By Collins Yakubu-Hammer
Prof. Emmanuel Dandaura, the Acting President of Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), has called on public relation professionals to ensure regular training to aid in addressing challenges of reputation.
Dandaura made the call on Wednesday at the NIPR Roundtable themed “Navigating Reputation challenges in the Digital Era” in Abuja .
The roundtable was organised by the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Chapter of the NIPR.
Dandaura said the instrumentality of training was imperative to effective management of reputation at different sphere and sectors of the society.
“Training in reputation is very important, particularly at this time in Nigeria. If we have ten challenges as a nation, ten of those problems can be solved by people who understand issues of reputation and reputation management.
“If you look at the individual, corporate and national levels, there is the issue of trust deficit, and this is a major reputational problem.
“The experts who can help organisations, political actors as individual brands and the nation to recover from the challenges about reputation are the public relations professionals who are servicing the system.
“So, to have this roundtable on reputation at this time is very important because this serves as re-tooling these engineers that would help us address most of these issues.
“Also, the issues of good governance, accountability and participation are very important to reputation building,” Dandaura said.
He added that the only people that could help leaders at the various levels to ensure they address or reduce the deficit in the area of trust, credibility, acceptability were the public relations professionals.
He commended the FCT Chapter for the roundtable on reputation.
According to him, it creates opportunities for professionals to talk about reputation and how they can help their principals in addressing reputational challenges.
In his remarks, Dr Danladi Bako, said it takes only one bad act to destroy a reputation that was built over the years.
According to him, a bad reputation of a particular citizen could create problems for other citizens.
He gave a example via Nigerian Green Passport, adding that the fact that some Nigerians with bad attitude are serving jail term in other countries does not mean that all Nigerians have bad reputation.
“However, reputation is not cast on stone, you can change it through reputation reinvention.
“In fixing a bad reputation, you must reinvent yourself by embracing a new lease of life and probably do a career change in some cases.
“We have seen people jailed for fraud and criminality turn a new leaf and also go as far as a change of name. Another way of fixing it is marketing your new position
“By and large, you need to build a reputation in such a way that nobody can destroy it,” Bako said.
Also speaking, Mr Mike Okereke, the pioneer Chairman, FCT Chapter of NIPR, called on all public relations professionals to join hands with the Federal Government to rebrand Nigeria.
Okereke stressed that all efforts of professionals would amount to nothing, if the country does not have a good reputation.
According to him, when health is lost, somebody is lost, and when reputation is lost, then everything is lost.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Chapter, Mr Kingsley Ogadigbo said the roundtable became necessary and served as a strategy to address challenges of reputation in the digital era. (NAN)