Rebranding Nigeria: What Akunyili must not forget

Today, some of these great minds are merely tolerated occasionally to entertain Nigerian audience in some so-called “grandiose” public lectures or to deliver some ethnic or tribal associations lectures to the home people. Even at that, the messages from such lectures are left behind in the venues after the clapping of hands and thunderous ovations […]

Today, some of these great minds are merely tolerated occasionally to entertain Nigerian audience in some so-called “grandiose” public lectures or to deliver some ethnic or tribal associations lectures to the home people. Even at that, the messages from such lectures are left behind in the venues after the clapping of hands and thunderous ovations from the invited eminent scholars. No lesson is learnt. Society continues gropping in darkness.

This is the dilemma and an agonizing one at that of the new and latest fad in town called project re-branding Nigeria, which the current Minister of Information, Professor Dora Akunyili, is currently prosecuting with the perfervidism of a blistering tomahawk. With Akunyilis, re-branding campaigns, I immediately provoke into consciousness, previous national publicity blitzkriegs such as the Andrew, I am checking out stunt, and others before and after it. Great publicity stunts, all of them.

Now, the fundamental question. Why is Nigeria still a pariah state today in spite of all these monumental effects at image burnishing? Why are Nigerians still vilified, pilloried and scorned at international airports across the globe?

The truth of the matter is that all previous approaches at moral re-armament just like this newfangled project Re-brand Nigeria, has adopted a “bottom-top schemata” rather than a “top-bottom” module.

If Nigerians must take Akunyili and her spin doctors seriously, it appears to me that her primary and first target audience should and must be, the Nigerian Phillistine political and rapacious elite class. Can Nigerians re-brand when the gap between the rich and the poor has assumed the status of a Mason-Dixon line? Why would Nigerians not see the efforts of the Minister of Information as mere vacous pontifications when the political class and its elite has not demonstrated practical commitment to rescuing the ship of state from avoidable cataracts and ox-bow lakes? Where is the visceral commitment of those saddled with the levers of power to genuine and fundamental Electoral Reforms and Constitutional amendments? How has the Seven Point Agenda (or is it Two Point Agenda now as prescribed by the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor) brought bread and butter to the table of teeming Nigerians? Has the Nigerian political class and its elite condescended from its hobbyhorse of a modus- vivendi reeking with ostentatious display of wealth, crass opportunism and vanitas vanitatum?

These are the core issues and Kantian categorical imperatives inter alia that the Minister of Information must address as a condition sine qua non, if Nigerians are to be on the same page with her.

In my interface with Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora, they have become tired and sick of the sheer power arrogance that verges on megalomania that has been surfeitly displayed by their rulers (and not leaders) since we secured flag independence in 1960. We seek for power for its own sake.

Project rebrand Nigeria must inculcate it into the psyche of those in the chalets of power and its aspirants that power in all its ramifications must be used for and on behalf of the people’s welfare.

We must get back to that state of affairs, in which Nigerians themselves will come to a realization that power has returned to its natural purpose. The motley kingdoms and empires that flourished in Africa in the pre-colonial era, flourished because power was used to defend the people. We must get back to that state of affairs if re-branding is to have any meaning and impact. The truth is that today, virtually all sectors of our socio-political life can do with a purgatorial metamorphosis. I hold the view and very strongly too that it is that purgatorial process which we must subject our political and elite class to that must come first before the re-branding project can succeed and gain the attention of Nigerians.

Thus the Information Minister must now move outside the pale of sermonization and deepen the re-branding engine by ensuring that our political elite, starting from President Yar’adua, down to his cabinet ministers and the leadership and members of the National Assembly and the various state governors and the entire political class show genuine and patriotic commitment to the Pax Nigeriana of our dreams.

I must not also fail to add that whilst it’s true that the political leadership must rebrand first, and show the way to the mass of the Nigerian people, I equally strongly believe Nigerians of all walks of life equally have the responsibility to re-brand in their various stations. There is nothing erroneous if civil servants, university professors, military officers, police offices, medical doctors, roadside mechanics, market women, labour leaders and other Nigerians grasps the desiderata for a moral re-armament and begin to change their attitudinal predilections, and work for a better Nigerian society. Thus, the challenge of rebuilding a new Nigeria is for all of us to contend with, but the fundamental point is that the political elite must lead and lead by example.

But I am skeptical and worried that the ruling elite across the length and breadth of Nigeria does not seem to have caught the re-branding fervor for they still carry on as if the Augeans stable will remain forever. I hope Akunyili is not talking to herself?  

Patrick Obahiagbon is Member, House Of Representatives, National Assembly, Abuja

Garba Deen Muhammad will be back next week with his   

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