The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris Malagi, will inaugurate the Governing Council of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) on Tuesday.

The Institute's President and Chairman of Council, Dr. Ike Neliaku, disclosed this on Saturday in Abuja shortly after an event tagged "Meet The President", his first major interface with the media community since his election in August last year.

He said the official inauguration is in line with the Act establishing the Institute, noting that the event will feature a special induction of new members into the Institute and conclude with a Special Dinner Reception in honour of NIPR Members given appointments in private and public sectors at federal and state levels.

The Minister will be the Special Guest of Honour at the Dinner. At the same time, the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Mr. Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, is the Guest of Honour.

Dr. Neliaku, who decried the high level of quackery in the Public Relations profession, said that the Institute is open for those erroneously appointed to regularise their membership between now and 31st of March 2024 before the 1st of April commencement of the enforcement of the provisions of the Act.

Neliaku also announced that the institute will host the National Spokespersons Summit and Awards and unveil the Young PR Professionals' Hub in the year's first quarter.

According to him, these programmes are rolled out to move Public Relations forward while simultaneously carrying youths along to contribute their quota to nation-building.

"The National Spokespersons Summit and Awards, which will take place between the 25th and 28th of March 2024, is aimed at educating spokespersons cutting across the private and public sector, civil society at local, state and federal levels with the latest tools of public engagement and ethical standards.

"This Summit is necessary because Spokespersons are very important in nation-building. When you have negative spokespersons, they will attract negative energy to an organisation.

“Apart from serving as a forum for networking among spokespersons, the awards component of the programme will recognise and celebrate exceptional spokespersons in at least twenty different categories for demonstrating professionalism and excellence in public relations practice.

“NIPR is partnering with the multi-award-winning PR firm Image Merchants Promotion Limited (IMPR), which has hosted similar awards in the last three years.

"NIPR and IMPR are going to do it in a way that people and organisations will desire winning this award moving forward, making it the number one award in Africa for spokespersons. We want it to be a brand where these spokespersons can be looked up to; hence, we are combining the experience of IMPR with the institutional support of NIPR, and that is what partnership is all about.

"Secondly, we have the Young Professionals' Hub, where young people come to play a role in moving the NIPR forward. During the consultation, we heard people talk about the place of young people in PR practice, particularly the NIPR.

"We did a simple study and discovered so many young people doing well in PR are outside the institute. The question is, then, how do we encourage them to come in? Therefore, we set up a team under the chairmanship of Professor Chukwuemeka Odumegwu, VC Anambra State University, to champion this new initiative.

"It is a vital programme as we need to warehouse these young people who are brilliant, creative, energised and innovative, and transform them into tools for nation building. They desire to contribute to nation-building, but they lack the platform, so we are offering them the platform, including students in PR," the President said. (By PRNigeria)

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