The
Nigerian Image Project By Femi Olawole
I
was about sending an article with the above title on In
his article titled “Encounter with the Information Minister”, Dr.
Reuben Abati was (even without meaning to) able to vindicate some of us
that ours is not a hopeless nation after all.
For instance, our nation has now reached a stage where a whole
cabinet minister (Emeka Chikelu) deemed it fit to arrive at an official
function much earlier than scheduled.
This
surely was a strange but welcome phenomenon at a time when the
“African Time” malady has been elevated to connote an air of
importance among ordinary Nigerians at home and abroad.
And the wife of this same humble public official was reportedly
denied a visa by a foreign embassy because she showed up as an ordinary
Nigerian. Definitely, the
situation would have been different if the lady had appeared at the
embassy with the toga of a minister’s wife.
It
was quite commendable that Abati could admit the unfairness in his
earlier article on the same minister.
In the said article, the minister’s person was ripped and
ridiculed all because of the proposed image project.
And talking of the project, the columnist has since confirmed
that it is not just another government propaganda or “image
laundering”. Rather,
it is expected to be a private sector-driven effort that aims to remind
the whole world that ours is a growing nation that already has produced
a Nobel laureate, statesmen, diplomats, scientists, artists etc.
Abati’s
article could have been titled “The Confession of a Cynic”.
This is in view of the fact that it took a personal encounter
with his victim, the indefatigable minister, to convince a
public-oriented professional such as Abati that our nation is evolving
and not developmentally dormant. But
do we all (100 million Nigerians) have to meet personally with every one
of our public officials to believe that they mean well for the nation? While
Dr. Abati was graceful enough to make a public revelation of his
redemption from the abyss of cynicism, the same thing cannot be said of
another group of Nigerians who thrives on incorrigible cynicism.
In this group is Sonala Olumhense whose article titled
“Patriotism, Dead or Alive” appeared on the same page as that of
Abati’s. That
article was nothing more than an exercise in literary platitudes.
It was filled with the same old litany of woes, teeth gnashing
and pent-up fury. Nowhere
did the columnist see anything good to write home about his country.
And, even though he felt the president and the other public
officials were not steering the ship of State properly, he never
bothered to proffer alternative leadership or management strategies.
It was vintage arm chair criticism. Prowling
the pages of national newspapers and the internet are the likes of
Olumhense with a mission to rally the rest of us with their rabid nay
sayings that are borne out of personal failures, frustrations and
furies. They latch on to the
moribund dusk of the past with no hope for a glorious dawn.
And they are so consumed with such a chronic pessimism as to
become pathetically blind to the emerging new Authors
of negative commentaries will often pretend to forget that the problems
of our nation did not start in 1999 but dates back to the period before
some of them were even born. In
the same vein, they keep expecting someone else to remind them that our
nation no longer operates a unitary system of government.
In
his entire article, not even once did Olumhense found it necessary to
demand for an account of stewardship from the governor of And
there is this irritating habit of selective glorification of public
officials. Olumhense, for
instance, singled out Akunyili of NAFDAC and Rufai of FCT for special
accolades. While these
individuals deserve the accolades, they are however just two out of the
new crop of wonderful public officials that our nation is now blessed.
Unlike in the past, the new breed of technocrats has genuine and
dedicated interests in serving their fatherland.
Sadly,
even as they single out Akunyili and Rufai for special anointing, these
cynics will do so only in the process of pouring venomous tirades on
Obasanjo. One therefore
often wonders where the critics place their sense of logic. One
fundamental aspect of a great leadership skill is the ability to
identify and select the right human materials with whom to achieve a set
of tasks. Simply put, if
Obasanjo in his capacity as the president, was not smart enough to
assemble such a dynamic and brilliant team of Rufai, Akunyili, Nuhu
Ribadu, Emeka Chikelu, Remi Oyo, Okonjo-Iweala etc etc, how many
Nigerians would ever have heard of their existence? The
huge task of showcasing the human, mineral and natural resources that
abound in our nation under the image project will have to contend
seriously with the negative activities of the Nigerian cynics.
They are few in number but mean “business”, so much that some
of them have practically turned themselves into agents of the often
prejudiced It
is therefore imperative for the image project to expand its target
audience to include this group of glass-dwelling Nigerians whose past
time is stone throwing. These
cynics need be told that they are like a bunch of blood-sucking ticks
whose intention to destroy a dog will unwittingly lead to their deaths.
They
also need to know that drug pushers, 419ers, international prostitutes,
fake drugs producers, book pirates, armed robbers, anarchists, treasury
looters and several others who are giving our nation a bad name are not
from the moon. They are from
the Sates, local governments, communities and even families of some of
those who daily wage wars of attritions against their nation and public
officials. Ironically,
many of these cynics will always claim that they see nothing good in The
message of the minister of information to all the armchair critics out
there can be summarized thus: They
do not have a monopoly of concern for the current state of our nation.
Hear the minister: “I
am as concerned as you are. We
are all in this together…..If we are all cynical, nothing is ever
going to change. If we want
to change this country, then all of us must make a contribution……” In addition to the minister’s admonition, all of us (100 million Nigerians) do not have to be given government appointments, contracts and some other patronage to make a contribution. The future gains of our individual contributions lie in the great, wonderful nation that will soon arise from the present dispensation. |