*Proposes national reputation summit
The Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari's administration to work on rebuilding Nigeria's reputation because of its current bad image which is scaring away foreign investors.
President of NIPR, Malam Mukhtar Sirajo, stated this at the institute's Abuja chapter monthly meeting.
“What the national body is thinking of doing at the moment is to organize a reputation summit for the country. From this, we can begin to retrace our steps and go back to that Nigeria we used to know, with a view to making things better for ourselves.
“As I am talking to you right now, we are worried about the reputation of this country at the moment. We need to tell ourselves the truth that we need to do something about our own reputation and where do we start from, from telling ourselves the home truth," Sirajo lamented.
Speaking further, the NIPR boss noted, "There was a time this was the main thing in the country, but today you hear this crisis here, that crisis there; this stereotype here, that stereotype there; it does not do any good for our reputation.
“When a country does not have a good reputation, even investors are afraid to come there, because according to capitalists, capital is a coward, it does not go where there is no security. We need to work on our reputation, so that capital will not continue to flee from us. We should rather have a reputation that would be pulling capital into our country,” Sirajo said.
Bala Muhammad, a guest speaker at the monthly meeting said public relations practitioner should do their best to protect the image of the country.
“When you have a good name, you want to protect it and want your children to protect your good name; that is reputation.
“Reputation is part of public relations and it is the duty of all public relations practitioners to ensure that they protect this reputation because you cannot buy it in the market.
“You can buy technology in the market, you can buy capital in the bank; you can go to the bank and borrow capital, but reputation is something money can never buy,” Muhammad said.
Tayo Haastrup, Chairman NIPR FCT Chapter, said a good leader must be bothered about his reputation.
“A good leader must think of his reputation and not to come and embezzle funds that belong to an institution or an organization.
“This is the message we are sending back to our leaders and the new ministers that they must not come to the office to ruin the place, but to add value to it.”