PRNigeria Fellowship: Missing Day One, Not the Lessons
By Sidikat Yusuf
While the first cohort of PRNigeria Young Communication Fellows gathered in Abuja, I was not in the room.I missed the introductions. I missed the conversations. I missed those spontaneous moments that have now become stories—stories about agenda-setting, reputation, stakeholder management, strategic communication, perception, trust and the responsibility that comes with being a communication professional.
I decided to walk into the fellowship knowing something uncomfortable: I missed the beginning. That is certainly not an achievement to celebrate. But I have also refused to allow it to define my journey through the fellowship.
Instead, I have spent time reading the reflections written by fellows who were present on Day One. Through their accounts, I have caught glimpses of what happened in the room.
One fellow reflected on how a Facebook post about collapsing bridges in Yorro, Taraba State, gained wider attention after it was amplified by the media, eventually putting the community’s plight on the public agenda.
Another imagined himself as Bauchi State’s PR person, drawing lessons from Dr. Jamila Muhammad Dahiru’s experience about crisis communication, stakeholder engagement and the importance of communicating government interventions effectively.
Then there was another reflection that posed a question I found difficult to forget:
What remains when the publicity is over?
Reading those stories, I could almost picture the room.
I imagined young communicators listening as experienced practitioners challenged their understanding of the profession. I imagined notebooks filling with ideas, questions disrupting comfortable assumptions and conversations continuing after the sessions had formally ended.
But there is one thing I cannot honestly say:I was there. And I will not pretend that I was.
Perhaps that is my first lesson from this fellowship—not one delivered from a podium, projected on a screen or written in a training manual, but one I have had to confront personally.
For people whose profession is built around communication, credibility is everything.
A good story cannot legitimately be built around an experience we did not have. A communicator cannot manufacture credibility simply because a particular narrative would sound better that way.
There will always be a temptation to fill gaps, embellish experiences or present ourselves as having witnessed things we only heard about. In an age where information travels instantly and everyone appears under pressure to have something to say, acknowledging that we do not know—or that we were not there—can sometimes feel uncomfortable.
Yet, credibility begins with honesty.
So, rather than recreate yesterday, I choose to acknowledge it.
But I have been listening carefully to what Day One left behind.
What fascinates me is how the experiences of other fellows have transformed the first day’s sessions into something larger than a timetable of lectures.
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Through their reflections, I see a common thread: communication is not merely about sending messages. It is about influence, perception, relationships, responsibility and, ultimately, trust.
The story about Yorro reminded me that an issue can begin with one person deciding that a problem is too important to remain unseen. When that voice is amplified responsibly, a private frustration can become a matter of public interest.
The reflection on Bauchi’s education sector reminded me that when institutions face difficult realities, public relations cannot simply be about producing beautiful statements. It must involve listening to stakeholders, confronting facts and providing evidence of what is actually being done.
And the reflection on reputation reminded me of perhaps the most difficult test of communication: what people believe about you when you are no longer speaking.
These lessons have made me think more deeply about my own journey in communication and the responsibility that comes with it.
Journalism and PR: Different Questions, Shared Responsibility
In the newsroom, certain questions constantly shape the trajectory of a story:
What happened? Why does it matter? Who is affected? What evidence do we have? Who needs to be heard? How do we tell the story accurately?
Public relations may approach communication from a different perspective, but it raises equally important questions: What do we want this communication to achieve? What relationship are we building? How will our actions and messages affect public perception? What happens when the headline disappears?
And, perhaps most importantly: Can people trust what we are saying?
Journalism and public relations may have different objectives, but both ultimately depend on credibility.
A journalist without credibility struggles to convince readers that the story is true. A PR practitioner without credibility struggles to persuade stakeholders that an organisation deserves their trust.
This is why honesty is not merely a moral virtue in communication. It is professional capital.
Learning From Those Beside Us
Arriving today therefore feels less like attending my first class and more like joining a conversation already in progress.
And I am ready to listen.
I am ready to learn, understand, contribute and move forward.
There is something humbling about entering a room where everyone else already has a Day One story. But there is something exciting about it too.
Perhaps this is where my own fellowship story begins—not with an invented account of what I supposedly witnessed yesterday, but with an honest acknowledgement of what I missed and a deliberate decision about what I will do next.
It has also reminded me that learning does not only come from the person standing at the front of the room.
Sometimes, the most valuable lessons come from the people sitting beside us.
They come from conversations during breaks, from questions other participants ask, from perspectives we had never considered and, in my case, from reflections written by colleagues about an experience I could not attend.
That, perhaps, is another lesson in communication itself: knowledge travels.
A meaningful idea does not necessarily end when a session closes. It can be retold, interpreted, questioned and passed from one person to another.
I missed Day One. I cannot rewrite that fact. But communication is not only about what has already happened. It is also about what we choose to do with what we now know.
So, I will not pretend that I witnessed the beginning. I will simply make sure I do not miss what comes next.
Sidikat Yusuf writes from Abuja.
