Nigerian AI Crisis Communication Campaign Wins IPRA Grand Prix in Athens
A Nigerian public relations entry has taken the Grand Prix at the IPRA Golden World Awards, the competition's top honour, it emerged at the ceremony held in Athens, Greece, on 25 September.
The winning campaign was titled "AI in Crisis Communication: From Study to Strategy" and was put forward by Image Merchants Promotion Limited (IMPR). It had been shortlisted in two categories, AI in Crisis Management and Publications. The Comptroller General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, was separately shortlisted for a Special Recognition Award, in recognition of his leadership in institutional communication.
The campaign's roots go back to a research project put together during Senior Executive Course 47 at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru. That study looked at where artificial intelligence meets crisis communication in Nigeria, examining dangers such as AI-generated falsehoods, deepfakes and the broader problem of digital information disorder. It also put forward a strategic communication framework intended to bolster the country's ability to respond to crises.
The study, AI in Crisis Communication in Nigeria, received formal approval. However, after its author was withdrawn from the NIPSS programme, the work was left without an institutional base. The author opted to detach the intellectual effort from the dispute surrounding the withdrawal rather than drop it altogether.
The Centre for Crisis Communication (CCC) threw its weight behind the research and supplied the intellectual structure needed to see it through. The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) provided logistical backing. Two academics, Professor Abdalla Uba Adamu of Bayero University Kano and Professor Abiodun Adeniyi, Vice Chancellor of Baze University, reviewed and validated the work. The study was wrapped up within three months, outside the institution where it had started.
Its recommendations shaped the first National Symposium on Digital Innovations in Crisis Communication, which assembled security agencies, government institutions, media organisations, civil society groups and technology experts. That gathering supplied the conceptual groundwork for a proposed Crisis Communication Hub (CCHub), described as a 24-hour, AI-enabled platform for social listening, deepfake detection, misinformation monitoring and coordinated crisis messaging across Nigeria's public sector.
At the last moment, the whole arc from study to strategy was entered for the IPRA Golden World Awards.
Preparations for Athens ran into a familiar problem. The Greek Embassy in Abuja made known that Schengen visas would not be issued to Nigerian applicants until the following year. The team looked at other routes, including renewals via diplomatic channels and embassies located outside Nigeria, and spent on insurance, flights and hotel bookings. None of it worked. IPRA has stepped in before on behalf of Nigerian nominees needing visas for ceremonies in Qatar, Bulgaria, Armenia, Japan, Belgrade and Spain.
As the ceremony drew near, IPRA and its Greek partners stepped up diplomatic efforts. Word then came that the entry was in contention for the Grand Prix. Since travel had become impossible, two people who already held valid Schengen visas were asked to stand in for the team: Professor Sule Yau Sule, chairman of the IMPR Board, and Dr Abdulaziz Arowona, CEO of Emirate Radio. Both accepted.
Days before the event, IPRA Secretary General Philip Sheppard asked for a fifty-second appreciation video, to be kept in reserve. It was filmed without any knowledge of what lay ahead.
On the evening of 25 September, Dr Arowona streamed the ceremony live from Athens. Watching from Abuja, thousands of kilometres away, the author saw IPRA President Esther Cobbah hand trophies to the winning campaigns. Philip Sheppard then took the podium to announce the Grand Prix, disclosing that the winning campaign dealt with artificial intelligence and crisis communication. A video presentation on the project came up on screen, and then the fifty-second message recorded in Abuja was played.
What had started as research at Kuru, lost its institutional home after the NIPSS withdrawal, was salvaged by CCC and NITDA, went through academic scrutiny, grew into a national symposium and became a proposal for an AI-enabled Crisis Communication Hub had now been deemed worthy of the Grand Prix on a global professional stage.
Vying against campaigns from more than fifty countries, several of them backed by institutions with far greater resources and worldwide reach, had already been a daunting prospect. Making the shortlist alone would have been satisfying; taking the categories would have been remembered for years. The Grand Prix took several minutes to register.
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