Dr. Dora Akunyili has not surprised me. She has done nothing that she did not do years back, at least as far back as 1997. Ask Major-General Mohammed Buhari. Ask Chief Onyema Ugochukwu. Ask Emeka Maduegbuna. Ask Dr. Onaolapo Soleye. Ask anybody who knew Dora when she was the South East Zonal Secretary of the Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF, Enugu. She was already then an outstanding public servant; firm, committed, enthusiastic, transparently honest, confident even among soldiers and forever with that tomboyish mirth on her face!
I ran into her at the Ministry of Health at Abuja the day she came to the Minister’s office to collect her letter of appointment. I later told the Minister, Prof A.B.C Nwosu, that hers was the best appointment yet by the President. Dora became the second leg of the revolution going on then anchored in the ministry of Health. The other leg was the silent, unassuming, dedicated, God-fearing Dr. Dere Awosika, the National Coordinator of the National Programme on Immunization, NPI and a scion of the legendary Festus Okotie-Eboh, the Omimi Ejo of Warri. Both women did not have any worthwhile office space. Today they all have their own imposing offices. Akunyili has since become a metaphor for Nigeria’s positive image!
Nigeria and indeed the world has been celebrating Akunyili’s success. People across ethnic lines and class have been applauding her. The high and the mighty have been stumbling on one another for her handshake. She has been honoured at home and abroad. The partying on her behalf is becoming uncontrollable, almost to the point of trivialising her essence. But you can’t blame Nigerians. We appreciate good things. Often people are quick to insult the intelligence and the humanity of the ordinary Nigerians. They blame the societal ills on what they call the “level of illiteracy” and the “poverty of Nigerians.” And I often ask if it takes a Ph.D to know the truth? Is it the poor that are stealing the nation blind? How many poor and illiterate Nigerians, for example, are among those who forged Certificates of Occupancy in Abuja? How many?
The national adulation of Dr. Akunyili has shown that Nigerians know and always appreciate good things; Nigerians will support any good leader, no matter where he or she comes from. Our problems are the politicians who cannot perform, but who use ethnicity, religion and sectionalism as their talisman to public office!
I once called on the President to multiply the capacity of the good women in his cabinet. He has since added Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Mrs. Nenadi Usman, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, Remi Oyo and Ms. Ifueko Omoigui. There are other women in the cabinet like Mrs. Chinyere Ukpabi Asika, Chief Rita Akpan and Ms. Funke Adedoyin who are no doubt doing well. But the Akunyilis, Okonjo-Iwealas, Ezekwesilis Usmans and Omoigui are like the strikers in the Super Falcons. Their positions make them stand out more than the others.
In Nigeria’s conscious effort to deliberately carve a positive image for herself, Akunyili stands out as a top and successful brand. So also are Prof Charles Soludo, Mallam El-Rufai, Bode Agusto and the rest. I have heard the Hon. Minister of Information speak on the BRANDING NIGERIA project. He said it will be people-driven. It is not exactly clear to me what he means by that. Perhaps he means that we will show the world that every Nigerian is not a 419er or a drug pusher. That’s fair assuming that they do not know already. Perhaps for every drug pusher they point at we shall throw an Akunyili at them. For every 419er we shall intimidate them with Philip Emeagwali, Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka!
But, I’m afraid, image problems do not get solved that way. That is probably why sceptics are already wary of the ministerial tradition of image laundering. Yes the world knows that Akunyili is a Nigerian. They know that Chinua Achebe, Soyinka, Emeagwali, Akeem Olajunwon, Okonjo-Iweala are all Nigerians. Why has that fact not bailed us out since? You see, the central question the BRANDERS need to answer in order to get to the root of the image problem is: when any foreigner thinks of Nigeria, what is the first and likely picture that comes to his or her mind? Then deal with the answer to that question!
I do not think, for example, that what worries an American is our crime statistics. He is aware that the crime statistics of New York City alone is greater than that of the entire Nigeria. But the difference lies in the fact that whereas several crimes in Nigeria go undetected and unpunished, no crime is unresolved in America, no matter how long! Nothing un-nerves a foreigner more than the fact that a criminal has no disincentive to commit crime! He looks at the pace of our judiciary and he knows that waiting to get justice there is as good as waiting for Godot! If you throw Soyinka at him, what do you throw at him when he comes to Nigeria and the police, Immigration or Custom officers are asking him for dollars before passage? Yes, they know that Jay Jay Okocha and Nwankwo Kanu are Nigerians. They also know that Nigeria’s Super Eagles play entertaining football. But they also know that your football organisation is the worst in the world!
The BRANDING idea is superb. I have always said that governments, policies and nations nowadays have become very important products. They have to be professionally branded, packaged and marketed. Marketing is not a one-dimensional thing. It has a mix. All I am saying is that we must understand the problems of our product very well. Otherwise we may think that what we need is heavy advertising and we waste money on that, whereas what we really need is an improvement of the product quality. We may go cutting price when the packaging is awful.
The popular saying in public relations is that you can’t carve a figure out of a rotten wood. For example any effort at external propaganda will immediately be rubbished by the shabby look, the unruly manner, the conniving and lying culture and the extortion of bribe that are the hallmark of our police! Whereas if there is an Akunyili cleaning out the rot in our police, the effort would reverberate beyond our shores! Remember that Akunyili did and is still doing her work here in Nigeria. Yet it was in far away South Korea that she was honoured!
The point am making is that a greater part of the work that needs to be done is internal to be complemented by external boast. If not the boast would have the same effect advertising has on a bad product: kill it! We must have an Akunyili in the Police to give it a positive image. Our Local Government Chairmen and their councillors must take on refuse and environmental sanitation the way Akunyili has taken on drugs fakers. No people who live in the in-sanitary condition Nigerians live in can expect respect from the world. Let the state governors tackle pot holes, bad roads and traffic jams the Akunyili way. Let our civil service begin to deliver service to the people without seeing their faces. In short let Nigeria make a turn around from being a place nothing works to a place things work, and are working not because you offered bribe. Then we can beckon on the world to come and discover us!
The more important effect of all these will not only be that they earn us positive image abroad, but far more important is that they promote a nation where the citizens can find fulfilment and self-actualisation. Then the level of crime will reduce. The providentially deviant ones are guaranteed detection and conviction in the law courts. Then we can market ourselves as the GIANT IN THE SUN. Remember? We started years back to flatter ourselves with that brand name but something happened and we could not sustain it! A brand must offer something unique, something that sets it apart from others, some values for which consumers must stay loyal to it. But every brand must back its boast!
In other words, the greater part of the job of the Minister of Information is here, not abroad. The world knows what we are doing here, even without coming here, although you can accuse them of exaggeration. But the day the cost of doing business in Nigeria is no longer an index for fixing the price we pay for services, the day Nigerian cities become liveable, the day we stop wasting precious hours in traffic jams, the day criminals begin to face justice, the day corruption becomes the exception and not the rule, that day Nigeria will become as good a brand as Dora Akunyili.
