| YOUR LETTERS
For image sake
Permit me space to also
contribute my piece on
the re-branding Nigeria project
The purest treasure mortal times afford, William Shakespeare once wrote, is spotless reputation; and glory he said, is like a circle in the water which never ceaseth to enlarge itself.
While many see the recently publicized Nigeria Image Project as mere wishful thinking and a manifestation of government’s dearth of ideas or priority misplace-ment, others are already lauding the renewed, efforts at white washing our “hard earned” smeared image. Far from what those who conceived the noble idea seem to be emphasising - Advanced Fee Fraud, a.k.a 419, our “dirty linen,” to me, is one of the untold legacies of several years of misrule.
Coincidentally, the project is a purgative of, particularly, the image of the presidency, which has embarked on this same goal from inception. President Oluse-gun Obasanjo has made several trips abroad, using taxpayers’ money, to correct our bad image, woo foreign investors, or recover looted funds stashed in foreign bank accounts.
There are already numerous examples of countries that have shown the imperatives of branding as an integral part of national development and international significance, some of which we choose to loosely mention with delight as role models - South Africa, Malaysia, India and so on. The regular mention of South Africa is, to my mind, nauseating. To think that this was a country Nigeria aided its emancipation from the shackles of bondage, only to be on a desperate struggle to catch up with its leverage less than a decade after. There couldn’t be more food for thought for us than this.
But South Africa’s post-apartheid situation can be understood in relation to their unique history.
The proudly South African brand may sell well today, not necessarily because it evokes a sympathetic consciousness for a people who have lived, died and lived again struggling, but because its proponents - South Africans - are pushed with the zeal, hunger and resilience of a common patriotic cause, earned hardly enough through decades of collective struggle.
Let us not forget also that apartheid was not entirely evil to South Africa, as it turned out to be a blessing, providing the much needed overall institutional framework that rendered the emergence and acceptance of their national brand a smooth sailing.
In assessing what has led us where we are today, we will be fair to admit that our problems are essentially those of bad governance and hypocrisy, not just that of a people fraught with criminal idiosyncrasies. The most sophisticated nations in the world that we seek to ape do not have better crime records than ours. But Nigerians are hungrier, and therefore more desperate to survive.
A good beginning may be to tackle the many problems on Obasanjo’s menu first. The project also needs a human face to demonstrate a conscious departure from the rot, decay, inadequacies, inconsistencies and contradictions known as benchmarks of government policies, more so when government is presently chasing too many things all at once, and showing too few results for same efforts.
For now, it is safe to begin to predict that the project is bound for failure, if Nigerians at home and abroad see it as one of those other loud but elusive noises from government lousy trombone, which do not in anyway add value to the resume of their difficult existence.
Afterall, image for the sake of it, means nothing to a man who is thirsty or hungry.
Ahmed B.S., an Abuja based journalist, is a founding member of the Writers’ Collective Forum.
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