I welcome the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations and the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management, to establish a degree-awarding academy for public relations practice in Nigeria.

I equally welcome the recent election of a Nigerian, Dr. Omoniyi Ibietan, as the Secretary-General of the African Public Relations Association (APRA).

Also worthy of note is the fact that Public Relations (PR) has now been designated as a cadre in the Federal Civil Service, with effect from December 2023. The Information Officer Cadre has been re-designated to ‘Information and Public Relations Officer Cadre’, and the Executive Cadre to ‘Executive Officer (Information and Public Relations)’. The NIPR played a critical role in championing this, and deserve commendation.

Nigeria will continue to play a leading role in strengthening and elevating public relations practice at home and across Africa. Recently, when I received the President of the African Public Relations Association, Mr. Arik Karani, he commended Nigeria in this regard.

He said, “[Nigeria] was, for the longest time, the only country in Africa that had a law that professionalized public relations. It was Nigeria that started it on the continent, and only last year did Zambia come out with its own law. So now we have two countries on the continent, and only now in Kenya, the bill for professionalizing public relations is at the second reading in Parliament.”

Encouraging remarks. Rest assured that the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will continue to provide the enabling environment for everybody within Nigeria’s communications industry to thrive.

Mohammed Idris, fnipr

Minister of Information and National Orientation

June 29, 2024