Major Rebrand: Nigeria’s Efforts

I’ve been postponing a blog post about Nigeria’s rebranding effort because I didn’t want to get into political speak that I couldn’t handle. With articles flooding my inbox still, I figured I’ve waited enough. But rather than engage in a conversation that I might not have the political know-how (or even geographic know-how) to keep up with, here are some bits and pieces culled from the articles found on the web. Click through to read full articles or follow-up with comments.

The Rebrand:

The initiative: To rebrand Nigeria
The leader: Minister of Information and Communications, Prof. Dora Akunyili (Prof. Akunyili “fought drug barons in the country to a standstill when she was the Director-General of NAFDAC” (Vanguard).)

The Spiel: (long but a worthwhile read as a back-story to the response)

We are focused, we are ordered, we are organised; we want to galvanise Nigerians to believe in themselves because if you don’t believe in yourself, you cannot project yourself positively to others. It is only when you believe in yourself that you can tell the outside world what you are. This country is richly blessed.

We have men and women who have excelled in their various endeavours. We have very good places that we can show the world. We have many untold stories. For too long, we have allowed others to tell our story and they told our story the way they liked. They painted all of us with the same brush, a country of criminals and fraudsters but we know we are not.

They reported Nigeria as a country where nothing works but we know that certain things work in this country. We want to correct this and now is the time to start. We cannot continue to wait, wait till when? Some people feel that we have to wait until we have all the roads, we have water everywhere, we have electricity 24 hours but we don’t think so.

We believe that we can work on our national image, we can work on ourselves to change the situation while on the other hand, government will continue to work very hard to deliver all deliverables to empower the people because our people deserve the best.

This campaign is also going to give us a platform for Nigerians to directly interact with government. It is going to be interactive -when we start going for Town Hall meetings to States and Local Government Areas. We are going to concentrate in Nigeria; we have no plans of going overseas in the near future. We need to first of all, travel inside Nigeria, state by state, as many local governments as possible to talk with our people.

In that platform that we will create in States and local governments, government officials will have the opportunity to talk with our people and we also have the opportunity to get a feedback. In that way, we will have a seamless relationship between the government and the governed which we critically need in this country. (Vanguard)

Support:

“the Minister said the campaign is not about logos and slogans but is home-grown and people-centred. “Only Nigerians can rebrand Nigeria. Realising this, we took Nigerians on board from the onset by starting a competition for Nigerians to chose the logo and slogan”, (Akunyili) said” (Vanguard).

The rebranding effort is receiving His Royal Majesty, the Oba of Lagos, Oba Rilwan Akiolu’s support (Vanguard).

The Nigerian Universities Games Association, NUGA pushes to be included in the rebranding effort. “For the present campaign by the federal government to rebrand Nigeria to be effective, sports development must be given adequate recognition, legislative backing and funding” (AllAfrica.com).

More:
Nigeria: Okiro Solicits Support to Re-Brand Police
Rebranding Nigeria: Lecturer Advocates Top-To-Bottom Approach
Nigeria: Ironies of a Re-Branding

Doubt/Backlash:

Basing his argument on renowned American political scientist Samual Huntington’s work “Political Development and Political Decay,” author Said Adejumobi urges reinvention of Nigeria’s leadership, not its image. “Where the government does not govern, what do you rebrand?” See the full article here.

A reader of Punch on the Web (”Nigeria’s most widely read newspaper”) kindly pleaded with Prof. Akunyili saying, “What we need now are good road networks, regular electricity supply, potable water, low cost houses, job creation, security of life and property, quality education, peace in the Niger Delta region, among many others.”

Another reader submitted a call to action to fellow citizens of Nigeria, pointing out that, “whose fault is all this? It is our fault. We, the people. The elite who manage to stay afloat only as a result of heavy infusion of God’s kindness are the ones that are pulling all of us down. And they are the ones that Dora put her life down to fight at NAFDAC just as she is doing now trying to re-brand our attitudes towards them.(…) do not be misled by the rhetoric of their message. It is just as much a rebellion against injustice. They are simply using the paradigm that they can relate to.”

The Daily Sun reported that, “The oracle of the IT industry and a stakeholder, Prof. Chris Uwaje, stressed that Akunyili may have got it all wrong because without the necessary input from IT, re-branding Nigeria is zero.” “Branding is, said Uwaje, “about information and impression.” “He added that when every aspect of the economy embraced IT, get used to IT, even youths would be pre-occupied with becoming part of the knowledge economy and through that crime rate would reduce to the barest minimum or even completely eradicated.”

Another columnist at allAfrica.com said, “It bothers me to observe that while all arrangements are being made to re-brand Nigeria, focus is strictly on the masses with little mention of our leaders.”

More:
Rebranding Nigeria: Mrs Minister is Wasting Her Time and Taxpayers Money!
Clean up Nigerians’ psyche before rebranding — Senator Agbo
Nigeria: Rebranding – Ploy to Loot Public Funds – UNPP
Nigeria: Ownership of the Re-Branding Campaign