Ubong Essien has called on the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) to adopt a new brand identity that emphasizes visibility, strategic storytelling, and public confidence.
He made this charge during the Council’s PR Unit retreat in Lagos, themed “Promoting NSC as a Brand: Using PR to Safeguard Its Reputation, Manage Crises, and Stay Ahead of the Competition,” on May 25, 2025.
Essien, Dean of the School of Eloquence and founder of the Blue Economy Academy, who also served as Special Adviser on Communications and Strategy at NIMASA from 2020 to 2023, delivered a powerful masterclass on leveraging strategic communication to position the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) as the nation’s leading port economic regulator.
In his address, he reminded the participants that their roles extend beyond traditional public relations as they are, in fact, strategic communicators. He emphasised that the Council’s brand promise is to protect the interests of shippers while safeguarding the Nigerian economy through transparent and equitable port regulation.
He likened the role of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council to that of a football referee maintaining order in a highly charged and contested arena involving terminal operators and freight forwarders. However, he cautioned that silence can amount to complicity, pointing to recent public debates where the NSC’s absence from the discourse was noticeable, despite its critical stake in the issues at hand.
He used the session to introduce he mantra “NSC to the Rescue,” which will help the council to push for a brand repositioning that portrays the Council as the economic defender of Nigerian shippers.
The public relations expert also conducted a review of the NSC’s social media presence, encouraging the team to adopt short form storytelling, share stakeholder testimonials, and highlight weekly achievements to consistently project positive narratives in the public space.
The retreat concluded with a renewed commitment from the PR team to develop an internal communication playbook, launch brand-aligned media campaigns, and enhance public engagement through the use of strategic content tools.
The Head of PR, Mrs. Monica Nwachukwu, described the engagement as “a transformative eye-opener.”
The interactive session, attended by PR officers from all NSC zonal offices nationwide, featured practical scenario-building exercises, stakeholder perception analysis, and media strategy brainstorming.
