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Who Is Rebranding Nigeria?

April 8, 2009

In marketing, when a particular commodity is not in high demand as a result of poor quality or counterfeiting, the manufacturer tends to rebrand it either by improving the quality through packaging or even changing the name, trademark or colour of the product. Thus from the conventional point of view, the manufacturer tends to change the perception of the buyer by creating the much-needed awareness that the old product-which commanded scant consumer loyalty, has changed for the better, with value added and adequate warranty.

Essentially, therefore, rebranding is done to change customers’ perception, through the improvement of service delivery, improve service durability, the use of cutting-edge technology and in extreme cases guaranteeing customers of the product durability. Even so, it requires gargantuan media blitz to get the masses acquainted with the fact that the poor, old and decrepit brand has been replaced.

A nation, like a commodity could also be rebranded if it has been bedeviled by bad leadership occasion by flawed electoral processes, buccaneering corruption, religious bickering and mutual distrust. A nation will also require rebranding if economic opportunists; political adventurers, and ethnic bigots deceive the masses by wearing the toga of patriotism, statesmanship and altruism. All the aforementioned vices have plagued Nigeria to the point of over-kill - a reason why a segment of the people hold the view that aggressive re-orientation and re-branding could change people’s perception about the attitude to Nigeria.



As it is a now even political sycophants and praise singers find it difficult to argue that Nigeria’s image is battered beyond repairs. The attitude of the world toward Nigeria is based on the well established fact about the attitude of the people. It is assumed that every Nigeria citizen traveling out of the country is either a 419er or potential drug traffickers. Nigerian girls who are caught any where in Italy, Greece, Netherlands, Spain and other country in Europe are treated as potential whores. Anytime Nigeria embarks on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Mecca, or any other countries, Nigerians have the tendency to escape to other countries to seek for greener pastures. Why? because of the harsh economic realities of the moment.  Even those people we regard as valuable assets to Nigeria are searched at Heathrow and JFK Airport like common criminals.

Back home, the ordinary Nigeria commuter is molested daily by the police; in fact some taxi drivers get shot for not adhering to the well-established tithing policy on major Nigerian roads. While secret cult movements have assumed a savage dimension, politicians encourage them, sometimes, inadvertently by providing them with lethal weaponry and pay them huge some of money to maim, kill and pillage. Foreign Direct Investment is almost approaching zero level because of the inclement, unstable business environment. The few indigenous investors are mere government patrons who feed fat on over-inflated government contract of course; primitive accumulation by the few is a trademark of predatory capitalism.

Although successive administrations have put in place agencies such as War Against Indiscipline (WAI) Ethical Revolution, National Orientation Agency (NOA), these agencies all hamstrung by entrenched habits and attitudes that die-hard. Now, wealth especially ill -gotten wealth has being turned into a religion such that even some of the worship centres have made offering and tithing as mandatory. Indeed the more money you pay the bigger the passport that will usher the loyal customer to “heaven”. Automatically, therefore those who do not have money to tithe are sentenced to perdition on earth even before they face judgment.

I have not seen any capitalist country that has successfully rebranded itself because of the inherent exploitative, production relations. Post – Keynesians have also acknowledged the fact that the capitalist economies are simply an exchange mechanism with a specific mode of production that no surplus value exists, yet bourgeois economists are apologetic hence they try to paint a picture of the existence of perfect competition. Nigeria’s economy still thrives on the fallacy of consumption in an atmosphere neo-classical individualism.

At the level of foreign policy, Nigeria even with in the framework of the much trumpeted “citizens diplomacy” is benevolent to other nations but ruthless to fellow Nigerians. Nigeria’s foreign policy lacks internationalism and even fails on pan – African measure. The nation national interest is subject to ambivalent interpretation our concentric foreign policy ideology has lost its meaning and the foreign policy landscape has been bastardized by curious contradictions. A nation that inflicts punitive domestic policies and pursues a purposeless foreign policy cannot effectively re-brand.

On the economic front, the central bank of Nigeria (CBN) Czar in 2005 rebranded the banking industries by whittling down the number of banks from 85 to 25; this singular gesture restored public confidence in the economy. Again in June 2006, the Financial Action Task Force (FATA), based in pans deleted Nigeria’s name from the list of none operating countries in the drug trafficking and financial crimes. But the question is how has the CBN used these policies to bring about stability in the economy?

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has achieved some measure of success yet much needs to be done. The key challenges facing the rebranding exercise are numerous. The Presidency since 2002, has not fully complied with budget implementation guidelines, and the National Assembly does not seem poised to exercise the oversight function - the constitution review issue has revealed the fact that NASS itself is a house divided against itself because of entrenched divisive political interests and discordant voices that believe we are not yet uhuru!.

The poverty alleviation programme has failed especially with the massive privatization and deregulation regime of the past years, the unemployment index has aggravated, so also is the misery index. The past administration has not recovered the billion dollars stashed away by past leaders who are gallivanting across the length and breath of the nation are worshipped as heroes rather the damned as thieves. Now the EFCC goes after the small thieves “and allow the “big ones” to continue to steal”. Our bureaucratic elite have not changed their affluent life styles, as they spend public money to build material fortresses for themselves, our politicians still nurture zero sum mentality and no one seems to be accountable, but paradoxically the people who would have ask questions are two poor, naive and uneducated to do so. Public office holders see their positions as official licenses to loot. And this ugly trend may continue till perhaps when there is divine intervention.

In a raw capitalism like Nigeria rebranding will not work; attempts at rebranding will only manifest in a grandiose scales, the fallacy of contradictions capitalism. The propensity of the average Nigerian to save is diminishing, as the misery index is on the rise. Keynes famous paradox of thrift is no longer tenable as only a people earning living wages can conceive of image problem. In the factory of history, rebranding can only work if the masses of humanity in the country could meet their basic needs.

In the circumstances the question is “who is rebranding Nigeria? Are they the President, the police, the customs, politicians, State Governors, Ministers or others public office holders? Who is rebranding Nigeria when the nation depends on only crude oil as foreign exchange earner? Who is rebranding Nigeria when the domestic currency diminishing as a result of the global economic crisis? Ask our technocrats at the CBN and they will convince you that the domestic currency is stable and the economy is in a good shape. The more we engage in self-deception, the more we sink deeper in anomie and delusion.

My consolation is that during the Obasanjo administration, Otta farm, which was almost moribund, was re-branded. He also established Bells University of Technology and got the bourgeois to contribute fabulous money to build the best private library for himself, while at the same time pretending to attend a theological institute. He is now a clergy man and one only hopes that some of the great men of God would ordain him to preach in the pulpit.

Who is the Nkrumah, Nyerere or Gamal Abdel Nasser that would make sacrifice to remake Nigeria? Who? Who is rebranding Nigeria when we have deleted sacrifice and patriotism from the lexicon of our public service? Who is that Nigerian leader from the Presidency to the Local Government Council that would conjures the courage of Gideon Urhobo, the perseverance of Gandhi and the audacity of Obama to rebrand Nigeria to move a nation forward , that is already trapped in anomie?

Nigeria’s rebranding project can be another national joke because the bourgeoning capitalist, money-minded politicians are interested in the total ruination of the proletariat and annihilation of the middle class, while at the same time engaging in primitive accumulation. The rebranding exercise will not succeed if the bureaucratic political class engage in carefree plundering - leaving the masses at the backyard of modernity deprivation and alienation. I am yet to know who is rebranding Nigeria and I am yet to come to terms with the strategies adopted to re-brand this geopolitical space. A nation such as ours must first of all rebrand our conscience, our psyche, our affluent life styles, and our thinking before we can re-brand anything else.

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Idumange John,
Is a University Lecturer and Activist


[email protected]

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