Ondo NIPR: Your Award To Me Was A Prestigious One.–Princess Odu
By Olusegun HOSEA. 14th December, 2023.
The Ondo State Chapter of Nigerian Public Relations -NIPR paid a courtesy call to the Secretary to the State Government Princess Catherine Oladunni Odu in her office today. The Chairman of the Association Mr Funmilayo Ikueduranni used the medium to appreciate the SSG for honouring and accepting the award given to her during the Annual General Meeting-AGM of the Association this year 2023. While the Chairman used the forum to explained what the profession entails and how the Association had been and are ever ready in promoting the activities of the state government as they have all their members cut across the spectrum of the whole local government in the state and beyond.
According to him, some of the duties of the Association was to regulate the activities of the professional Public Relations Practitioners in the state, build capacity and develop Academic curriculum for the training of more personnel that would promote the Public Relations across all the sectors in the state. Others activities included organising seminar for their members and issuing of licence to the practitioneers.
The chairman said, Association had qualified and experienced personnel that the government could engaged in the promotion and execution of any of the government plans that related to publicity, personality management and image making for the state .as the association have expertise in most fields. He explained that the Chapter have enough Researchers, the Communicators and other Media Practitioners that could do a great job for the state. Also, the Chairman appreciated the Secretary for her diligent roles in ensuring that government activities keep on running smoothly during the period of the political storm that engulfed the state for the past few months of which have been finally put to rest for now . The chairman used the medium to make some demands from the government l. Some of this request include request for Bus , engagement of their members in the government activities and among others, particularly the Bus that they could be using to carry out the activities of the Association within and out the state .
SSG PRINCESS Oladunni ODU RESPONSE.
In her response, the Secretary thanked the members of the Association for honouring her and at the same time appreciated the leadership of the Profession for giving women more position in the administration of the Association. She said they could still do better.
In her opinion,women roles was to complement that of their Male counterpart not that they wants to take over from the men completely.While recognising the enormous roles men played at their different home as the head of the families and as a crown of the women , Princess Odu said it’s important for them to support their men in ensuring that things work effectively in the society. She appealed to the men to allow them exploit more opportunities in the political space .
Princess Odu thanked the NIPR leadership for the awards given to her. According to her, she said she was not a kind of person that normally accepted awards as she believed that ninety percent of the awards that is being given to the people are commercial . So, as such she was not interested in most of those awards because it was a means of exploitation.She said but that of the NIPR award given to her was a prestigious one due to the contribution of the Association to the government and the development of the society.
According to her, the effectiveness and efficiency of her workers in the office had made her job easy and for this she rated the activities of the NIPR high in time of their members input to the development in the running of the activities of the office where they served. Odu advised the NIPR members to continue the good work they are doing as one day the members of the public would recognised their worth and this may want them to joint the Association.
Similarly, the Secretary Princess Oladunni Odu, admonished the association to keep on praying for the Mr Governor Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu-SAN CON to return to his duties hail and hearty. She said had it been that Mr Governor is around it would been easier for her to facilitate the request of the Bus by the members of the Association.
According to her ,she said whenever the Governor is around and if the Association visited again, she assured them that Mr Governor would meet their demand if he give directive towards that effect and she would not hesitate to obliged within four weeks to get the Bus for the group. .She thanked the NIPR members for visiting and said she was very happy to be identified with the NIPR and hope that the relationship would continued and be beneficial to both sides.