ENUGU, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA)- Former Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has warned governments, businesses and institutions that public trust not money or influence remains the strongest insurance during periods of crisis.
Mohammed delivered the warning on Thursday while speaking at the Guest Lecture Series of the University of Abuja Business School, where he shared lessons from some of the toughest moments he faced during his eight years in office under former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
In a lecture titled, “Crisis, Communication and Commerce: What Business Leaders Can Learn From Government,” the former minister argued that organisations now operate under constant public scrutiny and can no longer treat communication as a side function reserved for public relations teams.
According to him, communication has become a leadership responsibility in today’s fast-moving digital world, where narratives spread rapidly and misinformation can destroy reputations within hours.
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“Communication is not a department. It is not something you outsource to a press secretary or a PR agency. It is a leadership discipline,” Mohammed declared.
Drawing from experiences during the Boko Haram insurgency, the COVID-19 pandemic, the #EndSARS protests and the suspension of Twitter in Nigeria, he said crises are no longer defined only by events themselves but by how quickly public perception forms around them.
Mohammed stressed that organisations that successfully survive crises are usually those that had already built credibility and public confidence before problems erupted.
“The leaders who communicate best in a crisis are those who communicated consistently before the crisis arrived. Trust is not a communication tool; it is the infrastructure upon which communication rests,” he said.
He recalled inheriting a deeply sceptical media environment in 2015 after the APC defeated the PDP, which had governed Nigeria for 16 years.
Instead of launching aggressive propaganda campaigns, he said he focused on building relationships with journalists, editors, media proprietors and indigenous language newspapers across the country.
“A message sent without trust is noise. A message sent through established relationships is signal,” he noted.
The former minister also advised leaders against treating communication as one-way traffic, insisting that listening remains just as important as speaking.
“Communication is conversation. We listened as much as we spoke. That helped us adjust policies and strategies in real time,” he added.
Using the Boko Haram insurgency as an example, Mohammed recounted how he secretly took 40 local and foreign journalists into liberated territories in Borno State to counter widespread claims that the Nigerian military had failed to recover occupied local governments from insurgents.
According to him, the decision changed public perception because the journalists became direct witnesses to the realities on ground.
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“We knew statements alone would not work. Proof is more powerful than position,” he said.
“When your organisation is under attack, counter with evidence, not assertion. Open your books, show your processes, invite independent observers.”
On the COVID-19 pandemic, Mohammed described Nigeria’s communication strategy during the health emergency as one of government’s greatest successes.
He said authorities relied heavily on trusted community voices, religious leaders, local languages and real-time public engagement to drive awareness and counter dangerous misinformation.
“A grandmother in Katsina may not listen to a minister in Abuja, but she will listen to her imam or community leader. The messenger is as important as the message,” he explained.
Mohammed also reflected emotionally on the #EndSARS protests, which he described as the most difficult communication challenge of his tenure.
While acknowledging that the protests began as genuine complaints against police brutality, he said the movement later became vulnerable to misinformation and unverified claims circulating widely on social media.
“In the social media age, lies spread faster than corrections. The only durable defence against misinformation is the trust you have already built before the crisis,” he warned.
He urged business leaders to begin treating misinformation as a major operational threat capable of damaging reputations, investments and institutional stability.
“Misinformation is no longer just a political problem. It is a business risk that belongs on your risk register alongside financial and regulatory risks,” Mohammed added.