Jude Njoku
1 April 2009
THE traffic jam in Lagos Island weekend was simply chaotic. The gridlock was said to have been caused by a fully loaded truck which fell near the Bonny Camp Military Barracks.
The convoy of the Minister of Information and Communications, Prof. Dora Akunyili who was in Lagos to drum up support for her rebranding Nigeria initiative ran into the gridlock and the siren blared for several hours with little or no success.
But like an Amazon that she is, Prof. Akunyili, the woman who fought drug barons in the country to a standstill when she was the Director-General of NAFDAC but who has been handed the unenviable mandate of projecting and defending the image of the country, braved all the odds and arrived at her first port of call -the palace of His Royal Majesty, the Oba of Lagos, Oba Rilwan Akiolu.
The Lagos monarch who was with guests from Germany, had to cut their discussions short to welcome
Professor Dora Akunyili visits Oba Akiolu to n Lagos to drum up support for her rebranding of Nigeria initiative
the Minister. But before letting his visitors go, the revered traditional ruler informed the Germans that Nigeria has changed for good hence they should not be afraid to invest in the country.
Elated by the positive things the Oba told the Germans about the country, Prof. Akunyili picked up from there.
Lauding Oba Akiolu for supporting her war against fake and adulterated drugs when she held sway at NAFDAC, Prof Akunyili solicited similar support for the rebranding Nigeria project.
Giving details of the project which she said was formally flagged off by the Vice President, Dr. Jonathan Goodluck a few weeks ago, the Minister said the campaign is not about logos and slogans but is home-grown and people-centred. "Only Nigerians can rebrand Nigeria. Realising this, we took Nigerians on board from the onset by starting a competition for Nigerians to chose the logo and slogan", she said.
Describing Nigerians as wonderful people who will support a good cause, Prof. Akunyili said the present effort to rebrand Nigeria is not just to shore up the image of the country abroad but is also aimed at correcting the negative image about the country.
"We are focused, we are ordered, we are organised; we want to galvanise Nigerians to believe in themselves because if you don't believe in yourself, you cannot project yourself positively to others. It is only when you believe in yourself that you can tell the outside world what you are. This country is richly blessed.
We have men and women who have excelled in their various endeavours. We have very good places that we can show the world. We have many untold stories. For too long, we have allowed others to tell our story and they told our story the way they liked. They painted all of us with the same brush, a country of criminals and fraudsters but we know we are not.
They reported Nigeria as a country where nothing works but we know that certain things work in this country. We want to correct this and now is the time to start. We cannot continue to wait, wait till when? Some people feel that we have to wait until we have all the roads, we have water everywhere, we have electricity 24 hours but we don't think so.
We believe that we can work on our national image, we can work on ourselves to change the situation while on the other hand, government will continue to work very hard to deliver all deliverables to empower the people because our people deserve the best.
This campaign is also going to give us a platform for Nigerians to directly interact with government. It is going to be interactive -when we start going for Town Hall meetings to States and Local Government Areas. We are going to concentrate in Nigeria; we have no plans of going overseas in the near future. We need to first of all, travel inside Nigeria, state by state, as many local governments as possible to talk with our people.
In that platform that we will create in States and local governments, government officials will have the opportunity to talk with our people and we also have the opportunity to get a feedback. In that way, we will have a seamless relationship between the government and the governed which we critically need in this country", she said.
Canvassing the support of Nigerians to realise her pet vision, Prof. Akunyili declared: "Your Majesty, these things cannot happen without the support of Nigerians, it cannot even succeed without the support of traditional rulers because traditional rulers are the custodians of the culture and we are saying that we want to have cultural revival.
How can we revive our culture without our traditional rulers? Those countries that swung on to their culture like India, China are able to develop very fast, we should therefore go back to our culture," she posited..
The Minister sought the endorsement of Oba Akiolu to the rebranding campaign because "we know that when you talk, people listen. It is not an overstatement that you are one of the most respected traditional rulers in this country," she said amidst spontaneous applause from the white cap chiefs and others in the capacity filled hall.
Oba Akiolu who recalled the giant strides taken by Prof. Akunyili as the DG of NAFDAC to rid the country of fake and adulterated drugs, even at the risk of losing her life, enjoined her to approach her new assignment with the same zest and sincerity with which she executed the NAFDAC job.
The Lagos monarch who stated that the task of projecting the positive side of Nigeria is the collective responsibility of all Nigerians, however noted that such cannot be done with an empty stomach. "It is the responsibility of all Nigerians, but the leadership has a key role to play. There is no patriotism on an empty stomach.
But all Nigerians must give peace a chance, follow the leadership and the leadership too must be prepared to adhere to the yearnings and aspirations of the followers. Gone are the days of deceitful leadership in this country," he said.
Blunt as ever, the Oba took a swipe at the immediate past president saying Obasanjo never wanted to leave office, but for God's divine intervention. "The hour has come to say the truth as it is. It is Almighty God in his wisdom who brought President Yar'Adua to be Nigeria's president," he said and prayed God to grant him good health to complete the present term and even do a second term.
Away from the palace, Prof. Akunyili headed for Ikoyi and later Ikorodu where she inspected Voice of Nigeria (VON) facilities including the new transmitter. She rounded off the visit with a courtesy call on the state governor, Mr Babatunde Fashola (SAN).
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The Abia re-orientation Agency (TARA) prouldly supports the Nigerian Re - branding Initiative