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PRCAN New Executives : L-R,
Adetola Odusote (Secretary General), Jaiye Opayemi (Publicity Secretary), John Ehiguese
(President), Tampiri Akemu ( Assistant
Secretary General), Muyiwa Akintunde (Vice President)
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In his acceptance speech on behalf of the newly elected
executives, the President, John Ehiguese, thanked members for their confidence
and support. He pledged to pursue a one-point agenda in this new tenure, which
was to deliver tangible value to all members of the Association.
Making a presentation at the AGM titled: “Ten Questions About
the State of PR Practice in Nigeria”, Ehiguese charged member agencies on the importance
of accurate and reliable data and documentation on the trends and developments
in public relations practice in Nigeria.
He said: “It is very
important for us as public relations consultants to start documenting our
research works and case studies. That is the only thing that can stand us out
as serious professionals, ready to play on the global stage. We execute successful
public relations campaigns that have the potential to win international public
relations awards, but if we don’t document such works as case studies, we cannot
enter them for such awards”.
He added that the world already knows that the Nigerian
market has huge potentials, but that we need to move beyond that narrative, to
begin to show what we can do, and what we are doing, as our contribution to the
growth of PR globally.
Making a comparison with public relations practice in some
other parts of the world, Ehiguese said: “public relations practice in many of these countries is not necessarily better
than what obtains in Nigeria. The only edge they have over us is that their
systems are more organized in terms of infrastructural support, research,
documentation and higher ethical threshold.”
Ehiguese further stated that one of the reasons Nigeria has
never featured in the annual Holmes Report on the state of the global PR industry
is the near-absence of data to track the growth of the industry. He however
pledged that the new leadership will re-launch an effort aimed at tracking the performance
of the public relations consultancy practice in the country.
In his contribution to the discussion, Nn’emeka Maduegbuna, a
past President of PRCAN and Chairman of C&F Porter Novelli, said the public
relations industry in Nigeria has a lot of potentials. But he counseled that practitioners
must be willing to move along with the evolving trends in digital public
relations. “The real practitioners in public relations still have a vital role
to play even in the current trends in terms of providing strategic directions
for whatever is being done within the digital space, ” Maduegbuna added.
Speaking in the same vein, Yomi Badejo-Okusanya, President of
the African Public Relations Association (APRA) and CEO of CMC Burson
Marsteller, also enjoined Nigerian public relations practitioners to put their
works forward for International awards such as the prestigious SABRE Awards
Africa, saying: “this is the first time organizers of the awards are focusing
exclusively on rewarding creative public relations campaigns in Nigeria. We are
Africa’s largest market, let us go out there and showcase our great works to
the world.”
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