PUBLIC RELATIONS AS AN ETHNIC CONFLICT MANAGEMENT MECHANISM IN NIGERIA: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS

Public .relations practice has therefore, been with man since the Stone Age with modifications being only in the tools and techniques of practice. As a profession, the term public relations was first used by Dorman Eaton, a lawyer in an address to graduating students of Yale University, USA in 1882 while President Thomas Jefferson (USA) is credited as being the first head of government to have used it in his seventh union address to the American Congress in 1807 (Newson et-al, 1981 :23).