THE ROLE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS IN CRISIS MANAGEMENT

This research was on the Role of Public Relations in Crisis Management, a case study of the Etiti Ihitte-Uboma, L.G.A. of Imo State. Crisis is a necessary evil, a sine quo non. This was so because in the process to satisfy needs, people and organizations engaged in different activities and as a result crisis emerged. These crises that emerged posed a lot of problems to the society. The objective of this research was to investigate the cause of crises and examine the Roles of Public Relations in Crisis Management in Nigeria. This research used both primary and secondary sources of data collection and population of the study was 9,010 and sample size was 383 chi-square test of independence were used to test the hypotheses as survey method was an ideal for a good research like this. Included in the findings were that unemployment, land disputes, intolerance and lack of application of public relations strategies cause crises among others like improper demarcation of land boundaries, regular surveillance and tolerance among communities. The research recommends that this crises should be carried out through public relations enlightenment programmes.