The Nigerian Institute of Public Relations has expressed its distaste for unlicensed practitioners in the industry and plans to begin prosecution of spokespersons in both private and public organisations without due accreditation.
Mr. Mukhtar Suraju, National Vice President of the NIPR, made this disclosure on Monday at a National Conference and Annual General Meeting of the Institute held at Ilorin, Kwara State.
Suraju noted that practitioners of the profession without proper licensing from the institute are bringing the profession into disrepute. He said that there are several such persons who do not know what public relations entails but claim to be practitioners.
“NIPR is not an association, but an institute to regulate the public relations profession in Nigeria.
“It is a regulatory body and part of the things that it regulates is the practice and profession of public relations.
“As for the statutes, it is an offence in Nigerian books to practise public relations without registration or license from the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations.
“When we came into office two years ago, we inherited this worrisome situation, though the previous administrations had tried hard to curb quackery in the profession.
“We also took up from where they stopped. We are not where we should be, but certainly we are not where we started,’’ he said.