By Damiete Braide
In basic terms, security and public relations should not have any synergy. One has to do with safety while the other is about human understanding and management functionality of/about an organisation to foster goodwill among people and build a positive corporate image. Security matters have moved from worse to terrible.
News of kidnapping, terrorism, robbery, raids and other forms of security threat is, unfortunately, a staple. Given this sad development and how, if left unchecked, may lead to an unexpected state of anarchy, the book, Public Relations and Security: Strategies to Solve Security Challenges, becomes an option, a tool worth using in the fight against insecurity.
Marce Okey Anyanwu has successfully drawn attention to the fact that insecurity stems from issues relating to misconceptions, negativity, lack of trust, disloyalty, dis-harming, and so on. Therefore, to address insecurity issues to a large extent will involve working on the public opinion, attitudes, mindset of individuals and groups, including the entire law enforcement agents.
Anyanwu’s book is focused on how law enforcement agents can get results with their battle in reducing the spate of criminal activities without being misunderstood or sparking off outrage from the public as they carry out their duties.
According to him, the book is “focused on how different aspects or ramifications and strategies of modern public relations can be gainfully and systematically employed to solve security problems and issues in contemporary society.”
Readers and stakeholders of security matters are expected to come away with useful tips and practical strategies on personal security, how to prevent robbery attacks at work, on the road or at home in the book. The author presents tips on how to stay safe, as the responsibility of all and not just crime fighters.
The author further makes references to collaborative intelligence across ties of security agencies as another means of curbing crime. He states the importance of this measure well, as the challenges it may face, to which he surmises that policy makers and committed leadership are key to the effective establishment of a CIATSA.
From chapters 13 to 20, the author highlights and explains a new paradigm for effective policing, a peep into the United Arab Emirates (UAE) security apparatus. He details what collaborative policing is about and Neighbourhood Watch by leveraging innovative applications of analysis, technology and evidence- based practices through collaboration with academic researchers.
He backs this idea with eight critical principles that can help achieve this.
Security wise, Anyanwu helps to open up the eyes of the reader towards being security conscious. He is persuasive in letting readers explore available means of practising safety.
He exposes PR tools to law enforcement agents and readers, establishing the possibility that working together in this fight has more benefits. Employing PR strategies to solve security challenges may just be the missing piece of the puzzle, where arms have stolen the peace, human relations can restore it.
Marce Okey Anyanwu is the Chief strategist at PR Impacts Limited and Chief Executive Officer at Lief Camp Security Systems Limited. He is the former chairman of the Education, Training and Manpower Development Committee of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations and a consultant with the Nigerian Army School of Public Relations and Information.