TRAVELOGUE: The Emotional Rollercoaster to APRA 2023 in Lusaka By Nafisat Bello

TRAVELOGUE: The Emotional Rollercoaster to APRA 2023 in Lusaka

By Nafisat Bello

Journalism and Public Relations keep the professional engaged round the clock. He or she is therefore always planning, strategising, writing and communicating every time in order to keep the public abreast of what they should know and also making sure the client gets value for patronage.

But there is a positive side of it that makes up for what it takes from the individual. The profession also provides opportunities to meet with the high and mighty in the society and travel to explore the world. Any time the opportunity comes for any of the two, it is often a worthwhile experience.

Recently, I had emotional flip-flops that started on a fateful day in our office when the Chief Executive Officer of Image Merchants Promotion Limited (IMPR), Mallam Yushau Shuaib, called for an emergency zoom meeting and we all had to join from our respective homes because it fell on a public holiday. To the excitement of all of us, he announced that our organisation had won some awards in the upcoming Superior Achievement in Branding, Reputation and Engagement (SABRE) Awards that is always hosted during the annual African Public Relations Association (APRA) conference in different countries in the continent.

For me, aside being happy that our firm has consistently won awards at the event over the years, I was equally glad that I participated actively in one of the campaign that won the latest multiple awards. It was a campaign on the “Nigerian Ladies in PR” in partnership with the Kogi state government and the MacArthur Foundation on gender inclusivity. My colleagues – Fom Gyem, Zeenat Sambo and Hafsat Ibrahim – were part of the campaign team as well.

While basking in the euphoria of the personal triumph, the following day, Mallam Shuaib announced the nomination of my humble self and Fom to join him in receiving the awards in Lusaka, Zambia. Our joy doubled and we were excited until he dropped the bomb! “So both of you will come to the office with your international passports tomorrow morning unfailingly,” he said. We looked at each other and didn’t know how to tell him that we didn’t have it.

Eventually, he gave us two weeks to get the passport or forget about the trip. We did all the Immigration staff asked us to do with a promise that we would get the passports within a fortnight while our boss made arrangements for our tickets and accommodation. But when the deadline was remaining 48 hours and no assurance from the Immigration Office that we would get it, it was all doom and gloom for us. We just prayed for a miracle and went home that Saturday.

At a general meeting on Monday in the Conference Room on the deadline day when we could not provide the passport, he asked Rahma Oladosu of Economic Confidential who already had her international passport to replace us.

Surprising, an hour later while the weekly meeting was going on, Fom received a message that our passports were ready and would be delivered the following day. An excited Alhaji Yushau immediately announced that he would break rock or pull the chestnut out of fire, if possible, to make sure we get the visa so that the three of us would now go to Zambia instead of two.

There were (and there are still) no words to describe how everyone felt that day but it was a case of Shakespeare’s “All is Well that Ends Well.”

The online visa process took another round of drama and suspense of its own until we finally got it few days later.

I am not sure I had recovered from that Nollywood-standard drama when on Tuesday May 16 2023, three of us marched into the International Wing of the Nnamdi Azikwe Airport to join Ethiopian Airlines’ flight to Addis Ababa.

Flying 35,000ft above sea level for the first time, I was really scared but I felt a sense of comfort because I was not alone. There were two familiar faces with me in the big jet.

We boarded around 12:25pm and took off at exactly 1:40pm. We were seated at the back and I was close to Fom who had the window seat. Looking through the window, I marvelled at the spectacle and miracle of the aeroplane technology which has to be the biggest of man’s breakthroughs. How such a mighty metal that weighs up to 350,000kg or more carrying hundreds of people who could each weigh 100 kg or more could stay in the sky for hours and even move to different locations and defy the law of gravity remains a big mystery to me up till today!

After five hours of wining and dining and cohabiting with the angels in the sky, we landed at the Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at 7:18pm (5:18pm Nigerian time) and my emotion was confused between nervousness and excitement. Nervousness because almost throughout the flight I felt like a scared little girl and excitement because I had landed safely and I saw myself visiting another country for the first time in my life!

I thought I had to travel to Europe or America before I would hear unfamiliar accents but in Ethiopia I was treated to a lot of strange accents that I could hardly decipher.

Meanwhile, going through customs and security checks at the airport was not a problem at all as it was quite an interesting experience. Three of us however fell victim of not knowing that the luggage we checked in at Abuja would not be accessible to us in Addis Ababa until we got to our final destination in Lusaka. So we had no extra clothes in our hand luggage to wear the following day to travel to Lusaka. We had to repeat the same clothes. That part of the trip was quite unpleasant but we learnt our lesson.

Enjoyment started immediately after scaling through the airport checks and we were driven to Skylight Hotel, one of the best the city has to offer in terms of hospitality. Each of us got standard VIP treatment with exotic rooms, fast internet service, sumptuous buffet for dinner and breakfast.

If flying to Addis Ababa from Abuja felt long then the final stage of the trip, flying from Addis Ababa to Lusaka, felt like eternity to me even though the latter was a bit shorter than the former.

After settling down in the ET 863 Ethiopian Airlines flight, I decided to shift my attention to the aerial map of the flight as displayed on the aircraft monitor. The map showed that the flight which departed Addis Ababa at 9:25am (Ethiopian time) would arrive in Lusaka at 12:30pm (Zambian time) of the same day at the end of a 2949km/1833 miles trip.

Before switching to watch movies, I saw the aircraft nosing up north from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Tanzania to Malawi, to Mozambique and to South Africa. After the two-hour movie interlude, I switched back to the route map and I saw that we were flying through Zimbabwe and Botswana, then we got to Namibia and later Angola. As we flew deeper into the sky, I sat comfortably, and then switched to another interesting in-flight movie with my headphone plugged-in.

A couple of hours later, the flight attendants went round from seat to seat serving passengers food and drinks while asking for their choices. They got to my seat, and the question, “what would you like, chicken or beef?”. Then I replied, “beef”. I began enjoying myself with the in-flight meal of hot beef with basmatic rice. Soon, we commenced descent into Lusaka.

By the time we landed at the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport, in Lusaka, Zambia, my body felt like warm pudding after sitting in one place for hours. We went straight to the collection point for bags and I heaved a huge sigh of relief when I saw my bag and realised that it had travelled all the way from Abuja to Lusaka safe and sound even though it didn’t pass the night with me in my exclusive hotel room in Addis Ababa.

After going through all the necessary customs and security checks, we were met at the exit of the airport by an official of the Taj Pamodzi Hotel where we were meant to lodge. He introduced himself and introduced us to his beloved country as we cruised along the 10-kilometre long beautiful expressway from the Airport to the hotel. Unfortunately, communication with the official driver was a bit challenging due to his accent. After the approximately 30-minute drive which we largely spent admiring the beautiful billboards with lovely art works on both sides of the road, we arrived at the Taj Pamodzi Hotel at 1:28pm local time.

As I stood in my hotel room on the 8th floor, I had no choice other than to admire Lusaka city. It was a beautiful sight to behold with its enchanting coastline under the blue sky, and overlapping sounds of sea waves. And our hotel was of course a massive edifice with world class aesthetics and quality service.

After settling down, and evening began to set in, we took our dinner and attended a fashion show that was to be held at the hotel premises.

The Afrostanbic fashion show sponsored by Stanbic Bank plc was quite an interesting piece of entertainment.There were cultural dances from different cultural groups in Southern Africa: the Remlas and the Zipras. Then, the fashion show itself was marvellous. We really enjoyed ourselves.

The following day, our generous boss, who left Abuja with his wife before us and arrived Lusaka a day earlier, also arranged a whole day of sightseeing for his wife and the three of us. It was a memorable experience.

We attended the annual APRA Conference which took place at the Kenneth Kaunda Conference Centre (formerly, Mulungushi International Conference Centre, MICC). Our boss later introduced us to a tour guide who later took us round the city. It was quite a smooth ride from the city centre to Chaminuka, a foremost tourist site in the country. During the one-hour drive, the very hospitable tour guide treated us to a long list of melodious Nigerian Afro beats to make us feel at home in the Southern African country.

On our way to Chaminuka, for the first time since I left Nigeria, I felt I was in Kano as I noticed people on the narrow streets in shops selling all kinds of stuff such as fish, fruits and vegetables. Also, we saw a unique location which was not an actual museum but where interesting things like jewelleries, leather works, crafts and native clothes and fabrics were sold. I couldn’t stop admiring those beautiful arts, and the air which was perfumed with the aroma of spices, fragrance and burnt incense from the several cavernous shops we came across.

Chaminuka is a very large, bushy area, more like a forest, so big and wide that the animals were distant from one another. We had to take a ride throughout the forest, saw wild animals, took pictures of some of the animals: the Lions, Cheetah, Ostrich, Monkeys, Elephant, Zebra, Antelope, etc. We also went for a boat ride called “THE DANAE” where the boat attendees – Frances and Penias – told us some mouthwatering tales about the environment. They told us about the Anthill on the Island and also the Egyptian goose which is known to be the most loyal animal to their partner because when one dies, the other one stays single forever. We also heard wonderful tales about the Mask River Bird, the Great White Eaglets, and lots of others.

After rounds of sightseeing, we stopped to take packs of takeaways of big sized roasted chicken from a Shoprite branch which was bigger than the branches I see in Nigeria. Now, it was time to move back to the hotel to prepare ourselves for the award night.

The annual APRA Conference was to be followed by a concert later that evening where SABRE awards would be presented to deserving winners. After a lot of presentations to other winners from across the continent, it was our turn and we marched to the stage. We got a double SABRE African Public Relations Award 2023, a trophy and a Certificate of Excellence for Employee Communication and West African categories with a gender inclusivity campaign titled “Nigerian Ladies in PR.” We received it on behalf of the female employees of IMPR, publishers of PRNigeria, Economic Confidential, Politics Digest, Emergency Digest, Tech Digest, Spokespersons Digest, Entertainment Digest and Arewa Agenda.

In a nutshell, MacArthur Foundation and Kogi State Government were among the winners of the Africa Public Relations Awards 2023 for supporting the campaigns on gender inclusion in communication practice. The Department of State Security Services (DSS) and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) also won Certificates of Excellence of the annual award event hosted by Provoke Media in collaboration with APRA. And these four recipients were in partnership with our multi-award-winning PR agency, IMPR, to celebrate campaigns that demonstrate the highest levels of creativity, integrity and effectiveness.

The PRNigeria ladies, as we were fondly called, received accolades from Nigerian delegates who were in attendance and this made the night a completely proud one for us. Some of the Nigerians in attendance were Prof. Boniface Obiefuna of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) and Dr. Omoniyi Ibietan, Head of Media Relations, Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC). Others in attendance were Brig. Gen. Tukur Gusau, Director Defence Information (DDI); Umar Mohammed, Head of Corporate Communication, Petroleum Products Marketing Company Limited (PPMC); Alhaji Lamaran Garba of Bayero University Kano (BUK), etc.

In his remarks, the Chairman of the Awards Jury, Paul Holmes, applauded and commended agencies across Africa who had performed extraordinarily well in the competition, stressing that the quality of work had never been higher. He added that “robust data and smart cultural insights are informing the planning process of PR campaigns, big bold creative ideas are driving the execution, and real business-related metrics are showing how successful these campaigns are.”

In his excitement-laden speech, our boss and mentor thanked the clients/partners for their support and collaboration, promising that the firm would “remain the most gender-friendly communication outfit that promotes excellence and service delivery.”

He also thanked the organisers for finding his ladies worthy of such honour. He pledged to keep the flag of PR flying.

We took pictures with some of the delegates, including Nigeria’s PR guru and APRA president, Yomi Badejo Okusanya (YBO). And then we retired to our hotels to prepare for our trip back to Abuja via Addis Ababa.

It was indeed sad to say goodbye to Zambia because we had fun all through the period. The people were kind and hospitable and the ambience of the fantastic places we visited were so good to visitors. But we had to say goodbye so we could get back to work, break new grounds in journalism and PR, win more awards and travel again to another country to receive the awards.

Indeed, it was with love we returned from Lusaka.

Nafisat Bello is a Staff Writer with IMPR, Abuja.