Nigeria! A Rebranding Or A Repackaging Project?

By Chinedu Opara I will say Nigeria has really come to stay. Necessity condemns us to co-existence. The truth is that the geographical entity called Nigeria, never mind that we are yet to attain nationhood, at this rate, has coalesced into one solid structure around and within which several very diverse tribes and world outlooks have tried to carve a niche and compete with each other for the resources available mainly in one geopolitical zone of the country. There has come to be some, well, if not understanding, then mere acknowledgment that we will all carry one international passport and use one currency. Achieving this has not been easy. In Nigeria's unimaginable odyssey, a brutal civil war was fought before I was born and the geographical entity known as Nigeria remained intact. However, nationhood, which ought to be the hallmark of any serious people, has continually eluded Nigeria. Without mincing words, this is attributable to poor, unimaginative leadership. In the aftermath of the civil war came the oil boom. Nigeria emerged as a regional economic power thanks to vast reserves of crude oil found in the swamps of the area where the Niger River flows into the Atlantic through numerous tributaries, an area now known as the Niger Delta region, hotbed of militancy in Nigeria. Then came the latest experiment in civilian rule (not democracy, mind). From 1999 till date, Nigeria has had the singular misfortune of having inflicted on it, the most visionless, corrupt and inept rulership in written history. This is a most impartial judgment given the size of resources available to it and the peculiarity of both the country's constitution and the political society which gives and allows the president of the country wield enormous almost unheard-of powers, powers the likes of Suharto and Lee Gwan possessed in Indonesia and Singapore that set their countries on the path of Industrialization. Corruption and sheer political brigandry have been the bane of governance in Nigeria. Given the enormity of human and material resources in Nigeria, it is simply criminal for the ship of the Nigeria state to flounder so dangerously especially in issues any serious country ought to have resolved long ago. In Nigeria, we still discuss issues like power supply and credible elections and no end seems in sight for the resolution of these foundation stones of any modern democratic society. I wonder how some present and past public office holders manage to look their foreign counterparts in the eye whenever they meet. A decent person would die of shame! Well am not travelling for now, so I wouldn’t know. But certainly not our politicians. That human attitude of feeling ashamed of wilful failure is totally alien to them. That's why one will see the few convicted politicians in our midst still wielding influence especially in political parties. The people of Nigeria have often been touted as the happiest people on earth. And why not! Nigeria is warm and hospitable; never mind the deviants. The image of a country is not set by drug barons, prostitutes or advance fee fraud scammers for every country has its own deviants and social misfits. Rather, the international image of a country is set by the response of governments to whichever socio-political challenges it faces. It is noteworthy that countries like South Africa, United States of America and a few South American countries have the highest crime rates in the world with violent crimes topping the crime charts. But it is equally noteworthy that these countries still remain business and tourist destinations. Well, since man is unpredictable and deviants exist in every society, the burden of good governance (hence, image brand) lies not in the total prevention of social and economic ills, but in the provision of credible, pragmatic and proactive solutions in nation building. Can President Buhari set the record straight? President Buhari has promised to shed the garb of greed and narrow personal aggrandizement and honestly engage in true nation building, this can only be evidenced by a conscious and apparent radical reform of ALL sectors of national life, I only hope that he will later not move to repackaging out of frustration, as any effort at rebranding Nigeria will fail abysmally. Because if nothing is done to rehabilitate the already failed Nigerian state, any repackaging will only be cosmetic, ephemeral and a journey in self deceit. Until President Buhari sets the machinery in motion, Until President Buhari begins to send corrupt politicians to jail (not the present EFCC arrest-detention- and-bail- for-life round robin), there will be no rebranding and Change of Nigeria! This process will throw up genuine leaders whose hands and faces will be clean enough to show to the world as Nigeria's new image.