Branding Nigeria, can it work?
Nigeria is up for another national branding exercise we’ve been told… [multiple yawns]. “Please tell me something new, I beg,” did I hear someone mutter?
I agree. And I wonder why some do get excited over the exercise — as the Information and Communication Minister is, and even mush respected Uche Nworah is in a recent editorial in the Guardian, some excerpts:
In this Obama age of ‘Can do’ attitude, what better time for Nigerians to rekindle their passion for nation than now, or should our ‘Yes, we can’ expressions stop only in our thoughts? What about the doing part? If we must take the Obama philosophy forward, then we must all put on our ‘self-belief’ garments and resolve to march on as a proud and patriotic people. We need not have waited for Prof. (Mrs.) Akunyili to remind us of the need to reposition our thoughts. This should have been something that we should all have begun on an individual or family level extending to our places of work etc; Prof. Akunyili’s message would have only served as a reminder.
Really, there isn’t anything wrong about branding, since ‘imagine is about everything’. But can any good come out of the exercise when the public faces of the entity being branded suggest it’s a waste of time?
When thousands of new graduates are becoming disillusioned because there is really nothing for them in the job market, you can’t start talking about branding, or being patriotic. Not when they can see the extent of executive rascality and insensitivity at the top.
No, branding is not going to work when the elected officials have become consistencies onto themselves and their special interests, and go about their ‘runs’ in Abuja doing little or nothing to justify their stay in the legislatures.
Branding will fail when the government makes promises it can keep, or when it fails to act where it should.
How can a nation be branded, successfully, when national productivity has crashed because the basic ingredient that puts people to work is missing, and has been missing for decades, and no one cares? There is no successful nation powered off electric generating sets! None. And whoever tries, I’m sure will choke on the gas fumes!
To me, branding should start with a big cane to wallop those paid but errant elected officials into shape! Their attitude and commitment reflect on the rest of Nigerians, and also impress on observers overseas if indeed Nigeria is a ‘serious nation’.
If a real branding — and not mere white-washing — must be achieved, it must start top-down and inside-out, not the other way round! Can prof. Dora Akunyili and her team do this?
Imnakoya, I totally agree with your post. This rebranding excercise am afraid is a WHITEWASH, as much as I am a proponent of Dora Akunyili. It will not work for Nigerians on the most part are totally DISILLUSIONED. If only Yaradua can wake up, if only Legislatures can put the country first, if only EFCC could post some results of the numerous arrests made, if only the poor man can be guaranteed food, if only students can be guaranteed continuous proper education, if only graduates can be guaranteed work, if only and only if is the birdsong that most of us have had to sing for years now. So yes, what’s new with Branding???
March 16, 2009 at 2:54 pm
“Can Dora Akunyili and her team do this?” – no no no, not this time with what I have read about this repackaged branding excercise, another futile one that would soon sing – another one bites the dust.
March 16, 2009 at 2:55 pm