Abdulbaqi harps on periodic training for public speakers
Abubakar Imam
The Dean of the Faculty of Communication and Information Sciences, University of Ilorin, Prof. Saudat Salah Abdulbaqi, has enjoined professional public speakers to always make themselves available for relevant training and retraining on periodic basis in order to enhance their performances.
Prof. Abdulbaqi, who is a former Head of the Department of Mass Communication at the University, gave this advice last Monday (March 16, 2026) in an interview with UNILORIN Bulletin.
The don said that this training is particularly relevant for religious leaders and preachers as well as political and opinion leaders whose messages are always taken seriously by their followers as she said that many of their followers find it very difficult to discern the difference between facts and fictions.
She explained that public speakers needed to be trained on how best they could present their messages in a way that public sanity and peace would be maintained and enhanced.
Prof. Abdulbaqi, who is also a Council member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), said that they also needed to be exposed to the act of effective post-delivery self-evaluation.
The don said that she was often disgusted listening to individuals whose presentations more often than not “beg for understanding”.
She said that unfortunately most people do not only waste their scarce and precious time and resources listening to such unprofessional public speakers but end up gaining virtually nothing positive from such efforts.
She said that many unsuspecting members of the audience are more often than not misled into wrong actions thereby polluting the society.
Prof. Abdulbaqi, who is equally the Amirah of the University of Ilorin Muslim Ladies Circle(UMCL), said that it behold on everyone who desires that Nigeria’s heterogeneity and peace are maintained joined the call for all public speakers to subject themselves to quality enabling training.
