Last night when I was sitting there minding my own business jeje jeje and praying for Arsenal to beat Hull so we could meet them at Wembley (prefer Arsenal to Hull o. Those Hull boys are too goal hungry for my own liking) when my phone buzzed and I received the following text message. FGN - Nigeria . Good people, great nation. I immediately scanned my phonebook for any Man u supporter with those initials but to no avail. See I thought that since I had sent condolence texts to every Man U supporter I know over their weekend destruction by Liverpool it could have been one of them sending me a text back as a piss take. No luck there. And then I thought maybe it was one of my work colleagues in the UK who had received another one of those 419 mails they are so very happy to discuss with me in great detail every time I happen to be in our HQ. Again no luck. Oh well. Back to the game.
Call me slow sha but after some time it then occured to me that hold on a minute, you didirin, FGN stands for Federal Government of Nigeria. Of course you can understand my slowness after all I am not in the habit of getting mails from the highest levels of the Executive arm. After all I am only a lowly tax paying, law abiding citizen not seeking government contracts or political office. Why in the hell would they want to acknowledge my existence?
So the Minister of Communications and Information is erm communicating with me. She is announcing the winner of the re branding Nigeria exercise. And this is it. Good people. great nation. Wow. Great. But now to more important things. How many yards does William Gallas have to be offside for the linesman to notice him and disallow his goal? I mean how can you miss a six foot black man standing all by himself in front of goal? It is not obvious that he is offside and the goal should be disallowed?
So it was that I lay awake at night tossing and turning with my stomach churning about this turn of events. I mean can you Adam and Eve it (believe) it? How could this happen in this day and age. Great nation. Good people. This is the best that we could do? I mean is this the right time to be rebranding Nigeria anyway? Do you not rebrand when you have introduced a change of some sort (ideally positive) into the old brand. Lets check the facts:
Have any corrupt Governors been tried and jailed recently. No
Has the GDP of the country changed dramatically? No
Has the Naira gained in value? No
Has the living standard of the man on the street been improved? No
Has health care, education, communication, security improved? No
Has the new Minister really thought this through?. No
Has broadband penetration, which falls under the Ministry of Comms improved enough to allow a majority of Nigeria's citizen be able to join the Global village? No
Is this really the best place for the Ministry to be focused in light of a recent one month strike by Nitel that crippled all International comms services into Nigeria due to non payment of their wages for 8 months? No
Hmmm. So basically what we are saying is that things are still as they are but we will call them a new name? Like changing from NEPA to PHCN? We will slap new paint on a derelict house? We will put new seat covers on an abandoned car? And this rebranding exercise will only cost $150m to execute? Bargain (but there is no money ot pay Nitel workers?). For that sort of price we should do it every month.
As for Arsenal. Maybe we could rebrand them as Arse. Has a certain ring to it don't you think? Actually we could use that term for the Nigeria rebranding as well.
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12 comments:
So I was sick and thus home-bound yesterday. I watched the re-branding exercise and yes, there were good people with great speeches...going on for hours and hours...and then the re-brand slogan. I almost missed it. Good people, great nation? Right?
How about they told us something new?
I got the text too and I wondered what happened to the Frank Nweke led Heart of Afric project?
Operation destroy your predecessor is still very much in play.
what a crock load of shit, i dont undertsand these lot i swear. what re branding??
For the sake of accuracy it would appear that the "budget" for this exercise is N150m not $150m as I previously claimed. Feel better now? I did'nt think so.
@Anon, Nonesuch and 36 inches. Na so we see am o. More of a concern is the fact that some people are seeing it like the best thing since sliced bread. Only God can help us.
And that is the issue, the things we, Nigerians fundamentally care about are yet to be addressed. As a result, the reaction to the re-branding effort is being dismissed both by Nigerians and even worse, by the foreign media.
Thanks so much for sharing. More bloggers need to talk about this issue. I am already advocating that for this effort to be a success, Dora and friends need to communicate with us bloggers and take advantage of the resources they already have instead of bungling this further.
Check out my views at Nigerian Curiosity.. Take care!
so that's it? after all the noise she's been making that's it?
oh well
Arse to thump Chelsea 4-1 bring them back to earth,we'll make sure hiddink don't get the extension he is looking for ;)
no long thing
ARSENAL 4 chealsea 1
lets go dia :-)
I say rebrand us 'Kick-Arse'!
Kick-Arse 4 - 1 Chelsea
no water, no light, no comment
Ok... I realise that I am in the minority but i actually liked receiving the msgs. I think living in Lagos and seeing the good that a leader (Fashola) can do has infected me into thinking that maybe there is a new wave of accounability and desire to be effective particularly since the person in question who has taken on this task has shown a previous penchant for effectiveness.
When I first received the message, my 1st thought was that a line was missing ... bad leaders. True like most Nigerians I believe its an exercise in futility (a coat of paint does not change what is in the house same way plastic surgery dont reverse or change the age of the person) but I also believe that any exercise to make Nigerians have a positive attitude about themselves and their country must be good.
Maybe if we hear it often enough that we are good pple and a great nation, we will start to believe it, behave it and be it. Then we will stop accepting mediocrity, ignoring or excusing bad behaviour because we know that we deserve better. Yes, we need to work on the psyche of Nigerians.
Its so easy to believe in and propagate the negative and this is what we do best as a people. Why don't we try the converse? It might just work and if it does not we can in our self righteousness say "we told you so, we knew it was a waste of money, we were right all along, etc".
there is a Scripture in teh Bible which states :' Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God'. If you say/see something long enough, you'll begin to believe it. If you believe it long enough, you will act based on what you believe.
It is true that these things have not changed, but I believe that Nigerians minds need to be re-educated about their country.
Helping people believe that Nigeria is a great nation is a start - perhaps this would eventually educate the next generation and possibly ours to start making positive steps towards rebuilding the nation.
I really do hope this is kept up and followed through. My prayer is that this statement would seep through all arms of government to produce great change
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