Marketing Ondo State to investors—as the present administration is keen on doing—requires a more creative use of the official website; it is the most globally accessible item the government has in its toolbox. Sadly, those that should know are busy snoozing on the job!
For some 10 days, the Ondo state governor paid his first official business visit to the U.S. The man met with American dignitaries, business people and state indigenes, read speeches, received honors and awards, and even engaged in a town hall meeting with the Ondo Diaspora, yet the state website—the only media outlet the state has for the global community—has no official statement on the visit! If not for an article written by Professor Niyi Akinnaso that was copied and pasted from Punch newspaper, there would have been no trace of the trip.
What the state web media team does on its website is illogical if it has to rely on the print media for materials to post online. The governor has a bus-load of press and media people that follows him everywhere, a whole ministry devoted to information, and an information technology agency, what are they all doing?
It is high time the governor reviewed his media strategy, particularly how the state website is used to augment his efforts and showcase the state. The world is now a global village thanks to technology and a dynamic media that has gone digital. If the Mimiko administration wants to reverse the existing impression of state as a sleepy backwater rural settlement to that of a great business or tourist destination, then it must jump on the World Wide Web.
It’s up to the Information Commissioner Pastor Ranti Akerele to make amends. The governor can’t do everything. The State TV, OSRC, is doing great through Ladi Akeredolu-Ale
July 27, 2010 at 11:16 am
This applies to all states in the federation. Even the nation as a whole lacks a website…well it will be available by July 31, 2010 we have been told. How pitiful!
July 29, 2010 at 9:45 pm