Nation branding has become a popular phrase ever since Simon Anholt coined the phrase in 1996. In a seminal article, 'Nation-Brands of the Twenty-First Century' (1998), Anholt noted that most of the really successful international brands have come from countries that are successful brands in their own rights such that a substantial transfer of brand imagery and brand equity seems to occur naturally between the two.

This suggests that a brand is often a complex mixture of attributes, one of which is the brand's provenance. In fact, the relationship between a brand and its provenance could be so strong that it may be difficult to assess whether the perception of a brand is because of the product or its place of origin.

The above presupposes that a country's brand is best appreciated if it is woven as a narrative around its famous products, services or attributes - samba in Brazil, reggae in Jamaica, resilient technological products from Japan and Germany, enthralling wild life in Kenya, wonderful nature in Uganda, and mysticism in Tibet.

There are some crucial questions in the current drive to 'rebrand' Nigeria: What is Brand Nigeria? Which products or attributes of the country are woven around the brand? What do we hope to achieve by re-branding? How do we measure the success of a country brand?

Nigerians have, at least since the oil boom of the 1970s, branded their country as the 'Giant of Africa', a slogan that despite its lack of humility rightly reflects our relative huge population and leadership in many areas in the continent - from the struggle against Apartheid South Africa to peace keeping initiatives and sports. In July 2004, the Obasanjo regime decided to change this subsisting brand when it launched the 'Nigeria Image Project', which later metamorphosed into the Heart of Africa Project. The new brand was notorious not just over accusations of plagiarism and theft of other countries' intellectual property but even more importantly for the lack of any association between its implied narrative and any of the country's known attributes.

When the Minister of Information, Professor Dora Akunyili, announced the jettisoning of the brand, part of her reasons was that "we need to re-brand Nigeria, so that we as Nigerians will appreciate ourselves and our country, which will put us in a position to present ourselves positively to the outside world."

There are a number of issues with the new drive to 're-brand' the country. First, a country 're-brands' to improve its ability to attract tourism, inward investments and export sales, not so that the citizens will better appreciate themselves. If the aim of the exercise is for citizens to better appreciate themselves, then what is required is not rebranding but some form of mass psychotherapy or the use of historiography to imbue national and racial pride along the lines of the Black History Month.

Second, the minister said nothing about the interwoven association between a brand and its provenance, implying some ignorance of a key fundamental in the success of any brand. For instance, though India, China and Jamaica could have more conmen than Nigeria, the fact that these countries are perceived to work while Nigeria is not means that the criminals from those countries cannot be used to define them while those from Nigeria will. This suggests that for as long as Nigeria remains a fraudulent failing state, campaigns to correct the purported negative image of the country abroad could be misconstrued as a whitewash, further feeding into the perception that Nigerians are deceptive people. It is pretty much like Black people believing that the celebration of Black History Month will radically change the stereotyping and perception of the Blackman in the West. Of course the criminal activities of some Africans are unlikely to affect the perception of blacks and Africans in areas they are historically seen as doing well- music, sports, dancing. But perceptions in these areas were built up over the years, not through media whitewash.

Third, when a country's image suffers - as that of Britain did at the turn of the century when it was known as the 'sick man of Europe', and America did under Jimmy Carter - what they often do is to get their acts together and then create new narratives around their success areas, not create a new brand symbol. People and companies from such countries concomitantly benefit from the improved perception of the country.

Fourth, there are contradictions that suggest that the new effort to 're-brand' the country was hastily put together. For instance, one of the reasons given for abandoning the Heart of Africa Project was that it "was launched in overseas, thereby disconnecting the ordinary Nigerian from the project, which makes it look elitist." This argument is rather unconvincing, for one can, in fact, argue that launching the project overseas rather than at home would have a better impact since the key aim was to correct the apparent misperception of the country abroad and not to induce behaviour changes at home. Besides, since when has a project being home-grown an indication that it would succeed?

Fifth, the Minister also claimed that the Heart of Africa project failed to achieve its objectives without telling us how she carried out the impact assessment or how her own will be different. Nothing was also said about budget, time frame and impact assessment.

The above is not a defence of the Heart of Africa Project, which had a whopping budget of N600 million (enough to offer full time employment for some 1.4 million graduates for one year). The argument is simply that the country does not need another white elephant project - a poorly articulated one at that - at a time of global recession and unacceptable levels of unemployment at home. We already have a good brand name, Giant of Africa, and our brand symbol/logo remains our flag.

You cannot be prouder as a Nigerian to visit the Odeon cinema chain in Surrey Quays, south east London, and discover that a Nollywood film is on the menu, with many non-Nigerians, including Caucasians, queuing up for tickets. Or to know that the $450 million industry is the third biggest in the world, after America's Hollywood and India's Bollywood. This is a far more effective image-making effort for the country than the government can possibly do.