Mr. Yushau A. Shuaib is a Graduate of Mass-Communication, Bayero University Kano with a Masters Degree in Public Relations from the University of Westminster, London. He is a consummate writer and crisis-communicator per excellence

Called YAShuaib on social media platforms, he has practised PR since his university day, serving as the spokesperson of the Mass Communication Students Association (MACOSA) and winning the NIPR Prize for the Best Student in PR 1992.

Immediately after his youth service in Asaba, Delta State where he won Local, State and Presidential NYSC awards with automatic employment, he served as PRO Delta State Government House, Asaba and later became Press Secretary in various Federal Ministries including Information, Finance; Health; Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).

Outside the Public service, he has provided advisory services to corporate organisations and consulted for critical institutions in the Military, Security, Intelligence and Response Agencies, including the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) providing crisis communication services.

In the course of his career as a PR person and writer, he has published over 300 media articles and authored some books including:
1 Nightmare for the Rich
2 Dozen Tips for Media Relations”
3. Financial Public Relations
4. Perceptions on Online Public Relations in Nigeria
5 An Encounter with Spymaster
6. Award-Winning Crisis Communication strategies among others.

Shuaib is a recipient of several outstanding honours, especially in Public Relations. He was PR man of the Year of NIPR Kano/Jigawa Chapter in 1995, Outstanding Digital PR Practitioner of NIPR FCT Chapter in 2019 and the prestigious NIPR Presidential award also in 2019.

Through some of his initiatives, his firm, the Image Merchants Promotion (IMPR) Limited, (the PRNigeria and Economic Confidential magazine), has consistently won the African PR Awards in South-Africa 2016/7, Morocco 2017, Botswana 2018, Kigali 2019, Tanzania 2020-2022.

At the global scene, his firm remains the only PR agency in Africa to have won on several occasions the Golden World Award (GWA) of the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) on Crisis Management in Qatar 2016, Bulgaria 2017, Spain 2018, Armenia 2019-2020 and in 2022 which was billed to take place in Japan.

The firm was declared “the Most Creative PR Agency Worldwide 2020 by Global Creativity Index GCI according to respected PR journal, Provoke Media and cited by Statista, the world-renowned statistics portal.

His hobby is playing badminton, writing and speaking on PR. He enjoys the meal of Indomie Noodle during his leisure time.

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Yushau A. Shuaib at African Excellence Award in South-Africa

Celebrating Quintessential Shuaib
Jaafar Jaafar
Publisher DailyNigerian

Yushau Abdulhameed Shuaib is a household name in Nigerian media and public relations industry. And if kindness was an industry, Shuaib could be one of the famous players.

My relationship with him started some 15 years ago during the golden days of Yahoogroups, gamji.com, amanaonline.com, Hi5, and a few other cyber social fora. Since then, he considered me as a rother.

Sometime in November last year, I went to see Shuaib in his office with a business proposal. “Sir, I wonder if you can give me an office space for a share in DAILY NIGERIAN,” I proposed nervously, clearing my throat.

Shuaib’s office (PRNigeria/Economic Confidential office) is big, with spacious offices, conference room, workstations, etc.

Unexpectedly, he cut in, saying: “Haba Jaafar! Stop this! Just because of a space here, you are proposing that I take a stake in your business? The best way to support you grow your business is to give you space free of charge.”

I sat there speechless, staring at him as he continued: “Come on Monday, the space will be created for you and your staff.”
At that time I was almost working alone – reporting, writing, proof-reading, copy-editing and editing – from a studio apartment in Maitama.

By the time I reported back, Shuaib had divided his editor’s office into two with glass cubicle, bought a new desk and chairs for me! “You can use here,” he said as he ushered me into the new office, “your staff can take seats at the workstation.”

I was again speechless, battling tears. “There is also free Wi-Fi, so don’t bother to waste your money on data. I will deploy a corps member to assist you. And don’t worry I will take care of his allowances,” he added.

Shuaib did not stop there. He asked if DAILY NIGERIAN had International Standard Serial Number (ISSN number), and I replied in the negative. He called Kenneth Ahonsi at the National Library and asked me to meet him. “And don’t pay. I will settle it,” Shuaib declared with refined finality.

At that time I couldn’t hold back tears. I then wondered inwardly who, if not exceptional human beings, could give you this exceptional support? I wondered again: Although this man is not a high net worth individual, but he did what the billionaires could not do to support someone grow.

Sometimes he would come to my cubicle to sound me out on some issues or “reprimand” me for allowing DAILY NIGERIAN ranking to slump or why I was absent for a few days.

With a business address, clients began to patronise our services and the business soon picked up.

Less than a year after Shuaib incubated us, he came up with an idea of hatching DAILY NIGERIAN in a new environment “over-befitting” our status.

“There is a vacant space nearby,” he said, “Let’s go and see it.” Off we went, chatting and throwing banters.

The new office space is as big as his, with even larger courtyard. To cut the story short, Shuaib encouraged and supported me to get the new office DAILY NIGERIAN is proudly situated at today.

In Nigerian setting, Shuaib is truly a rare breed. Shouldn’t a ‘Nobel Prize in Kindness’ be instituted by the Swedish Academy to honour this man?

As you add a year today, I wish you long life, good health and prosperity. Happy Birthday, Sir!

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Presidents Jonathan and Obama

Emerging Nigeria: Between America and China By Yushau A. Shuaib

At a time when Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan was visiting China and American President Barak Obama was rounding off his tour of selected African countries, excluding Nigeria, a new book on the economy “Emerging Africa: How the Global Economy’s last frontiers Can Prosper” was released.

The book by Kingsley Moghalu, a Deputy Governor at the Central Bank of Nigeria highlights major causes of African underdevelopment from what he called “failure to develop, articulate, internalise and propagandise a world view.”

When it comes to image-building, a national leader must rise up and project the dignity of his country as a nation to be reckoned with in global politics without being too overzealous or confrontational like late Muammar Ghaddafi of Libya, Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Roberts Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Apart from the undisclosed politics behind the Chinese tour, President Jonathan, who led a multi-sectoral high-powered delegation comprising influential cabinet members, chieftains of industries, governors and politicians to the Asian superpower, also met and invited top executives of several Chinese conglomerates to initiate fresh investments in Nigeria.

At the end of the tour, Jonathan and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, presided over the signing of five agreements to boost financial, trade, economic, technical and cultural relations that could expand Nigeria’s domestic manufacturing capacity.

The questions on many lips are whether Nigeria is now tilting more towards Asian tigers rather than its traditional allies in the west. Moghalu’s book points out that the idea of socialism in Asia and capitalism in the West do not really matter as most countries practice different types of capitalism. He noted that state capitalism is practiced in China; crony capitalism in Russia and to some extent, Nigeria; welfare capitalism in Europe and entrepreneurial capitalism is practiced in United States.

An African country like Nigeria the author insisted must develop its clear worldview based on fundamental understanding of globalisation that will enable it to identify and protect its interests. He also warns African leaders against turning their countries to a destination of consumers of the products of globalisation.

Nigeria as the most populous country in Africa is a strategic partner to both America and China who are recognised as military and economic superpowers. A recent report in The Guardian of London disclosed that “China’s GDP per capita was $9,100, whereas the US boasted a figure of $48,900. There is also an extreme contrast in the respective current account balance – the US has the world’s largest deficit burden, while China has the world’s greatest budget surplus

In its series of exclusive interviews with top diplomats in Nigeria, the Economic Confidential magazine published interviews with US Ambassador to Nigeria, Terrence P. Mc Culley and his Chinese counterpart, Ambassador Deng Boqing in November and December 2012 respectively.

The two top diplomats in the separate interviews agreed that Nigeria has enormous internal and huge regional market for foreign investors. They also admit that one of Nigeria’s most important resources, outside oil and gas, is its energetic, dynamic and diverse people who have remained together despite speaking over 250 languages by different ethnic groups.

While Amb. McCulley explained that U.S. development assistance to Nigeria exceeds $600 million with more than $5 billion in U.S. investment, the Chinese Ambassador told the same magazine that the accumulated investment from China exceed US$10 billion while its non-financial direct investment was $8.7bn as at December 2012.

Surprisingly while Nigeria is the fifth largest crude oil supplier to USA, its crude export to China is relatively lower, which only constitutes 1% to 2% of Nigeria’s total crude export. Meanwhile, Nigeria is the fourth largest trade partner and the second largest export market for China in Africa. In 2011 Nigerian farmers exported 1.1million metric ton of Cassava chips to China.

The United States supports Nigeria’s national priorities, especially the national security. Apart from supporting the health sector in containing malaria, eradicating polio, and helping millions of Nigerians living with HIV/AIDS, through USAID, the American government has an agric-sector program called MARKETS, which supports farmers needing technical assistance to improve crop yield. It is also committed to assisting Nigeria’s efforts to reform the power generation and hydrocarbon sectors.

Jonathan of Nigeria and Jinping of China

On the other side, China’s wide range investment covers sectors such as petroleum, free trade zone, iron and steel, agriculture, manufacturing, pharmacy and mining. It has offered to establish three petroleum refineries in Bayelsa, Kogi and Lagos states and is committed other projects include: railway rehabilitation, power generation, telecommunications projects as well as the provision of houses in Nigeria.

Ambassador McCulley added that “Nigeria is a country blessed with both abundant human and natural resources, and the United States seeks partnership not dependency; we seek to build capacity not undermine local initiatives.”

The Chinese Ambassador stated that “China has been an active player in economic globalization and integrated itself with the rest of the world with an open attitude, strengthened exchanges and cooperation.

While America is deeply involved in democratic or political processes in many countries, China is more concern with business interests, especially in developing countries. As the second largest economy in the world with the foreign exchange reserve reaching US$ 3 trillion, China has enormous capacity to invest outside its shore. Its increasing investment in Africa is influenced by the reluctance of traditional economic partners such as US, Europe to invest in the continent due to their debt crises.

Nigeria should not only look towards the East or the West alone, it should also create an enabling environment to attract genuine investors devoid of diplomatic rhetoric and political grandstanding. It should also encourage more export of non-oil items from Nigeria, especially agriculture products. The government should explore pragmatic means of turning Nigeria into a major manufacturing zone in Africa.

As Moghalu recommends in his book, the major essentials should be infrastructure, power sector and education with certain conditions and appropriate economic policies to protect national resources and so that Nigeria or Africa is not the ‘last frontier’ for economic exploitations.

This article by Yushau A. Shuaib has been published in the print editions of the Economic Confidential, Thisday, Blueprint, Mirror, Nigerian Tribune, People’s Daily… It has also appeared in major online media

Yushau A. Shuaib

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