Stakeholders see communication as key to state-society bond, nation building
Denigration of Nigeria abroad, an unfortunate conduct various stakeholders believe is engineered and contrived from home, as various Nigerians rarely reverence their country locally and internationally, has pushed speakers at this year’s meeting of Advertising Agencies Association of Nigeria, AAAN to call for immediate employment of communication as a veritable tool towards state-society bond and nation building.
One of the speakers, Udeme Ufot, group CEO, SO&U, foremost marketing communication agency was worried that “there is nothing Nigerians enjoy more, both the lowly and the highly placed, than to denigrate their nation, even in the midst of foreign audiences, laying before them all our dirty linen”.
He therefore advocated that all Nigerians, especially the leaders and the media, must be made to understand, through effective communication, that what they say about Nigeria, contributes to how the world sees the country.
Also regretting poor responses of various insults on Nigeria and certain contempt statements by Nigeria’s chief operating officers about their country, Udeme who turned to media said “as journalists, what we choose to publish and celebrate about our country, helps frame the world perspective of us”, he said at the forum held in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
Udeme said he is a firm believer in the power of strategic communication in building a united nation and creating a positive identity that inspires hope, confidence and pride.
He buttressed his point by quoting Ibrahim Gambari, a Nigerian scholar and diplomat who said “Nation building is about building a common sense of purpose, a sense of shared destiny, a collective imagination of belonging. Nation building is therefore about building the tangible and intangible threads that hold a political entity together and gives it a sense of purpose. It is about building the institutions and values which sustain the collective community in these modern times”.
“Nation-building is therefore the product of conscious statecraft, not happenstance. Nation-building is always a work-in progress; a dynamic process in constant need of nurturing and re-orientation. Nation building never stops and true nation-builders never rest because all nations are constantly facing up to new challenges”.
Udeme further explained that communication is a bond that brings a nation together, yet respects the multiplicity of perspectives that is essential to the search for truth and meaning. It fosters meaningful dialogue among different sectors of society; it nurtures a shared vision for the country’s future; and helps harness non-material and material resources to realize the national shared vision that will allow us to find the driving force for development.
In his remarks, the Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Udom Emmanuel also underscored the importance of communication in nation building and in governance to enhance growth. He said with this understanding, the state engaged professionals to pilot its Dakkada initiative, a communication campaign to engender rebirth among the citizens and also inspire them for effective contribution to state growth.
Also speaking at the forum, Ibim Semenitari, Ag Managing Director, Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, said government has functions to provide citizens with information on priorities, programmes and activities which underpins state-society relations.
She said that governments in the developed world are acutely aware of the need to communicate effectively both to influence public opinion and maintain their legitimacy, and often construct elaborate structures of information to perform the communication function, but regretted that in many developing countries, governments lack communication capacity, and the development of the communication function is hampered by a combination of weak incentives (such as lack of culture of disclosure), lack of professional training and communication infrastructure.
Citing the ‘Good People, good nation’ campaign of the previous federal government administration, Semenitari said there is no merit in good intentions unless they have first be instilled into the system.
In his speech, the president of AAAN, Kelechi Nwosu said “to achieve real national development the populace must be inspired and to inspire the populace, strategic communication methods must be engaged”.
According to him, this is why many Governments, all over the world retain the services of professional marketing communication partners to sell their policies. “Our role in national development goes beyond offering marketing communication services to the private sector. It extends to engendering proper understanding of government policies and revealing to our various publics ways by which they can participate, benefit and contribute to the growth of the economy”
Nwosu said the cardinal objective of the association congress was to articulate options and identify strategies for addressing national issues, particularly those that relate to the advertising industry and the Nigerian economy.
Daniel Obi