Posted by By Ikem Okuhu on
It was interesting to read somebody like Nduneche Ezurike in the July 11 2005 edition of your newspaper. As I pored through the deeply engaging article, it could be seen, from the choice of words and the careful selection of examples, the depth of the writer's passion for a Nigeria that all of us should proudly protect and project through all platforms of national and international contact.
It was interesting to read somebody like Nduneche Ezurike in the July 11 2005 edition of your newspaper. As I pored through the deeply engaging article, it could be seen, from the choice of words and the careful selection of examples, the depth of the writer's passion for a Nigeria that all of us should proudly protect and project through all platforms of national and international contact.
I am used to reading contributions from Nduneche and can readily predict his style; high sounding and elitist in such a way as to make one feel he writes for a select, top-of-the class audience. This particular article was entirely different. Nduneche was trying to talk to all Nigerians. It was a call to arms, not the type that some people are currently using to inflict the wounds of terror in London and everywhere Osama bin Laden has his perceived enemies. Neither is it the type that some desperately selfish centrifugal forces have successfully(?) used to erode the gains of unity that would have accrued all of us who have lifetime investments in the future oneness of Nigeria at the just botched National Political Reforms Conference. It is neither of these.
Nduneche was calling us to arm ourselves to the critical challenge of giving Nigeria a NAME, one we all agree we should bear, a name that should reflect our rich culture, intellect and diverse heritage, a name that we, and not others bestowed on ourselves, a name that communicates our genuine expressions and not the other guys' erroneous impressions. Our name.
Nduneche was so down-to-earth in his contribution to the chaotic debate on how to brand Nigeria that he is sure products like Alabukun and cola nut have become brands whose essence could be used to touch-off a positive spark on the country's long battered image. Such is the honest whole-heartedness of this man, so much so that he even looks at very mundane, yet historically and socially significant imageries like the cola nut and (funny indeed) Alabukun for Nigeria's brand essence.
That is the tragedy of the Nigerian situation. Honest people don't ever get near the point where they could make significant change.
Part of this paragraph reads: "We all know, buy and experience brands that have a great heritage and enjoy generational endorsements like Mercedes Benz, BMW, Philips, Mother Theresa(?), McDonalds, Pele(?), Heineken...All these brands share certain degrees of commonality to the extent that they all have built a meaningful and relevant past - a heritage."
Contrary to the views held by the writer and perhaps the peddlers of the Heart of Africa project, it is not enough for us to sit down, gather all the marketing eggheads in this country and "pre-design" the type of image we aspire for ourselves. This is the sanctimonious and utterly hypocitical self-baptism I had talked about earlier. We cannot be dwarfs and name ourselves giants!
Image for those who want to speak the truth, comes from within. It portrays how the person thinks, how the organisation feels about its people and vice versa, how the country can be experienced (and this could be predictable). Image cannot be a facade. The veneer will be so flimsily thin everybody would see the repulsive contradiction(s) inside. Have you ever seen a man with a headache, singing and clapping at Jay-Jay Okocha's masterful dribbles? Would you buy a Gucci from a salesman wearing Yves Saint-Laurent?
Let us even look at the examples that were cited in the second paragraph of Nduneche's article. BMW as a brand represents sensuous driving experience. It was a feature that was deliberately cultivated in the company's employees (ambassadors) and the rest of us (market) over time. Even those of us that have not been to the company's corporate office or even own one of their cars could feel it. This is so not simply because the car is well built. I am sure that all employees at all their locations worldwide, including dealers and franchisees are ambassadorial brand megaphones, reflecting and firming up the BMW personality in the way they eat, the way they behave and the companies they keep. Mercedes Benz, on its part is known and experienced for its longevity and top-class appeal. Watch out for all the people associated with the brand. They all exude the "Benz" personality whether they are driving or making speeches.
Both Mercedes Benz and BMW and their strong brand equity could not have happened because there were very good marketing people in the companies who know the shortest cut to the seat of power and who can invent the most impressive, selling propositions in the marketplace. On the contrary, their achievement came from a track record of their ability to roll out predictably high quality products year in, year out and model after model. It was therefore easy for the marketing people to effectively convey to the market what the engineers and other technical personnel conceived and rolled out from the production line. They did not invent propositions their brands did not have. They did not tell us their cars could "fly." We would have found out later and then we would have formed our opinion (a strong, negative one) that would have killed their products before they became brands.
What I am saying is that Nigeria cannot be bad and blow a diversionary trumpet of virtue and think the world would be deceived. At the end of the day, the real "us" will reveal itself. In this article, we will attempt an audit of a couple of the "goods" and "bads" of the past few years to see the ones that are capable of helping to form opinion about us before the world.
Good: 1.Dora Akunyili at NAFDAC (Rare in this country but taken as given in other lands). 2. Successful transition from civilian to civilian (the world expects no less)
3. EFCC (The world expects some people to be in prison by now, yet...) 4. Debt forgiveness (What did we do with the principal sums borrowed?).
Bad: 1. IGP and his billions of naira worth of loot (You see, this happens only in places like Nigeria). 2. Abduction of a sitting governor and the consequent arson a year later (rule of law wherefore art thou?).3. Apo killings (A country of cannibals?) 4. Asari-Dokubo and the Niger Delta militia (again what is your take?) 5. Governor Dariye's travails and the "purported" money laundering drag-drag (the strongman is still hanging in there) 6. Odi and Zaki Biam massacres (we are always quick to forget).
If you were a journalist, which of these stories would you put on the front page? I am not saying that we don't have some good things to use as leverages to make us look tolerably good before the world. My argument is that those things are swallowed in the raucous hoarseness of our unpleasant sides.
What is important for us now is for a conscious mutation to happen to our collective national gene. That is the only way we can change the way we look. The present discordant tunes that were sang at the National Political Reforms Conference and the continued effort to convoke "a people's conference by PRONACO is testimony to the fact that we have nothing to brand for now. Somebody should be constructively engaging them so that we don't look so irredeemably divided. Instead they are going about launching the logo of the Heart of Africa Project.
The Nigerian brand must have as a basic characteristic, the oneness of its people even in their multitudinous diversity. It must reflect (not hide) the goodness of its people, the efficiency in its processes, their strength of character, honesty, patriotism and abiding love for one another in a way that must distinctly be truly "Nigerian."
I did not want to go into this but look at the kind of frighteningly claustrophobic reception we give visitors to our land. What do you tell that first visitor to Nigeria aboard Air France who escaped death by the sheer grace of his pilot's skills at the Port Harcourt International Airport? Why? Because we are so sloppy as to allow cows the unheard-of luxury of using our tarmac to chug out at night! What happens if also he learns that lunatics sleep in the cargo cabins of other planes with impunity? I leave you to find the answers.
To effectively brand this country, we need not go very far. Ghana, our West African neighbour is good enough example. Anyone remember the origin of "Ghana-Must-Go" bags in this country? We were chasing them away because their country was bad and they trooped in here, sleeping on our dirty streets and doing the menial jobs. But their leaders woke up to the task of national rebirth and changed the system, and the perception of every Ghanaian about their country. This would later affect our perception of Ghana and Ghanaians. Today, Ghana is the tourism and investment destination we should have been. The rest is history. The streets of Ghana are clean and well paved. Street lights function even in narrow neighbourhood streets. It was after this that serious nation marketing began. And it is yielding results.
We seem to have perfected the two bad and utterly "uneffective" habits of either doing the last things first or watering a dead tree. We must change the way we think and behave, the way our system runs, the way we relate with one another, the way we perceive our country. When we achieve even 40 percent of this we could then start branding it. I am aware that other countries have their negative sides but chose to emphasise the opposite, the good, the attractive, the positive. Yes, but we are also aware that the very foundations of those brands were laid in their respective citizens minds from where the very essences, interpretations and experiences that constituted the unique selling points were sourced and sold to the world. Anything short of this is propaganda and image laundering. And President Obasanjo is doing such a good job of it already that any other thing like it would amount to duplication.
Okuhu, a journalist and public affairs analyst, lives in Lagos