The annual NPR Week ended yesterday in Kaduna, re-igniting the glory of Croc City, as a melting pot of learning, culture, industry and civilisational offerings; and re-establishing Nigeria’s imbued capacity to feed itself and export for economic growth. This is not romanticism, neither is it exponential. The Ghanaian economist, George Ayittey, who studied at Manitoba, Ontario and Legon, and was a professor at American University in Washington, in his magnus opus, AFRICA BETRAYED, first published in 1992, had stated matter-of-factly, that Nigeria and Congo Kinshasa have sufficient qualitative lands to grow grow foods that can feed the Continent.
Focused on ‘Food Security: From Policy Paper to Public Plate – The Imperative of Strategic Communication’, the NIPR led by Ike Neliaku, PhD, fnipr, President and Chairman of Council, rallied every member, partners and stakeholders to thematise the centrality of communication in the upturn for sufficiency of food at Kaduna NPR Week. From its objective, the forum was to generate ideas to give concrete expressions to Ayittey’s thesis by transforming the abstractions of agriculture policies into food on our tables. Like Abeokuta and Uyo NPR Week, Kaduna’s was a festival. The Croc City, as Kaduna is popularly known, answered to its name not just as the heartbeat of the North but was practically Nigeria’s pulsating organ for the week ending today.
On 16th April, 2026, the programme started with a reflective workshop on Kaduna peace model and how peace is a necessity for food security and social stability. Participants were traditional rulers and other stakeholders of community leadership. Then, Saturday, 18th April was the day for principal officers of Kaduna State Government, from Secretary to the State Government to helmsmen and women in the bureaucracy, to gather a upskill about building trust through effective communication.
Last Saturday was noted for its rare assemblage of people ready to learn afresh the fundamentals of government communication. It was a workshop that explored the spectrum of possibilities from policy to public trust, exploring strategic communication for vision alignment and governance delivery within the framework of ‘Renewed Hope’. It was a very educative and enlightening session that ended with great interaction.
By Sunday, 19th April, more delegates arrived, including me, and I had the opportunity to celebrate my birthday as an adult for the first time in the city where I was born. Indeed, at Kaduna, the NIPR proved its mettle, drawing on the grit of its founders – Dr. Sam Epelle, its pioneer president, and his comrades who constitute the torchbearers – Alex Nwokedi, Aduke Alakija, Theo Awobogu, Kunle Ojora, Wilton High and Dan Agbakova.
The youth summit took place on Monday, 20th April, as it is traditional with NIPR and African Public Relations Association (APRA) conferences where youth and students are prioritised for mentorship. Under a general theme, ‘Future, Innovation and Media Relations’, young people were exposed to principles of migration from ‘Vulnerability to Productivity: Addressing Substance Abuse Through Youth Engagement’.
Tuesday, 21st April was the formal opening ceremony. It was huge. Cultural performances, documentaries, speeches and phenomenal presence. There had never been a time NIPR gathered so many personalities at a single event. The Vice President of the Republic, HE Kashim Shettima, was there, one of his predecessors too, Namadi Sambo, was present; Sambo, a former governor of the state was not the only erstwhile chief executive of Kaduna in attendance. Former governors of Kaduna State, Ahmed Makarfi and Ramallan Yero were in attendance, apparently because of the opening of a new hall, Brigadier Abba Kyari Banquet Hall, named after the former governor of North Central State, which had Kaduna as capital. Of course, the main host, Governor of Kaduna State, Uba Sani, was fully on ground and all these guests, including the Speaker of House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, were there at his instance primarily for the commissioning of the Hall by Vice President Shettima, and the first event that took place in the hall was the NPR Week opening ceremony.
Our ‘patron’, the superintendent of NIPR, Mohammed Idris, Minister of Information and National Orientation, was there alongside his counterparts in Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari; and Livestock Development, Mukhtar Maiha. I was happy to see Maiha, whose performance in Kaduna caused me to re-arrange my list of ministers to be taken seriously. Maiha was fantastic, he proved to be one of the ministers who prepared for his job. Save for Mohammed Idris, I do not think any Minister come close to Maiha in the federal cabinet, in terms of clarity, intellection, understanding and readiness for the job. Many of the ministers who appeared to be doing well, often played to the gallery. I have written some of them off. But Maiha is not just sufficiently informed; he has good conversational capacity and rare aptitude for meaning sharing. He impeccably rendered account of his stewardship for whoever was ready to audit him as he brought meaning to all strands of conversations he was involved.
The roundtables, from Ministerial to policymakers and other actors in the agricultural and food production value chain, were quite incisive and educative, illuminating the food production spaces and articulating coherent theories that could come to the rescue of our nation. Nigeria, as NPR Week Kaduna proved, has never been deficient of policies, but bedevilled by implementation – the elephant that refuses to leave the room. It was nice to see Dr. Brylyne Chitsunge, the Pan-African Parliament Ambassador for Food Security, a devout farmer, who came in from South Africa to keynote the conference. I was equally excited to see Arik Karani, President of APRA who came in from his base in the USA passing through his homeland in Kenya to fetch the Secretary General of the Public Relations Society of Kenya, Noella Mutanda, and both of them attended the NPRW to enrich the quality of conversation at the conference. Practically all agencies of Nigerian bureaucracy were represented, banking and financial institutions too, as well as private sector actors in the agriculture space.
The NPR Week itself was like a denouement. Activities marking the Week coordinated by Chief Yomi Badejo-Okusanya, former President of APRA, started much longer, dating back to December 2025 when a pre-conference webinar kicked off. Seven of such web-based seminars took place focusing on different areas of agriculture sphere – from political economy, digital agriculture, misinformation, crisis communication in the value chains, to behavioural change communication and more. Like its antecedents, Abeokuta and Uyo, Kaduna NPR Week was successful. I hope the lessons of this huge festival of ideas nudge us to transform Nigeria’s agriculture sector in ways that impact quantifiably and remarkably on the lives of Nigerians and the economy.
Omoniyi Ibietan,PhD, fnipr
Secretary General, APRA; Faculty Member, RBSN; Journalist, Writer, Author, Activist-Scholar, Media & Communication Strategist.
