Combating banditry through PR
There is need for the Public Relations community to rise up and become a panacea for menacing banditry in Nigeria.
Members of the PR profession should provide and lead the drive to design, and advocate for adoption of a national strategy on tackling banditry through PR.
Using a behavioural change communication strategy, the PR community can advocate and convince state governments and the FG to adopt its proposal to combat this worrisome menace through an aggressive media campaign using traditional, cultural and religious sentiments.
It is a public knowledge that the fulanis, more than any other group, listen to radio. Let us use the radio, social media, outdoor advertising, community spaces, and drama in our stations to appeal to the sensitivities of our brothers to stop the killings.
Using both Fulfude and Hausa language in a well-designed media campaign will reach the bandits, using our respected scholars in these languages to appeal to cultural and religious sensitivities can reduce the negative and destructive impact of insecurity.
The NIPR should design a communication strategy as a national intervention programme and use its influence through delibrate advocacies to get governments to adopt its proposal.
NIPR can make a significant impact by talking directly to the perpetrators of these heniuos crimes through cultural communication.
I hope NIPR will embrace this call and come up with a national strategy to combat banditry through PR
Hasaan A Karofi
