Chain Reactions’ Israel Opayemi is ‘PR Practitioner of the Year’

Managing Director/Chief Strategist of Chain Reactions Nigeria, Israel Jaiye Opayemi, has won the ‘PR Practitioner of the Year’ at the 2018 edition of Lagos PR Industry Gala Awards (LaPRIGA). Chain Reaction is one of the country’s leading public relations and integrated communications consulting firms. It is the exclusive Nigerian affiliate and preferred West Africa’s partner of Edelman, the world’s largest PR firm with presence in 65 countries across the globe.

Opayemi was named winner of the prestigious award category during the ceremony in Lagos in December 2018, organised by Lagos State Chapter of Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR).

While commenting on the honour, Opayemi said he was dedicating the award to God and to his team of ‘creative rebels.’ He said the award was a motivation for him and the team to improve on the great work Chain Reactions Nigeria has been doing.

“This is not just a recognition award,” he enthused. “You have challenged me and my team tonight. And let me say before this circle of professionals that we will continue to raise the bar of excellence. We will bring more honours to this great profession in our own lifetime.”

He thanked Lagos State Chapter of NIPR for the award, and commended LaPRIGA as a great initiative that promotes professional excellence amongst PR practitioners in Nigeria.

While speaking at the event, National President of NIPR, Muktar Sirajo, described LaPRIGA as one of the creative ways to keep PR practitioners on their toes while encouraging more PR professionals to aspire for excellence by ensuring they approach their works in a competitive manner.

He also revealed that the national leadership of NIPR was intensifying the fight against quackery as part of steps to ensuring standards and professionalism in the industry, noting, “The fight against quackery in the profession is still on. We don’t want to make a lot of noise about that because we don’t want to give away our strategy. But we are on top of it and very soon, we intend to visit the Attorney-General of the Federation who is mandated by law to set up a tribunal to try people found to be practising public relations without licensing by the institute.”

Also speaking was Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Kehinde Bamigbetan, who said public relations is a very important tool for Lagos State Government to effectively communicate its policies and programmes to the residents of the state and other stakeholders.

According to him, “It is always a real challenge every time when we have to convince over 20 million people to buy into our policies. I believe tonight, through the awards, we will see those whose experiments have worked so well that you can learn a few tricks and then try and use one or two in packaging our own policies in government.”

Present at the occasion were the Vice President of NIPR, Comptroller Adeniyi Adewale, President of African Public Relations Association (APRA), Yomi Badejo-Okusanya, Acting Director, Defence Information, Brigadier-General John Agim, NIPR Council Member, Mrs. Nkechi Alli-Balogun, and former NIPR president, Mazi Mike Okereke. Other were pioneer Registrar of NIPR, Dr. Adekunle Salu, president of Public Relations Consultants Association of Nigeria (PRCAN), John Ehiguese, a Fellow of NIPR, Prof. Ralph Akinfeleye of University of Lagos, and Dr. Fassy Yusuf amongst others.

Also, Opayemi’s Chain Reactions Nigeria was named the ‘Best Reputation Management Consulting Firm in West Africa’ at the 7th edition of Nigeria Brand Awards 2017 organised by International Brand Award Nominees in the keenly contested Gold Category award that featured two leading Ghanaian agencies: Insel Communications Ltd and GMA Communications Inc.