On Monday 22nd May 2017, the world saw another terror incident at Manchester Arena when Ariana Grande was performing at a concert. The event left 23 people including the bomber dead and nearly 116 people injured. As someone who for the past two years is working with Humanity Road – an internet based digital disaster response organisation - as my case study organisation, Manchester event made me starts wondering whether there is any difference between the job specification of the Nigerian High Commission compared to their counterpart embassies in the UK. Working with Humanity Road has given me insight on how embassies function whenever there are ongoing public safety events like a terrorist attack. Embassies will always reach out to their citizens through their social media handles by publishing their contact details. During the Manchester attack, I saw how Embassies of Ireland, USA, Canada, Russia, Iceland, Bahrain, Saudi, Qatar and Poland all reached out to their citizens. However, what is particularly worrying is Nigerian High Commission was conspicuously silent. Sadly, on checking its website, the high commission does not have a single social media account. In fact, the site is static as such visitors can only read information. The essence of this piece is not to make a fool of the respected organisation but to draw its attention that in this age, social media is a necessity that cannot be ignored. Developing social media policies, training its personnel as well as creating accounts will not make their budget ballooned. In fact, several organisations like Humanity Road can teach some of your members without accepting any fee. All it takes is for you to send a request and you will be baffled with the kind of knowledge and techniques you will learn.
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