Gov Ododo receives accolades, as Stakeholders applauds 2nd Nigeria Spokespersons Summit

By: Goodluck E. Adubazi, Abuja.

The Kogi State Governor, His Excellency Gov. Ododo Usman, has been in the spotlight for his transformative and innovative leadership since taking office as the 5th Executive Governor of Kogi State; many analysts adjudged him to be the right-thinking of his predecessor, His Excellency Former Governor Yahaya Adoza Bello picking Ododo as his successor.

Gov. Ododo weathered the initial critiques storms of his doubt of performance, as Kogi citizens at home and in the diaspora now have to blame his predecessor for his choice.

At the 2nd Nigeria Spokespersons Summit, which is to be held from 15th – 16th of April, 2025 in Abuja, Kogi Governor Ododo Special Adviser on Media, Hon. Isah Ismail, presented his principal Scorecards to the Honourable Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris which was well scripted in a titled book: Kogi State Government Annual media report from January 2023 – January 2025, innovative and unprecedented progressive history in the annual politics of Kogi State.

Speaking to Standard-Times Nigeria correspondent at the 2nd Nigeria Spokespersons Summit, the Kogi-born media pundits and Special Adviser to Governor Ododo Usman On Media, applauded his principal Gov. Ododo’s leadership style while speaking on the Theme of this year’s 2nd Nigeria Spokespersons Summit: Integrity evolving roles of spokespersons in communication
which he said aligns squarely with his Boss’s administration.

Hon. Isah Ismail who spoke to Standard-Times Nigeria correspondent on the view objective of the summit said: “is for us as spokepersons to come together review our performances, of course, is a rare review mechanism for all of us to be able to come to see what our colleagues have been doing in their various roles and organizations and then learn from there, we can learn new things with the arrays of speakers that have been brought together, it’s really going to be an interesting thing, with the theme: Integrity evolving roles of spokespersons in communication”, He states

Speaking further, Hon. Isah Ismail maintains that the times are changing with the evolution in the media landscape, and evolution even in languages and culture of the people there’s a whole lot that a spokepersons need to learn “, Gov. Ododo SA Media states.

Hon. Isah further added, that before now was easier to communicate through traditional media channels and you expect that you reach the people and be able to effect changes in behavior with a lot of dynamism that has come especially with the new media with the generational shifts also in the culture of media consumption is a lot more difficult now for you to involve silver bullets approach to communication engagement, so it is important you become more nuance in understanding all of the dynamics and in relating with stakeholders you need to come with innovative ideas that will resonate with different segments of society, that way you will be able to reach more stakeholders and convince them to accept your points of view”, He stated.

Emphasizing In our own kind of space you really want to be able to convince people to support policies and programs of the government, and in doing that you need to be on your guard in understanding how to reach different segments of society and to be in tune with the evolution of this segments of the society so that your communication objectives can be achieved.

Speaking about his new lessons take way from the summit”, what I have learned from the 2nd Nigeria Spokespersons Summit here in Abuja is that, is always important for us to be peer review, you can’t claim to know it all, you must be assess by your colleagues, or by your peers to say you are doing well, or there are areas of improvement that you have notice that you also need to take notice, then that will help you to improving your strategies in your media operations, Secondly, he said “, another lessons learned is the ability to expand our networks both in contacts with our colleagues in the media, and spokepersons, all whom have their experiences, they have been in the industry for a long time, so people like us also maybe younger in the profession or on the job, we need to learn a lot from them, we saw an array of former ministers today about six of them, must of whom he said have spoken about their experiences and how they managed their information, also knowing that the dynamics have changed and there is a whole lot that the new operators who are spokepersons in their respective roles need to imbibe, so all of that are the lessons we are taking home, and knowing that we don’t know it all and there’s always room for improvement, so is a good opportunity to learn from our peers in the industry”, Hon. Ismail added.

Looking ahead, Hon. Ismail said : in kogi as you are aware we just published our first annual media performance reports, first of its kind in the history of the state, as you can see a lot of our seniors and leaders in the industry have applauded the reports for its ground breaking nature and the fact that it points to where we are and the areas where we need to improve upon, going back seen where we are, in terms of our ability to reach the people, bring innovation and new dynamics in reaching our people, all of that we have learned and we will improve on what have done and in our stakeholders engagements we need to make more robust, going down to the grass-roots and use different media channels to be able to engage our people and in doing that we need to incorporate a lot of more ideas in media operations, in such a way we don’t just rely on our traditional methods and the methods that we feel have worked for us in the past, so we need to learn from new tools, we need to bring more investment in social listening tools, so we know what people are talking about the government real time and then we can respond or retool our strategy to meet the expectations of the stakeholders “, Gov. Ododo SA Media Ismail further stressed.

Consequently, he said:” We will find our ways to engage with our colleagues, our government is much alive to the responsibilities that there are more things that we need to do as a government to meet the expectations and aspirations of our people, in doing that we need to carry media along to make sure they report us better, that our report gets wider reach and also if there are gaps in terms of the slants or sentiments of our report, we need to improve on it.

Censoring fake news in Kogi state, the Hon. Ismail said very soon we will involve a platform that will assist us to be able to guard against the negative phenomenon of fake news, misinformation, and disinformation and the capacity they have to create problems in the society”, Gov. Ododo SA on Media Stated. is a rare review mechanism for all of us to be able to come to see what our colleagues have been doing in their various roles and organizations and then learn from there we can learn new things with the arrays of speakers that have been brought together is really going to be an interesting thing, with the theme: Integrity the evolving roles of spokespersons in communication.

The times are changing with the evolution in the media landscape, and evolution even in languages and culture of the people there’s a whole lot that a spokepersons need to learn “, Gov. Ododo SA Media states.

Speaking further he added, that before now was easier to communicate through traditional media channels and you expected that you reach the people and be able to effect changes in behavior with a lot of dynamism that has come especially with the new media with the generational shifts also in the culture of media consumption is a lot more difficult now for you to involve silver bullets approach to communication engagement, so it is important you become more nuance in understanding all of the dynamics and in relating with stakeholders you need to come innovative ideas that will resonate with different segments of society, that way you will be able to reach more stakeholders and convince them to accept your points of view”, He stated.

In our own kind of space, you really want to be able to convince people to support policies and programs of the government, and in doing that you need to be on your guard in understanding how to reach different segments of society and to be in tune with the evolution of this segments of the society so that your communication objectives can be achieved.

Speaking about his new lessons take way, what I have learned from the 2nd Nigeria Spokespersons Summit here in Abuja is that is always important for us to be peer review, you can claim to know it all, you must be assess by your colleagues by your peers to say you are doing well, or there are areas of improvement that you have notice that you also need to take notice, then that will help you to improving your strategies in your media operations, second lessons learned is the ability to expand our networks both in contacts with our colleagues in the media, and spokepersons, all whom have their experiences, they have been in the industry for a long time, so people like us also maybe younger in the profession or on the job we need to learn a lot from them, we saw an array of former ministers today about six of them must of whom have spoken about their experience and how they managed their information, also knowing that the dynamics have changed and there is a whole lot that the new operators who are spokepersons in their respective roles need to imbibe so all of that are the lessons we are taking home, and knowing that we don’t know it all and there’s always room for improvement so is a good opportunity to learn from our peers in the industry.

Looking ahead, Hon. Ismail said : in kogi as you are aware we just published our first annual media performance reports, first of its kind in the history of the state, as you can see a lot of our seniors and leaders in the industry have applauded the reports for its grand breaking nature and the fact that it points to where we are and the areas where we need to improve upon, going back seen where we are, in terms of our ability to reach the people, bring innovation and new dynamics in reaching our people, all of that we have learned and we will improve on what have done and in our stakeholders engagements we need to make more robust, going down to the grass-roots and use different media channels to be able to engage our people and in doing that we need to incorporate a lot of more ideas in media operations, in such a way we don’t just rely on our traditional methods and the methods that we feel have worked for us in the past, so we need to learn from new tools, we need to bring more investment in social listening tools, so we know what people are talking about the government real time and then we can respond or retool our strategy to meet the expectations of the stakeholders “, Gov. Ododo SA Media Ismail states.

We will find ways to engage with our colleagues, our government is much alive to the responsibilities that there are more things that we need to do as a government to meet the expectations and aspirations of our people, in doing that we need to carry media along to make sure they report us better, that our report gets wider reach and also if there are gaps in terms of the slants or sentiments of our report, we need to improve on it.

Censoring fake news in Kogi state, Gov. Ododo Special Adviser on Media, Hon. Ismail said:” Very soon we will involve a platform that will assist us to be able to guard against the negative phenomenon of fake news, misinformation, and disinformation and the capacity they have to create problems in the society”, Gov. Ododo SA on Media Stated.

The 2nd Nigeria Spokespersons Summit brought together, Journalists and all image makers across Nigeria and was well attended by the present and past ministers, including Hon. Minister of Information and National Orientation, Muhammed Idris, Prof. Jerry Ghana, Lai Muhammed, Labaran Maku amongst other personalities in the media space.

The summit saw the induction of some fellow members, amongst them is the Speaker, House of Representatives, at the 10th National Assembly, Rt. Hon. Tajudeen Abbas, GCON