Nigeria is Africa’s biggest spender on image making, just ahead of Egypt and Morocco, according to a new report by Corporate Europe Observatory.
The report, which was released on Tuesday, said the administration of the President Goodluck Jonathan, who is seeking re-election in February, had recruited PR firms in the US and Europe to save his reputation at home and abroad.
CEO, in the report, noted that the Nigerian Government faced a barrage of domestic and international criticism over its reaction to the April 2014 kidnapping of more than 219 schoolgirls by Boko Haram.
The report entitled ‘Spin doctors to the autocrats: how European PR firms whitewash repressive regimes’, said the PR help was focused internationally on maintaining investment and trade relationships in the face of perceptions of instability; and locally on the upcoming 2015 election.
“The President of Nigeria hires a London PR firm to run his election campaign and distract from his catastrophic handling of Boko Haram. The Nigerian Government hired Levick, a prominent Washington PR firm, for lobbying in the US in a $1.2m contract to ‘change the international and local media narrative surrounding Nigeria’s efforts to find and safely return the girls abducted by the terrorist organisation Boko Haram.’,’’ according to the report.
