The Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), Prof. Tunji Olaopa, has urged members of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) to give attention to development communication to fix the country.
   
Olaopa spoke on Tuesday in Abuja at a meeting of public relations experts under the auspices of the Professional Platform of the NIPR’s Federal Capital Territory chapter. In his goodwill message, Olaopa acknowledged the vital role of NIPR members in the success of corporations and governments, describing development communication as unarguably a core component of any national change programme to reset Nigeria, as it touches on remodeling national values and culture change.
   
He decried a situation where government communication or what information officers do have been largely oriented to a denial of what people know as truth rather than communicating to build public trust.
   
He further expressed concern at the expanding reputational risks and national de-marketing that the nation suffers through misplaced social media activism rooted largely in the recycling of ignorance as activism.

Olaopa, who said he had shown interest in strategic and development communication for a long time, commended Prof. Osita Ogbu of the University of Nigeria for his seminal work, Development As Attitude: How National Progress is Shaped by Leadership Philosophy and Citizens Orientation, for addressing his concern so profoundly.
   
He lamented that due to what he described as the culture of “something for nothing,” which he said has supplanted a culture that valued national sacrifice as service and as deferred gratification up to the mid-70s in Nigeria, before the onset of the era when the oil boom created a culture of entitlement, Nigerians have ceased to understand what development is all about.