WELCOME ADDRESS DELIVERED BY HE NASIR EL-RUFAI, CO-

CHAIRMAN, PGF MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION PROGRAMME

STEERING COMMITTEE ON THE OCCASION OF PGF CAPACITY

DEVELOPMENT SESSION FOR MEDIA OFFICIALS TO APC STATE

GOVERNORS, HELD AT HOTEL SEVENTEEN, KADUNA, JANUARY 23 & 24,

2017

PROTOCOL:

It gives me a great pleasure to welcome you all to this Capacity Development Session with

Media Officials to APC State Governors organized by the Progressive Governors Forum

(PGF). On behalf of my colleagues, Progressive Governors, Government and people of

Kaduna State, I welcome you and thank you all for coming.

PGF is committed to mobilizing all APC states to facilitate accelerated human development

through undertaking policies and programmes to improve quality of life of citizens, eradicate

poverty and create jobs in the country. In order to give practical expression to these goals

and objectives, and also provide structures to facilitate the development of synergy,

experience sharing and policy design, PGF has set up Media and Communication programme

with an overarching objective of rolling out strategic framework for effective communication

of governance initiatives by APC state governors in line with APC manifesto. The

programme is designed to ensure robust and effective public engagement that would

guarantee wide information dissemination covering all APC states, which highlights all

development initiatives covering all sectors.

This Capacity Development Session is therefore an initiative along the direction of achieving

these objectives. It specifically flows from Forum’s directive, that the Media and

Communications Steering Committee should undertake some capacity development

programmes within the 1st quarter of 2017, for Media Officials to APC governors for

coordinated implementation of all Forum approved programmes and media activities. This

Session is strategically linked to the current challenge of popularizing the APC government

and generate wide acceptance for the party as a whole.

This has necessitated the Media and Communications Steering Committee to innovatively

roll out effective initiatives to broadcast activities of our states and also help seize Nigeria’s

media space, particularly the social media that have relatively been quiet since our victory in

2015. This Capacity Building Session should prepare our States Media Officials with

necessary skills to run implement all PGF approved activities in APC States. Specifically,

Forum expectation is to strengthen public engagement through the following activities:

i. Town Halls: All our states should be able to have regular interactive session of APC

state governments to promote citizen engagement through Town Halls. The aim of

the Town Halls is to communicate governance milestones of APC States to a broad

spectrum of the Nigerian people and to harvest immediate - remote public feedback.

As part of the strategic goal of ensuring some uniformity in the execution of the

Town Halls, Forum decided that all APC States should have two Town Halls annually

to coincide with Democracy Day – May 29 and Independence Anniversary –

October 1. In addition, Forum has also decided that the two Town Halls for 2017

will have the following focus:

Democracy Day – May 29: Mid Term Review

Independence – October 1: Annual Budget

All APC States are expected to organize the Town Halls on a date convenient to the

state.

ii. The PGF Media and Communication Programme has also developed ambitious

campaign programme to popularise the initiatives of all our APC states. The

campaign, which is branded PGF HashTag ‘#’ Campaign has the goal of popularizing

APC States through broadcasting their policies using social media channels to

communicate directly with citizens using empirical data. Ultimately, this serve to

educate and enlighten the public as well as constructively counter distractive

allegations.

The design is that each month will focus on sector. And within that month, each

APC state will be allocated a day and the PGF Media and Communication Co-

ordinating Team facilitate the effective engagement of the public to share information

on initiatives coming from the state get feed back.

Implementing these decisions will come with a lot of challenges. It is our resolve to take all

the necessary steps to prepare all our Media Officials so that we are able to achieve our

objective. This two-day PGF Capacity Development Session for Media Officials of APC

States is one of the first steps designed to ensure that we are able to develop robust public

engagement strategy in all APC States using all channels of communication.

After the Capacity Development Session, our States Media Officials should be well prepared

to address current challenges. It is therefore expected after these two days, our Media

Officials should be able to channel all their professional energy, expertise and experiences

towards successfully implementing all our agreed decisions in our states.

To demonstrate the importance our colleagues attached to all our decision and the

associated task of putting in place the necessary framework to ensure implementation, my

colleague, HE Akinwunmi Ambode and I, as Co-Chairmen of the PGF Media and

Communications Steering Committee, have to make ourselves available to address the

opening session of the PGF Capacity Development Activity. We are honoured to have HE

Ambode here in Kaduna I am certain that his Keynote Address would put this Session in

context and also highlight in clearer perspectives the expectations of Forum.

We are privileged to have experienced media practitioners and intellectuals in our PGF

Media and Communication Steering Committee to provide all the scholarly and experiential

resource requirement to accomplish Forum directives. And all Media Officials to our state

governors have demonstrated both zeal and commitments, which has no doubt challenged

our PGF Secretariat team. I have no doubt working as a solid team with our PGF

Secretariat, we should be able effectively put in place the robust public engagement

infrastructure that is distinctive and uniquely APC, but also organically connected to a broad

spectrum of Nigerian citizens.

While looking forward to a successful two-day PGF Capacity Development Session, may I

also wish all of you journey mercies back to your states. We should after these session,

prepare ourselves for very rigorous and challenging, albeit, exciting and inspiring new

participatory governance atmosphere ahead. I do hope you make the best out this

opportunity.

As I welcome all of you, I hereby declare open the PGF CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT

SESSION FOR MEDIA OFFICIALS TO APC STATES and I wish you all fruitful, exciting and

beneficial session.

Once more, on behalf of my colleagues, Progressive Governors, the people and government

of Kaduna state, I welcome you all and have a pleasant stay in Kaduna.

HE Nasir El-Rufai

Governor, Kaduna State