TheCable

Whether it is the international embarrassment brought on Nigeria by government officials we pay to serve our country who are negligent in their duties and would mess up the simple task of efficiently arranging air flights for our national team, or the endemic corruption among government officials in our country and the selective war against it, or the unimpressive infrastructure our country is known for almost six decades as an independent nation, or the drugs and human trafficking many of our young men are being arrested, prosecuted and executed for in Europe, Asia and other parts of the world, or the sad fact that many Nigerian ladies and even teenage girls are involved in large-scale prostitution in Italy, it’s hard to tell how many Nigerians can raise up their hands in public today and say the country makes them proud. Yet, one should ordinarily be proud of one’s fatherland!

Even on the global scene, it is evident that Nigeria’s image has been so badly dented overtime. We no longer command respect. Dear reader, can you for a moment just imagine that members of our U-23 football team were not eventually able to make it in time to Rio for their first Olympics football match? Imagine what commentators on different international broadcast stations and channels would have told their viewers or listeners.

Nigeria would have been abused and embarrassed as all sorts of nonsense would be said. Even at that, we were ridiculed. Yet, no head has rolled in the sports ministry for the glaring incompetence of its top officials.

Some of these factors are behind why, at many international airports overseas today, Nigerians are treated in the most condescending manner by immigration officials. And that is why we have also become an item for expensive jokes and uncomplimentary remarks.

Meanwhile, it’s important to emphasise that our international airports still remain the first points of call for foreigners coming into the country. Yet, they remain some of the worst you can find anywhere in the world despite our years of lamentations about them. For instance, right from the Murtala International Airport in Lagos, an international traveller can easily see that we are a people who aren’t really serious about projecting our brand as a country. It’s the same story at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja.

We fail to pay attention to details. We prolong doing the right things even though we know they are the right things to do. We just stubbornly refuse to do those seemingly little but extremely helpful and powerful things that matter in effectively projecting our country to the world. I believe the earlier we start to change the narrative towards inspiring hope and patriotism in citizens as well as redefining how Nigeria is known and perceived internationally, the better for us all.

We must know who we are. With our over 170 million citizens, we have the highest concentration of black people in the world. We are a country abundantly blessed with abundant human and natural resources. We are a bunch of amazingly-talented and highly-creative people. We are smart and also unquestionably intelligent. We’ve got brains and are also very enterprising.

Without doubt, we are beautiful. And stunningly so! We are talented. And amazingly so! We are creative. And evidently so! We are rugged. And strongly so! The Naija Spirit just never gives up. We are resilient. We keep fighting. We keep pursuing. We don’t give up. Yet, do we publicise this resilient spirit that is in us to the rest of the world? Do we let the world know that we are a people, who, no matter the challenges that confront us, never give up?

Additionally, Nigeria has fantastic writers and amazing artistes. We have super architects who can help recreate and redesign Nigeria into a land of amazing wonders. Our comedians and entertainers are superb. Nollywood is breaking boundaries and showcasing Nigeria to the world much more than any government official has done. The government and the private sector need to support them to do much more in telling the Nigerian story and projecting the Nigerian brand. Clearly, we are not a country of mediocres even if the political leadership we’ve had continue to portray us so.

Sadly, this is what we have allowed ourselves to be labelled as mainly because of our docility and inability to say no to rubbish when we are being presented one especially by those we have allowed to lead us over the years. For too long, we have allowed our country to be messed up. I believe we can’t continue on this old path. The destination we have arrived at is not where we should be by now, 56 years after independence.

As I write, prices of food items in markets across the country keep skyrocketing every week. Yet, supposing we were a serious country, we would have for long worked towards ensuring that food is generally available, and indeed affordable for all categories of Nigerians even the poorest of the poor. We would have worked towards ensuring that we produce surplus food far more than we can consume internally.

We would have provided all that are required to ensure these surpluses are appropriately package and exported so we generate more foreign exchange for our country. This is aside the fact that agriculture can help generate millions of employment for our young people. But we preferred to make ourselves victims of the poor choices our leaders have made on our behalf overtime. There must be a new beginning.

Meanwhile, before anyone starts making unnecessary insinuations, let me make it clear that I have no interest whatsoever in contesting for any political office no matter at what level even though to serve one’s country at any point in time should always be a great honour.

However, if there is an area I am very passionate about and would want to see a miraculous transformation in as soon as possible, it is agriculture. I believe it has the capacity to solve a good number of our problems if the right investments in machinery, roads, storage facilities and other 21st century infrastructure are made by our governments at all levels. Our farmers don’t need to age faster simply because they are farming the 19th Century way like the majority of them are doing across the country in our villages and towns today. Believe me, some of these things aren’t rocket science.

I believe a big tuber of yam that sells for N800 or N1, 000 now for instance can sell for N100 if we do the right and sensible things. Even at that price, our farmers and traders would make profits. Nigeria has all it takes. We can make the development challenge of high food prices become history in our country. Our citizens no longer need to die of hunger or go stealing because they have nothing to eat.

I also believe it is critical for us to determine what it is that would be Nigeria’s competitive edge in the global marketplace. What are we best at? What can we offer the world that no other country can beat us in? Aside oil which has dropped in value in the international marketplace, what can the world come to us to demand and also pay for? All these have to be defined.

Like Pat Utomi mentioned in a recent interview he had with The Punch, we can also sell our culture which is one area we have been excelling. His brilliant example of rubber must also not be missed. Our country once had the best yield per hectare for rubber. It is one area we can become competitive at. We can become its best producer in the world and export it since it is one of the most important components of manufacturing a car. The tyre companies which closed shop years back will return to open new factories. When they do, Nigeria gets richer. But we need the willpower to make this happen.

Although our image is really messed up abroad and the country hardly makes anyone proud as it is currently, I believe our charity must begin at home if we want to correct this. Henceforth, when foreigners think about Nigeria, what do we want to come to their minds? Corruption? Drugs? Advance fee fraud? Prostitution? Incompetence? Or what? Among citizens also, do we want to inspire patriotism or apathy?

Moving forward, I will suggest the federal government brings together a compact team of 50 experts from the media, public relations, advertising, civil society, business professionals and experts from different fields to look at Nigeria’s image towards tackling this current negative perception of our country internally and externally. How do we henceforth make Nigerian citizens proud of their country? How do we redefine Nigeria globally? Let’s hear their recommendations.

Frankly, we might even need to have some foreigners in the team. People who will to tell us things we don’t want to hear about our country and how best we can correct some of these widespread negative perceptions.

As an alternative, we might even learn from the reports of similar interventions in the past like the Heart of Africa project done during former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration when the late Prof. Dora Akunyili was Minister of Information and Communication. We can implement relevant recommendations which we believe would advance our country’s best interests.

And we also need to have nationally-accepted icons; successful people and heroes who will help celebrate, project and showcase the Nigerian brand on the international stage. We need world-class museums too as well as high-quality memorabilia, which foreigners who come into Nigeria will buy as mementoes and take back to their own countries. All these and more will certainly help evoke positive feeling about our country.

But ultimately, whether it is in making Nigerians proud of their country or improving the negative perception of Nigeria on the global stage, the place of good governance cannot be overemphasised. And that is why President Buhari, his team, and the leadership of his party, the APC, must know that they need to step up their game. Seriously. The current reality is that most Nigerians are yet to feel the positive impact of the change they promised.

The gospel truth is that poverty is rising in the land. And that’s obviously not the change Nigerians voted for during the 2015 elections.