What I want to write today is an article I will love you to pirate. I’ll like you to dub it, and put it on your blog post. Modify it if you like, give me credit if you want, or give me none at all. They say we’ll achieve a lot more if we don’t care who gets the credit.
I have refrained deliberately for a long time to make any comments about our National Rebranding exercise. I hope I will be able to say what boils in my throat and wrists tonight, without making too much reference to it. For all it’s worth though, I think the fundamental error I can see, is that Nigerians have not been made to own it, and hence rather than having people championing it, and helping others buy in, what we have is criticism and condemnation by the same people who would have been it’s champions.
Having said that however, I have a proposition of an exercise that we can own as Nigerians. It’s a simple idea and it came as a fallout of a discussion that ensued in my office yesterday. It’s an answer of what we can do to focus our leaders on the problems that we have as citizens and to assist them in giving it the attention it deserves. We no longer need any assitance from any source to know that our most crucial problem in Nigeria is Leadership! If we are all on the same page in this realization, then our efforts towards a better Nigeria must be channeled to support, focus and direct our leaders.
I remember shortly before the elections last year I wrote an article I titled, “Power is all we need!” I pleaded with our would be leaders not to promise us roads or education, but to promise us just one thing – Power! That if in any leaders 4yrs we can celebrate 1yr of uniterupted power supply, then we should imortalize that president. Haven been to Egypt now to watch tombs, I say we must do the same, but before they die however.
First for the nation, then the states, then our local governments. Once we have a new president for example, we should as a nation analyze our most significant problem that we want solved in his or her tenure. After we have agreed on this problem, we should then go ahead and give that problem the same name with our president. We should substitute the name of our leader with this problem in our conversations, in our articles in newspapers, in our slang’s, in our music and drama. We should do this per state and per local government as well.
Let’s say for example that we have discovered that our biggest problem in Nigeria is Electricity, and for example that our president’s name for the tenure was Yaradua. Then everytime light goes, every time we are in darkeness, everytime we have any issues, our conversations should be like this.
When it is bad as it is – “Chai, Yaradua has gone again”, “Ah, we have not had Yaradua for the last 2 days”, “This Yaradua is so unstable”, “Ah what did we do today oh, we have half Yaradua today”,” What’s wrong with you, you are complaining that you haven’t seen Yaradua for 3 days, what about people that haven’t seen Yaradua for one year! or ever!”, “I wasn’t able to do it overnight, because Yaradua kept fainting”, “We have been using Yaradua as backup to our Generator”, “Iron your shirts, Yaradua may soon go oh”, ”
When this start becoming good – ” Up Yaradua!”, “Yaradua is really trying oh, we are not where we want to be, but we are far from where we were”, “Yaradua has been consistent for the past 24hrs”, “Ah, we need to celebrate 1yr of uninterrupted Yaradua”, “Yaradua is so much better these days”, “With Yaradua so constant, Nigeria is really becoming the most desirable nation to live in on earth”. “Yaradua is constant in all the states of Nigeria and the structures are in place to get Yaradua into all the local governments.”
Can you for your own new ones?
If we keep speaking this way, our leaders will know that we mean business with our desire for solutions. The next president will also know that one critical unsolved problem will bear his name until it’s solved. I recommend, that whichever president fixes electric power be given the opportunity to forever bear the same name with electricity in Nigeria and be forever immortalized in the lips and minds of Nigerians. The same for every future identified problem. A similar approach should be taken to the state levels. Whatever problem we align and identify must be instantly changed to the name of the Governor. If the issue in Lagos for example was Transportation and assuming the Governor was Fashola, then by now, people should be saying “Fashola is getting better in Lagos now”, or ” I entered one wrong fashola and they collected my phone and laptop.” or “Big Fashola (BRT) is actually making life easy for Lagosians”. We can identify the states one by one and identify the problems that need to be solved and replaced with their name.
My people say that whatever hurts one, must be primary in one’s conversation – “Oun to ba duni lo n po loro eni”
If you use this on your blog, just put a litte comment here saying you are using it so I can follow on to your site and register my solidarity. I think this is something that we the people can own and gradually take things to the way things should be. We deserve more than what we are getting, and UNTIL we the people are clear about what we want and about our commitment to make sure it happen, then nothing happens. Let’s make this happen!
Now I really need to sleep before Yarauda’ goes!
Hmm, here we go again talking about rebuilding and rebranding Nigeria.
The idea of naming our leaders by their impact is great. For instance, I live and work in Abuja and the big buses (BRT) are simply called EL-RUFAI here in Abuja. You hear something like Are u going home by El-Rufai or your car… El-Rufai introduced the mass transit system and he is now named by it…solving transportation problem in Abuja.
But wait a minute my brother, what do we do to those who cause us the greatest havoc as a nation and start problems that is still plaguing us. I think if we name them too by the problems they caused, it might serve as a deterrent to others. How does this sound? May we not have another Iwu by 2011…can somebody say Amen!
BY THE WAY, i was not informed about yesterday’s NNC meeting early enough…thanks to Busayo Akanro that added me. May be because I’m not a card carrying member..lol.
Well, whether or not I’m invited…i’m NNC member for live.
Let’s go (t) here!
Nice, nice however, i have a slight twist to it, rather than “…we should as a nation analyze our most significant problem that we want solved in his or her tenure.” we should allow the leader (per time) to be the one to choose which ‘problem’ they would tackle in their tenure (afterall, they are to ‘lead’ us) only, each leader should tackle only one problem per time till that problem is solved before moving on to something else.
But then, you just might have a point to think, some of them leaders might be mis-guided on the problem to tackle. Afterall what does Akunyuli think she is doing re-branding Nigeria when she can get the Freedom of Information Bill passed?
…now duplicated on http://www.adesojiadegbulu.com
Wow!!! this sounds like a really “crazy” idea, but you see, I do believe that if we must actually solve Nigeria’s problems, we need to make such “crazy” and unconventional moves as this. History itself gives us proof that this works, IF we can keep at it and not slack. Great idea!
By the way,I’d to stay back after church service today to do some work (including this) because obviously, Yaradua might not (infact, WONT) be in my house till only God knows when. hahahahah – this should work. Shared on http://www.gloriousolutionscentre.com/blog
On more thing i need to add…
Amidst all the talks, it is time that New Naija Club, The Future Movement etc and the Minister of Information & Communication herself get to actions that will bring about the rebuilding of Nigeria’s image…WHAT IS WORTH DOING AT ALL IS WHAT OVERDOING EXCELLENTLY WELL…I believe this is what @Glorious meant by “…IF we can keep at it and not slack.”
God Bless Nigeria
God Bless NNC
God Bless everyone
@Rethots. Your point sounds good but the process of governance is more complicated than what you said. A leader or President of a nation may not be able to face only one problem at a time before going to another one. The most feasible thing is to have a Develpoment Plan that can be followed even when he no longer in office…In Obama’s words to Mc Cain, A PRESIDENT MUST BE ABLE TO DO MORE THAN ONE THING AT A TIME.
infact guys, yaradua has been so absent in our area for sometime now that i wonder what i’ll do. well Generator dey sha!!!. i like this tot pattern. let’s keep it going knowing that it will be widespread soon. great tot guys!!!
No Yaradua for over 4 hours now. Even when it was available in the morning, it was going off and on like toy. May God help our government. Amen
Yaradua is no longer epileptic in Wuse, Abuja….@ Tosin Fayokun, Ifects. I hope Yaradua will be better in your place soon.
May God heal Yaradua..
Imagine!
There has not been Yaradua in my neighbourhood for the past two weeks. This has hindered me in so many ways that i just manage daily to be online while running on generators..I can’t just imagine the amount of naira people spend on fuel or diesel just to have Yaradua..
When will this get better?
Anyway, my prayer is that the Yaradua (epileptic or total blackouts) we see today, we shall see him no more in the nearest future. This shall be a tale of the past. Our children will wonder if it is true that we had issues with Yaradua.
I must confess. I H8 BLACKOUTS
@ ODEDEYI EMMANUEL
I say Amen to that prayer. You guys must be enjoying in Wuse.
someone once said, “If we put on all the generators in Nigeria at once, we’ll be able to give light to the whole of Africa all at once”.
We therefore can interpret it as “If we put all on the generators in Nigeria at once, Yar’adua will become the leader of the whole of Africa all at once”
sir your idea is wonderful. i love it. sometimes one begin to think if our leaders dont have eyes to see or ears to hear or friends and aides to tell them about what is happening around. or is it that they have determined before they came into office to just make things worse than they met it.i believe ur idea may change things….God bless our country.
@bussee: you were funny.Really,I wonder why things are like this.It seems our leaders are not ashame of themselves.
@JesusFreak: I say a big “Amen” to your prayer…but we must really work to achieve this and part of it is what has been said in this article.
God help Nigeria
This is nice sir.
Dat was great.pls permission to post it on my blog.
this is the best rebranding naija needs!! Dora should take a few clues from this!!!
Thanks Chairman for the insight. I believe we should make our government accountable for our problems…only then can we start a revolution. Permission to use this on my blog. Thanks
hmmm….. yaradua is serious messing up in my area….. e gba mi ooo…..
These problems are generic and catastrophic. even a growing child knows toady that Nigeria needs a turn around. but one thing that i’m very optimistic about it that it starts here-THE NIGERIAN DREAM! Where do i see Nigeria few years from now? (HOUSING, EMPLOYMENT/ EMPOWERMENT, HEALTH, SOURCES OF INCOME, LEADERSHIP, EDUCATION, etc) see every great country is, because there is a defination of where they are going and these destinations are incoporated in every individuals day to day affair. Pastor Sam Adeyemi says “a dream is a mental picture of a preferrable future”. but i thought it wise to paraphrase it thus “a dream is a mental picture of a preferrable future that you can feature”. it becomes useless and unrealistic if you do not see yourself as being instrumental to the actualization of a future you picture. see i’m convinced beyond an atom of doubt that GREAT NIGERIA WILL GET THERE! but it begins with seeing youself as being part of the ACTORS AND INITIATORS. No Messiah is coming again, we are the last Messiahs God has sent to deliver Nigera. yes we can lets start from somewhere so we can get to somewhere. God help us o!
@omozele. thank God for your life but there is still something i love to stress emphatically and it is this notion that we do not have any thing to offerthe world. see even the most unproductive Nigerian (if at all any one exists, which i do not believe) have somany things to offer, the mere fact that some faceless strangers that do not understand the reality and integrity of a POWERFUL nation like ours go around painting a notoroius picture of us do not make it true.
secondly, the mere fact that something is universally accepted as right does not make it right in its real sense. it they (oyinbo) think we are bad it does not make us bad in the real sense of it. i tell people that if some Nigerians have proven themselves dependable then there is a cause to hope for. we are as good as we thimk ourselves to be.
REBUILDING THE BROKEN WALL OF OUR DEMOCRACY!
Nigeria has endured the pains and ills of this tool of wickedness we call “demon dey craze” for too long. we are celebrating the tool our politically elected officers are using to deprive us of our
Fundamental Human Rights; the weapon of mass destruction used by our leaders.
we cannot afford to continue like this. the day must go when we allow ourselves to be cajoled by sweet talkers and deceivers, wolves in sheep clothing, killers and breakers of the law. Our democracy mus produce qualitative, dependable and reputable leaders. the dividends of democracy must be felt in every nuke and cranny of this country and beyond.
our leaders must be made to hear the truth and live by the truth.
the days of slavery must go, where leaders are not sensitive to the plight of their followers.
DEMOCRACY HAS COME TO STAY AND WE MUST ENJOY THE DIVIDENDS THEREOF.
Great words. its amazing that since our independence almost 4osomething years now, we havent had power for a full day. one problem our leaders have when they come into office is because they all have many visions with little time and at the end of the day, they achieve nothing.many industries are packing up now because they spend most of their finance in buying diesel to run generators including phcn. power is indeed all we need.
I think you guys might have actually killed Yaradua… who do we use next
Goodluck?…lol