BRANDING NIGERIA; What is it?

You can only brand what has been made. If you could ask a brand manager or a brand strategist, they would simply tell you that they have product lines and an existing company which they seek to give a known identity. Branding simply means creating and modeling a powerful identification mark for something. I have heard of branding a product, a company, a service even a person…. Yes; a person, for if you do not create a niche for yourself…..then you are the man missing in the crowd. That is why I’m very concerned when Nigeria talks of Branding even rebranding…..
Amongst the nations…who do we say we are?

Anyone who talks of rebranding should first talk about who we are. We are already the one great nation where talents die because nobody believes in it and where names grow because they have someone in power. Yes; Nigeria is a great nation filled with great people who are good at looking down on what they’ve got but still syphone the money that will be used to create the kind of thing they like. Yes…we are great people..or what do you think? We are a great land..where oil and coin and cocoa and cotton and..the blessings of our lands are tools of violence or exported to our psychological masters.

We are blessed…blessed indeed! We can only brand what we’ve got. Lets first entrench the values, vibes and visions of change, oneness and progress…for all I care. .then we can go ahead and brand to eternity.

What do you say when a Nigerian man proudly values a foreign product to a Nigerian made product. Our well made Foods, shoes, instruments and services are looked down upon. We do not want them…all we want is ‘it was sent’, Sent from where? When you hide who you are and wear the image of another man. How can others see you…not to talk of identifying you.

What again do you say when a Nigerian man makes up his mind to give a low quality or fake goods to his people to make quick gain…we can rebrand but lets change first then we can show the world….A man who stands out with a torn nicker at the bottom is laughed and jeered at. We can’t stand it!

How do we expain that our leaders at the forefront of the economy runs out of the country for medical check up and sends their children abroad for schooling when the country’s money could purchase the best medical equipments and build the best materially and human equipped schools in West Africa. We need a change.. only then can we brand…sorry rebrand.

How do you brand us with our politicians very corrupt and selfish to steal the people’s money and brag about it….and show off with it ..and corrupt even the youths who feel left behind and resort to 419s and drug trafficking in the quest to ‘meet up’. Where are we running to. Don’t brand a decayed system. It will smell and bring shame… recook it and revive it then you can give to the world to have a taste.

Do you know the Okada man cheats and extorts people? The taxi driver does too. The students now believe you can’t pass or gain admission without sorting or bribery, most lecturers teach with their hands at the back for cut corners, the applicant believes you must know somebody in a company before you get a job there, the elections are conducted to be reconducted for the tribunal to judge, the tailor believes Nigerian made fabrics are fake, the ibo distrust the yoruba, the Yoruba eyes the Hausa, the Niger Deltans cry for negligence and exploitation, the policeman allows anything; guns and drugs to pass his checkpoint because of 50 naira bribe, the Nigerian man see leadership as “they” not “we” (because every Nigerian is part of the leadership. We have our personal and social roles to play), the roadside seller wants to cheat you with the balance, the young talented graduate believes in carrying paper about and roaming the streets looking for jobs for a year plus because nobody believes in him and he also lacks courage to use his talent……now may we brand Nigeria? Now?

I though I was the only one crying for us to put a grain in our can and not chaff before branding. But I’m not…Ahmed Kamal said it loud and clear in his article “Branding Nigeria Right” in the Guardian dated 14th April 2009.pg95 “Nothing will change unless our mindsets are changed to such an extent that we no longer rig elections, we rebrand our politics away from Baba Iyabo’s do-or-die to the international best poll practice of free and fair and peaceful. Stealing in high places must receive zero tolerance from the operators of our political machinery. The apparatus for checking small time and big time scammers must be strengthened. Highway beggarliness from our policemen must be checked with maximum force by the inspector general of police and the commissioners at the state level. Kickbacks and ten percent must become unfashionable in our public and private sectors”

We have a lot but I know we have began but we need to go a little father, smarter and faster so that we have a tight brand and would not end up being in the UNO’s and Superpowers dump market….

Lets have your views about what, how, where, who and how best to Brand our motherland; Nigeria!