Opinion
Give Nigeria A Good Image
A public relations expert and President, African Public Relations Association (APRA), Mr Peter Mutie, recently advised African leaders to polish their reputation b embracing the culture of reputation management and branding. Mutie who gave the advice in Calabar while contributing to a paper on “Reputation Management for Country Branding” presented by Robyn de Villiers, Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Bursen-Mersteller, South Africa, said that such move was necessary for African leaders to positively influence perceptions of their countries and products by the global community.
He said that reputation management would also foster good governance; ensure sustainable nations and valuable product brands. The APRA boss, urged members of the association to engage their countries to push out African brands in governance, personalities, products and nations.
“To achieve this, we must make up in Africa and start branding our own brand. You are only relevant if you have value. That is our vote and we must do it. This is because if you wait for someone else to do it, they will not do it, so NAPRA should stand up and take the lead”, he stressed.
Robyn de Villiers had in her paper explained why African government and countries need to manage their reputation. She said since trust is low, individuals, organizations and governments in Africa should always engage professionals in image or reputation management.
At all levels of governance, there are many roadblocks to strong democracy. Conflict triggered by political activities and communal, ethic, religious or resource allocation rivalries, poses a major threat to democracy. Corruption is a key problem that endangers the reputation of a leader and country.
In Nigeria, the problem with public relations practitioners is the lack of both the capacity and resources to effectively engage government and advocate change. Another problem is that government institutions have not established meaningful partnership with Nigerian public relations executives. So, both lack the capacity to carry out their own mandates. The damnation of Nigerian politics by an oligarch – a small elite, to the exclusion of the majority has over the years posed serious treat to the image and reputation of the country.
Many Nigerians have in the past created bad image for the country through different indecent acts such as corruption, money. Laundering, crimes, drug peddling, terrorism, among others. The increasing militarization and recent bombing of oil installations and vandalisation in the Niger Delta particularly questions or dents the image of the country.
These negative trends are occurring in the context of poor social and economic indicators across the country, and they undermine the ability of public relations practitioners to engage the democratic process at the maximal levels for the system to flourish.
Past leaders of Nigeria did not see the need for rule of law and to promote their reputation. These institutions had already shown a willingness to change and operate effectively and transparently, but they did not work to improve governance by engaging image builders as well as civil society and private sector stakeholders.
One of the best ways to build the capacity of public relations professionals to partner with government and leaders is to empower them to evaluate the fiscal and administrative responsibilities of the leaders to enable them understand the level of their culture of reputation management and branding. By so doing, public relations practitioners will be in the proper position to monitor the activities of the leaders in reputation management.
Another good way is by reinforcing policies and systems that will improve transparency, mobilizing public relations professionals to participate in government planning and budgeting and making them monitor financial flaws as well as assess the quality of services rendered by leaders. Public relations practitioners should also be assisted to hold elected officials and leaders accountable to ensure credible reputation.
In 2011, for example, USAID/Nigeria worked to ensure a credible national election in the country by helping political parties to build coalitions and provided training for domestic and international observers as well as organised civic education to strengthen political parties to ensure parallel vote tabulation. Such programme could be worked out to integrate public relations professionals into Nigerian’s political process.
Along with business, public relations develop a strong association among politicians. In San Francisco in 1933, Leone Baxter and her husband, Clem Whitake launched their public relations firm and went on to establish a reputation for winning election campaigns. The government’s role in public relations became established during World War I with the formation of the United State Committee on Public Information headed by George Creel, a newspaper man. The job of Creel and the commission was to bring public opinion more in line with the needs and pace if government . Some arms of government, especially the army and the police, train people in public relation, not only o turn out press releases but also to study and interpret public opinion and build the image of their officials.
The activities of image makers in the election process through votes and politicians education will serve as an avenue to promote peaceful and non-violent elections, as well as raise the reputation of our leaders. Today, public relations and information departments operate in almost every major department of government and companies. Effective public relations programmes help prevent problems in image and public opinion before they occur. Public relations involves many different functions apart from publicity and press relations, so public relations professionals must have strong working prelateship with the leaders and develop an identity within the government. Public relations practitioners should do everything within their capability to enhance the image of Nigeria and the leaders by preventing problems before they occur.
The leaders and government should understand that all eyes are on them locally and internationally and that the people would work with them according to their image and reputation. The Nigeria government must entrench a strong partnership and mutual relationship with public image makers to help in restructuring the battered reputation of some Nigerian leaders. It is expected of every patriotic leader, the citizens and public relations practitioners to defend and protect the integrity and reputation of the country at all times, as we are aware that even some Nigerians in Diaspora have given the rest of a bad reputation.
Shedie Okpara
About six years ago, my client, a UK-based Nigerian widow, became the target of an audacious scheme orchestrated by a notorious syndicate of land grabbers operating under the guise of a land owning family in Ikeja, Lagos. Their objective was clear: to dispossess her of her rightful ownership of three plots of land situated behind the former Tasty Fried Chicken building on Opebi Road, Ikeja. In a disturbing abuse of judicial process, these individuals approached a Magistrate Court then at Ikeja Local Airport, and by misrepresentation and fraudulent manipulation, secured a writ of possession against my client. It appeared their strategy was anchored on the assumption that the rightful owner was deceased. However, unknown to them, my client was very much alive, she only passed on last year.
Following this fraudulent judgment, the land grabbers, aided by a lawyer with an infamous reputation in the Ikeja axis for such sharp practices, took swift and forceful possession of the land. They began advertising the property to prospective buyers, offering each plot for several millions of naira. Upon being alerted by my client’s tenants, I conducted a search and discovered that the defendants had surreptitiously instituted the action using one of their own as the purported adverse party, who did not contest possession. Realising the magnitude of the fraud, I promptly secured my client’s Certificate of Occupancy and filed an application for joinder and a motion to set aside the judgment, backed by robust documentary evidence and affidavits deposing to the true facts.
The defendants, in a desperate and laughable defence, relied on a purported judgment allegedly delivered in the 1920s, claiming global ownership of lands stretching from Ikeja to Agege. When pressed to produce a survey plan or other definitive means of delineating the land covered by such a judgment, they failed woefully. The supposed plan was neither attached nor frontloaded.Fortunately, the presiding Magistrate, a sharp, fearless, and principled judicial officer saw through the deception and set aside the judgment accordingly.
What followed was a calculated legal standoff. After some days passed, I anticipated that the defendants would file a notice of appeal along with a motion for stay of execution, I acted strategically: by 8:00 a.m. of that day, possession had been recovered, effectively foreclosing their efforts to frustrate justice. They served their notice of appeal and motion for stay by 9:00am as I had anticipated.
Predictably, they resorted to harassment by filing a spurious petition at the Lagos State Police Command, alleging trespass. When that failed, they escalated the matter to the Assistant Inspector General of Police at Zone 2, Onikan. However, following a comprehensive review of all court documents and the title records, the Assistant Commissioner of Police, an officer of commendable integrity, sternly warned the fraudulent parties and their counsel never to return with such frivolous claims. He also threatened legal consequences for presenting forged or misleading documents. Regrettably, such land-grabbing tactics are far from isolated. I am presently handling another similar matter at the High Court of Lagos State, Ikeja Judicial Division. In this case, a property owner based in Jos, who has been in undisturbed possession of his land since before the Nigerian Civil War, was excluded from a suit for possession. The Plaintiffs falsely claimed adverse possession and obtained judgment using a family member as a nominal defendant. This is a land that had been returned to the owner (my client) by the Lagos State Government post-war, after a temporary wartime acquisition.
That matter is ongoing, and we remain confident that justice will again prevail. These cases serve as stark reminders of how certain individuals exploit procedural loopholes, such as substituted service and fictitious defendants, to perpetrate judicial fraud. It is common practice for notices of service to be pasted at the premises at odd hours, quickly photographed, and removed before anyone notices, thereby fabricating compliance with due process. This modus operandi, if not checked, undermines the integrity of our justice system. It may very well explain the plight Mr. Peter Obi’s brother, whose reported dispossession, despite a valid Certificate of Occupancy and long-standing possession, calls for judicial scrutiny and legal redress. While the wheels of justice may turn slowly, they remain capable of grinding exceedingly fine, provided legal practitioners act with diligence, and judicial officers remain vigilant and impartial.
There is a compelling need to amend our procedural rules regarding the use of unnamed or unknown persons as defendants in land litigation. Courts, both at High Court and Magistrate level – should be mandated to conduct locus in quo inspections where defendants are purportedly unknown or where substituted service is claimed. Such reforms will deter fraudulent practices and restore public confidence in the judiciary.In conclusion, let it be reaffirmed: the Nigerian legal system, though imperfect, is still a formidable instrument for the protection of property rights when wielded with integrity, precision, and tenacity.
Ubani, is a legal practitioner and public affairs analyst, Legal Advisor of Assemblies of God, Nigeria.
By: Monday Onyekachi Ubani
As the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), contemplates banning the production, distribution and consumption of sachet alcoholic beverages across Nigeria, the move has raised mixed reactions among Nigerians and interest groups. According to NAFDAC the proliferation of sachet alcoholic beverages has been linked to abusive usage resulting in increased health complications, and drunk driving that causes road accidents. The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) corroborates some of NAFDAC’s claims. FRSC records show that the 10,617 road accidents recorded in 2023 were due mostly to over speeding and drunk driving.
It is noteworthy that the availability of alcohol in less than 200ml PET bottles and in sachets, makes alcohol quickly consumable even during work hours. Without standardised packaging and regulatory labelling compliances, most of these sachet products are unregistered, come with questionable contents and form the bulk of illicit alcohol. Though lesser in volume, their high alcohol concentrations makes them highly intoxicating. Their ready availability at motor-parks, increase over-indulgence by commercial drivers, most of whom thereafter mount the wheels on low mental alertness.
Alcohol is known to reduce mental acuity and consciousness of the mind. Endowing its addicts with elixir feelings that momentarily blur reality, the alcohol effect additionally boosts self-rating and confidence, placing addicts on realms of happy possibilities where almost every dream is attainable, even if unrealistically. By the time the effect wanes addicts are known to be sad to face stark reality, which is why most are prone to retaking repeated doses to shoot themselves back to the fantasy world. Such fantasy is also the reason many youths and adults would rather invest daily in game-betting gambles than invest in micro innovations that guarantee real economic advancements.
The dawn of neo-medicinal alcohol being marketed in sachets as herbal remedies for organ cleansing, aphrodisiacs, anti- malarial and diabetes cures, is drawing increasing patronage from gullible Nigerians, even as these claims remain medically questionable. Following the rising patronage, all shades of manufacturing quackery are currently cashing-out from the market. Because of the harmful health effects of quack products, it is no wonder that sicknesses relating to organ-damage and male impotency are on the increase. Apart from drunk-driving and the health risks posed by over-indulgence in alcohols, the precious time wasted by addicts in unproductive day-dreams, which should have been deployed to meaningful economic ventures, is also a concern. In times of economic difficulties, as presently facing many Nigerians, there is need for mental clarity to enable one articulate ways out of hardships.
These outcomes may have informed NAFDAC’s decision to pursue banning easily consumable volumes of alcohol. If the ban becomes successful, those who like alcoholic drinks would still enjoy them by taking bigger packs which are low in concentration. Bigger bottles are likely to be consumed at leisure times after work due to their sizes. At that point, most consumers must have spent a productive day, yet have time to enjoy some booze. NAFDAC’s decision to ban unhealthy, anti-productive alcohol packs should therefore be encouraged. It is however, unfortunate that even as NAFDAC had set a long-term goal to achieve the ban, from as far back as 2018, through the then Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Folorunsho Adewole, and had engaged manufacturers on a five-year phase-out plan, the ban has failed to materialise. This is despite the signing of a five-year moratorium document between the Distillers and Blenders Association of Nigeria (DIBAN) and the Association of Food and Beverage & Tobacco Employers (AFBTE) on one hand, and the Ministry of Health, NAFDAC and the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (ECCPC), on the other.
Recall that same year, the minister had out-rightly banned over-the counter use of codeine syrups following a BBC documentary on the consequences of its abusive use in Nigeria. NAFDAC’s inability to check the indiscriminate use of sachet alcohol years after the expiration of the signed moratorium highlights how vested interests may stifle good institutional objectives. It becomes worrisome when the pressure on NAFDAC to shelve the ban on harmful alcohol is coming through a hallowed institution, like the House of Representatives. NAFDAC had swiftly introduced the ban on February 1, 2024 after the expiration of the five-year moratorium. But no sooner had the House come upon it to lift the ban. At the moment, the ban stands temporarily lifted till December 2025 even as lobbies intensify.
For the house to claim that “the ban was ill-timed because of the current economic conditions, staggering unemployment, soaring inflation and high rate of poverty,” it raises many questions about the rationale of members of the house, considering the correlation between alcohol addiction and the inability to exit poverty. Members of the legislature should be from the finest minds who go for the sublime. Why would members of the House choose to endorse a situation that is currently ensnaring many into addiction and anti-social behaviours, than safeguard societal sanity? Even as members of the house argue that sachet alcohol sales is sustaining some micro businesses, the anti-social behaviour and health risks engendered by such sales out-weigh any derivable economic benefits.
Opponents of the ban who support the house may also argue that the ban targets low-income earners who patronise sachet products due to affordability, and may further point out that substitutes of other herbal/alcoholic concoctions being marketed as health remedies are available through unregulated markets. Bowing to such arguments would mean that NAFDAC should choose a defeatist position, wherein it has been overwhelmed at discharging its core mandate of safeguarding the health of the nation. As NAFDAC mediates through legislative challenges and lobby groups, members of the executive should bear on the assembly to allow the institution pursue its core goals. Not doing so would be to build a nation of drunkards, where lunatics roam the streets.
By: Joseph Nwankwor