With 24 days to the election into the Governing Council of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, a leading candidate, Mrs. Nkechi Ali-Balogun has stepped up her campaign to return to the Council and emerge as the next president of the professional body.
She has taken her campaign to several council across the country and received endorsements from members as well as prominent local and international personalities, including respected pan-Africanist, Prof. Loch Otieno Lumumba.
Also on the Ali-Balogun endorsement list are well informed economist, Mr. Olufemi Awoyemi; developmental consultant and communications technocrat, Mrs. Nkiru Olumide-Ojo; and former spokesperson of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Hajia Lami Tumaka, who is a Fellow of the NIPR.
Lumumba, a renowned lawyer and Kenyan national, said of presidential candidate: “I wish Nkechi Ali-Balogun the best. I challenge you to use the knowledge and the intellectual wherewithal, the dedication, the passion and the vision in your quest to serve the Institute in a manner that will make Nigeria and Africa proud”.
Awoyemi described Ali-Balogun as “a thorough-bred professional who understands how to transform problems into opportunities as she did during her leading of the Lagos State NIPR”.
He further said: “Her experience as a member of the Institute’s Governing Council, her pragmatic leadership style, capacity and networking skills makes her the ideal candidate for the highest policy formulation body of the prestigious organization. I wish she gets the opportunity to serve as the president of the NIPR”.
For Olumide-Ojo, “it is refreshing to see that Nkechi Ali-Balogun is vying to serve Nigerian Institute of Public Relations [NIPR]. NAB brings experience from the client and the Agency sides across the value-chain of communication, I am confident that her wealth of experience will be very greatly useful to the Institute”.
As soon she is elected President of the NIPR, Ali-Balogun is set to execute her road map to reposition the Institute. At a recent media interaction, she said: “First of all, the problem we have is this issue of benefits. What does a holder of NIPR certificate benefit? The person with an ICAN certificate is upgraded and given some perks of office but we are still seeking recognisable relevance for our NIPR certificate. So, the first thing we must do is ‘caderization’. It’s there in my agenda.
“We must work on affiliations, so that we can open channels of learning. For instance, why can’t we have our interns going to Public Relation industries to run their internship? And then, we have to update our curriculum. We would seek the support of the government, which they gave us before but just didn’t pursue it. We need to be able to profile who a public relations person is. There’s a past president of NIPR that actually started a recertification and gave each member a number, so that if you are working or dealing with a practitioner and he/she doesn’t have that number, then it’s fake. We will now enforce it.
“One of the problems of NIPR is the issue of enforcement. We have everything needed to regulate the industry. So, I am going to enforce a lot of things, it has to be done and I know with the support of our members and stakeholders, we will do it. The public relations consultants are solidly behind me because they too want to change the story.
“So, I will continue the great work that our Institute has been doing, while also bringing new ideas and initiatives that will benefit our members and the profession as a whole. I believe that my experience, leadership skills, and dedication to our profession make me the best candidate for this role”.
