To build a strong nation, there must be some levels of commitment in the sacrifices offered on the part of the citizens. The term citizen is, in this context, used to mean leaders and all other people who are living in that country and regard it as the country of their origin/settlement by birth or by naturalization respectively. When there is a clarion call, all citizens irrespective of position, tribe, religion, or ethnic background must offer sacrifices in line with their abilities and positions to safe the nation from an urgent need. The positive out-come of such a national call is not only beneficial to all the citizens but also helps in preserving the dignity and respect of such a nation. This is the very reason why the rebranding Nigeria’s image is a task that all Nigerian citizens (home and abroad) must be involved to make it a success and consequently redeem our dear nation (if not the her citizens) from the negativities which are stereotypically held against her name.
There may be other definitions of the term ‘image’ but for the purpose of this article, an image is considered here as an actual or mental picture or likeness of something, produced either physically by an artist (sculptor, painter or photographer), or formed in the mind. Nigeria’s image, therefore, is the mental picture or general perception that people have on the nation and her people. The attributes of the image are certain things which tend to define the character of the people coming from Nigeria which include corruption, drugs dealers, bad leadership etc. The term ‘rebranding’, on the other hand, could be seen as recreating new/positive ways of approaching issues at individual and groups levels in order to improve the general image the country and her people.
Since the campaign of rebranding Nigeria’s was initiated by the government under stewardship of Prof. Dora Akunyili, many Nigerians (especially youths) have expressed their confusions on whether or not, Nigeria truly needs to be rebranded. Part of the reasons for their confusions is that, majority Nigerians in this generation have received professional/behavioral training from schools and homes only to come to the wider Nigerian society and discovered that those who give them the training are not practicing it. Rather, they established secret ways of exonerating their dubious acts without being trapped by the claws of the law. Nigerian youths on getting into the main stream in the practice of their individual professions or careers became used to such bad practices within the system. It has now become a ‘tradition’. Tradition in the sense that, when a bad thing is continually done in a particular society and children grow-up to see adult doing it without being informed, they take it as an acceptable tradition. Today, the a majority of Nigerian elites and intellectuals have seen the grievous threat of such practices on the future of Nigeria which even though they will not live to see their children will suffer it. These and many more reasons form the basis for the rebranding Nigeria’s campaign.
The contention of many Nigerians in the campaign is that, apart from a few figures, many of those involve in the campaign at national or state levels are criminally unclean in their record or have one form of corruption case or the other. The criticism here is that, such leaders should rebrand themselves before thinking of rebranding Nigeria. From the foregoing, it stands to reason that, youths as well as many Nigerians want to work in a corrupt free environment with leaders who are truly committed and sincere in their approach to handling and prosecuting cases of corruption. However, it appears from the responses of many Nigerians that so far no Nigerian leader has truly distinguishes himself as a leader who really want to fight corruption.
At this point, the campaign is fast becoming unpopular in the art of image building as the whole rebranding campaign, to some extent, centres on issues of leadership by example. The leaders are preaching certain ethics but doing otherwise. The followers are following suit, by imitating the live style of their superiors. If this is the style of Nigeria’s image building, then we (Nigerians) still have more than just a century to achieve the objectives of the rebranding campaign. May God help us!
*** Art in Disguise ***
