Yushau Abdulhameed Shuaib and Nigerian Prisons Service (NPS) have won 2018 Golden World Awards (GWA) in the respective categories of Publications and Crisis Management.
The Golden World Awards (GWA) instituted by the International Public Relations Association (IPRA), honoured Yushau Abdulhameed Shuaib for his work on “Boko Haram Media War” with Image Merchants Promotion being the PR Agency.
The Nigerian Prisons Service (NPS) was honoured for a media campaign on Prison Decongestion and the plight of Awaiting Trial Inmates (ATI) with Image Merchants Promotion being the PR Agency.
The award ceremony takes place in Barcelona, Spain in October 2018.
The NPS’ campaign which was executed by award-winning Image Merchants Promotion Limited, publishers of PRNigeria and Economic Confidential respectively, created massive public awareness for mass-mobilization and positive response from the concerned stakeholders who deployed legal and constitutional procedures to address the challenges of the alarming statistics of ATI.
The NPS is the first security agency in Africa to have won the award on Crisis Management.
The Prison service has previously won awards for Superior Achievement in Branding and Engagement (SABRE) hosted by the African Public Relations Association (APRA) in Botswana. It received Public Education Award and Certificate of Excellence on Public Sector.
The prison decongestion campaign was listed among the finalists after the first round of online adjudicating for the 2018 IPRA GWA nominees before the judges converged on Belgium to select the final winners.
The campaign was approved by the Controller General of Prison, Ahmed Ja’afaru. With support from the Centre for Crisis Communication (CCC) and Prisoners’ Rehabilitation and Welfare Action (PRAWA), some of the campaign strategies included Facility Tours of Prisons, Media Relations, Training of Prisons Public Relations Officers and Stakeholders Engagements. The outcomes included the enhanced capacity of PR Officers with fair media coverage, editorial mentions and robust Stakeholders’ Participation. Between January to December 2017, the campaigns were successful as the statistics of the ATI dropped to 66% by the end (December) 2017. Factors responsible for the awaiting trial inmates in Nigeria include but not limited to high remand in custody, lack of speedy trials, overuse of imprisonment rather than fine on lesser offences by the courts, abuse of arrest powers and bail conditions by the police.
