with the NIPR. Many firms have had to comply
with this basic requirement which suffered lack of compliance hitherto. PRCAN
now seeks to move the needle forward one notch by insisting soon on member
agencies confirming that their staffs regularly update their membership.
Capacity development for the industry. PRCAN continues to grow capacity for the
industry as part of enhancing professionalism. The 11th edition of the Public
Relations Masterclass® training workshops introduced by PRCAN in 2011 held on
Friday, July 4 at Lagos Sheraton Hotel and Towers with 15 participants. Training
has helped to groom a cadre of professionals with sound theoretical grounding in
public relations, particularly against the backdrop of very shallow dip in PR in
tertiary institutions for those with training in mass communication or marketing.
Advocacy for public relations. PRCAN has been the foremost advocate for public
relations in Nigeria, speaking for both the consulting arm of the business as well as
public relations profession generally. PRCAN has done this through a number of
measures including:
- Messaging through an advertising campaign. Under the rubric, Engage a
PRCAN agency, campaign has run three strands of Engage a PRCAN
Agency; 21 ways PRCAN agencies serve you; and See the Company We
Keep. (Materials attached)
- Institution of the annual Public Relations Gold Medal Lecture series first
held in September 2013
- Collaboration on training with various professional bodies and sectoral
organisations such as the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria and the
Nigerian Society of Engineers
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- Speaking engagements such as the President’s at the 2013 Annual
Conference of the African Public Relations Association in Addis Ababa,
May 2013
- Advocacy visits to media houses and other stakeholders
- Interviews on the issue
- Stirring and contributing to debates on PR practice in Nigeria
- Stakeholder engagement: PRCAN is now seeking registration as regulator
with the Bureau of Public Procurement as well as meeting with the Federal
Bureaucracy (office of Secretary to Government) to ensure member
agencies get first call on government Communication briefs
Question: What key challenges do you face as a PR consultant given Nigeria’s unique
environment and cultural diversity?
Despite the growth that has been made in the development of public relations practice, the
profession is yet to be accorded the same status as the traditional professions: law,
medicine, engineering, and accountancy. There is also the challenge arising from the
relatively low level of patronage by the public sector which is the dominant player in the
socio-economic landscape. Indeed, one would be pleasantly surprised if up to 25% of the
total communications spending in the public sector including public relations is undertaken
via local professional consultants. As stated above, efforts are underway to reverse this
position.
Beyond these, there are challenges internal to the profession. The desired synergy between
in-house practitioners and external consultants seems to be lacking. There is an urgent need
for the development and sustenance of mutual trust amongst public relations practitioners
regardless of whether they are in-house practitioners or external consultants. Furthermore,
because the numbers of public relations consultants who provide services well beyond the
tactical aspects of the practice are not as should be the case, other communications
professionals and in some instances non-communication professionals have tended to be
hired to undertake high-end strategy work which should come under the purview of public
relations consultants.
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Question: Do you think that PRCAN member organisations have the capacity and
experience to adequately handle various briefs for the government, multinational
corporations and other international companies? Why do the Nigerian government
prefer to engage international PR consultants to manage its reputation? What is
PRCAN doing to reverse this trend?
PRCAN members are quite competent and are active in the organised private sector. Most
of the leading multinational players in fast moving consumer goods, financial services,
telecoms, and ICT sectors employ the services of PRCAN members. A critical analysis of
the GSM marketing communication revolution of the past decade will show that PRCAN
members played an active role in bringing this about. They continue to provide quality
services to the GSM operators. The attached advertising material: See the company we
keep, is indicative of the clientele of PRCAN members. If international companies that are
adept at the marketing and communications functions constantly engage the services of
Nigerian public relations practitioners, it thus follows that the Nigerian public sector has to
up its game. Indeed, the tendency of the various governments to hire foreign public
relations consultants to the exclusion of Nigerian practitioners, are based on a lack of
understanding of the challenges for which these foreign firms are engaged. Foreign public
relations consultants no matter how experienced cannot effectively serve Nigerian causes
without significant inputs by Nigerian public relations practitioners. PRCAN has
constantly implored the Federal Government to look inwards and engage appropriate
competencies grounded in local knowledge and global expertise to tackle its reputation
challenges.
It should also be pointed out that the NIPR Act which is the enabling legislation for the
public relations industry makes it illegal for persons not licensed by the NIPR to engage in
public relations practice in the country. While PRCAN has nothing against our foreign
counterparts, particularly as Nigeria is deservedly a preferred destination for Foreign
Direct Investment, such engagement must be within the confines of Nigerian law. The
Nigerian Government cannot be seen to be working against its own laws.
Furthermore, PRCAN believes that 50 years into independence our governments should be
promoting indigenous expertise and be concerned with its standing with their internal
stakeholders over and above other considerations.
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Question: Please describe the relationship between PRCAN and NIPR.
The NIPR based on the NIPR Act is the controlling body for public relations practitioners
in the country. Section 5 of the Act: empowers the Council of the NIPR to do anything
which in its opinion is calculated to facilitate the objectives of the Act. NIPR has relied
upon this provision in the enactment of the Public Relations Consultancy (Amended)
Practice Bye-Law (No. 3) of 1993. The Bye-Law has entrusted PRCAN with the
responsibility to administer the Public Relations consultancy.
Question: Are you a member of NIPR? If yes, can you describe how beneficial the
membership of the body has been in terms of adding value to you as a consultant?
Please suggest ways in which the NIPR can be repositioned to contribute better
towards the professionalisation of the Nigerian PR industry.
I am a fellow of the NIPR, and have been one since April 2000. I remain a champion of
the ideals for which the NIPR stands for. However, it has become clear that the current
institutional arrangement for public relations practice in Nigeria needs to be reviewed. This
does not in any way detract from the noble role of the founders of the NIPR five decades
ago under the leadership of the late Sam Epelle, and in more recent times the work done by
Mazi Okereke and his group, which led to the enactment of the NIPR Act.
The problem lies in the hybrid nature of the NIPR. It is both a regulator and a trade
association. Standards remain the benchmark for professional practice and should be
strictly adhered to. A body different from the trade association should therefore be charged
with the responsibility of setting standards, determining who can practice, monitoring
whether practitioners adhere to the standards, and sanctioning those practitioners who err.
Such a body has to be isolated from the trade unionism and politicking of the trade
association. There is an urgent need for a legislation to bring about this change. In that
way, standards will improve significantly.
Question: Given your years of experience in PR consulting, what PR skills do you
consider most valuable for the current needs of the Nigerian market? What skills will
be key in the next decade or two?
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The traditional communications skills will remain very important for the public relations
practitioner. But much more will be required. The practitioner must be grounded in
strategic planning and research such that it is possible to develop and implement
systematic communications plans that tie in to the needs of the principal or client as the
case may be. Furthermore, the practitioner has to have a proper understanding of social and
digital media to be able to operate optimally in the information age. A basic knowledge of
business and finance will also be useful as a better appreciation of the commercial
environment will put the public relations practitioner in good stead.
Question: Please describe how the explosion of the internet has affected the practice
of PR in Nigeria.
Nigeria has the largest internet population (49 million users and 29% penetration rate) in
Africa and the eleventh in the world. The average Nigerian netizen spends not less than
three hours on the internet daily. Furthermore, mobile telephone subscribers are in the
region of 113 million users with a penetration rate of almost 70%. It is clear that the social
and digital media is vibrant, active and is becoming a more potent force–for good or ill- in
Nigeria. Public relations practitioners must adapt or be lost in the crowd.