Edu Etukakpan|10 September 2016
Those who are familiar with the politics of Nigeria, would quickly recall that the newly launched national re-orientation campaign tagged: "Change Begins with Me", by the federal government, under the watch of His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari,GCFR, courtesy of the Ministry of Information and Culture, under the leadership of Alhaji Lai Mohammed, is the same as the previous ones during the military regime, beginning from Gowon's 3Rs – of Reconciliation, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction, which aimed at reconciling with the aggrieved parties, rehabilitating the victims of the 30 months civil war, and reconstructing the destroyed infrastructures in the affected areas. He also declared that there was no victor and no vanquished at the end of the war.
To implement this campaign, Gowon pledged to remain in power till 1976 before handing over to a civilian regime after a democratically conducted election. Gowon was lucky. His regime coincided with the beginning of the oil boom era in Nigeria, thus he was able to spend money to prosecute the 3 Rs agenda. He embarked on several capital projects especially roads, bridges, estates and edifices befitting a country like Nigeria. On the diplomatic and international plain with its new found fame and fortune, Nigeria played the big brother role for the less endowed African countries and the country was respected for it. But like most African leaders of that era, Gowon soon lost focus when he imbibed the ‘sit tight syndrome’. The moment Gowon said 1976 was no longer realistic for a democratic handing over, the brand equity of his regime and the country began to ebb.
After Gowon, came General Murtala Ramat Muhammed (late). Murtala along with his team came on board with vision and patriotic fervour. With zero tolerance to corruption in both public and private sectors, Murtala vowed to take the Nigerian brand to the apogee of glory and respectability both nationally and internationally. Transcending beyond Nigeria, Murtala made Africa the centre piece of his political agenda internationally. Within a short time that the regime lasted, Nigeria as a brand scored a diplomatic bull’s eye, playing prominent role on the continental platform in the independence struggle of countries like Zimbabwe, Angola and even South Africa. But the Murtala regime was short-lived. The man died!
Perhaps one of the most ambitious and most expensive re-branding efforts ever embarked upon in Nigeria was initiated by the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida in 1987. Tagged, MAMSER, Mass Movement for Self Reliance, Social Justice and Economic Recovery, it was introduced as part of the transition programme of the regime. With the sole aim of giving Nigerians and Nigeria a new beginning, MAMSER had on board eminent Nigerians who had excelled in their various areas of calling in both private and public lives. Till date MAMSER remains the longest internal re-branding effort ever embarked upon by any government in Nigeria. Ironically, despite its laudable objectives and high calibre personnel, MAMSER ended up a colossal failure. But why did MAMSER fail? Historians and students of political history contended that lack of sincerity and transparency on the part of the leadership were responsible for MAMSER’s failure. The failure could be best illustrated by the annulled June 12, 1993 Presidential election that almost tore Nigeria apart.
However, before MAMSER was WAI. WAI which means War Against Indiscipline was launched by the General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) and the late General Tunde Idiagbon when the regime came on board in 1983. WAI, another re-branding effort was aimed at giving Nigerians a new lease of life. WAI espoused discipline in both public and private lives and Nigerians were fast adapting to some aspects of it before the regime was overthrown.
After WAI, came the same re-branding brand of President Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo's "Heart of Africa" project in his second term in office, a continue of his first tenure external branding campaign. The Heart of Africa project too achieved little because it is difficult to re-brand externally without doing same on internal wise. Thus, the project died a natural death.
The trend continued and spilled over to President Musa Yar'Adua's era, with the introduction of "Re-brand Nigeria" project, spearheaded by the erstwhile Minister of Information and Communication, late Professor Mrs. Dora Akunyili, with such slogan as "Nigeria: Good People Great Nation", and the launch of a new insignia. A whooping sum of money was spent on this project, even though she claimed that the money spent was from the left over of the "Heart of Africa" project, as the campaign attracted wide criticism of her being insensitive to the economic reality of the time- the global economic meltdown. The campaign, to my mind, did not achieve much, but only provided an avenue for state governors to siphon and loot their state's commonwealth, all in the guise of supporting the campaign, and promoting the Nigeria image.
On Thursday 8 September, at the State House in Abuja, president Buhari again, launched a similar campaign, which is aimed at attitudinal and value re-orientation, and self-assessment by all, irrespective of class, party, etc. The newly launched national and value re-orientation campaign code-named "Change Begins With Me", aimed at self re-assessment, attitude re-assessment, value re-assessment, etc, in order to rid the nation of corruption and re-position Nigeria on the path of greatness. Applauding as this may seem, the question that should be lurking on our minds now is: to what extent would the campaign go? How does it intend to ameliorate the prevailing economic tides? Is it just a black and white campaign, or it would be imbibed by the political class? Or is it one of those things to show that the presidency is adding value to governance? Or another avenue to help the political gladiators to loot in abundance, the nation's commonwealth? These and many more questions should be greeting our minds, even as we applaud the move for self moral-cum-attitude examination and evaluatiom in governance.
To achieve the desired goal via national-attitudinal re-orientation, there are certain things that must be learnt and done; we must learn from how other countries re-branded and rose from third world to first world such as Singapore. Prior to independence in 1965, Singapore was a small British colony of just 2 million people and it had practically nothing. But under the leadership of Yew who was Singapore’s first prime minister, Singapore emerged the 8th richest country in the world in 1997, with per capital GDP rising from $400 in 1959 to more than $12,200 in 1990. In fact by 1995, Singapore’s per capital GDP of $26,000 surpassed that of Britain at 19,700.
But how did Yew do it? He writes in his "From Third World To First World: The Singapore Story", "My experience of developments in Asia has led me to conclude that we need good people to have good government. However, no matter how good the system of government, bad leaders would bring harm to the people. When we started in 1959, we knew little about how to govern, or how to solve our economic and social problems. All we had was a burning desire to change an unfair and unjust society for the better. I sought out able men and placed them in positions of authority to administer an honest, efficient system and be responsive to the needs of the people. We learned on the job and learned quickly. If there was a formula for our success, it was that we were constantly studying how to make things work, or how to make them work better. I discovered early in office that there were few problems confronting me in government that other governments had not met and solved. So I made a practice of finding out who else had met the problem we faced, how they tackled it, and how successful they had been. A precondition for an honest leadership is that candidates must not need large sums of money to get elected, or it would trigger off the cycle of corruption. We made sure from the day we took office every dollar in revenue would be properly accounted for and would reach the beneficiaries at the grassroot. It is easy to start off with high moral standards, strong conviction, and determination to beat down corruption. But it is difficult to live up to these good intentions unless leaders are strong and determined enough to deal with all transgressors and without exceptions. After several years in government, I realized that the more talented people I had as ministers, administrators and professionals, the more effective my policies were, and the better the results."
And despite the fact that Singapore had no single drop of oil, it became the world’s third largest oil refining centre. This is the product of national-value and attitudinal re-orientation. Let us embrace this "last" opportunity to re-brand, re-assess, re-orient our mentality, our psychic, our attitude to work and towards public funds; let us seize this "last" hope to add value to our services to the nation, in our different places of public and private sector services. Let us take this "last" campaign, as a clarion call to all and sundry to desist from all sharp practices and embrace honesty in service delivery. Let us all embrace a positive mindset and attitude, so our country can move forward. Embrace positive CHANGE today.
#IjoinChangeBeginsWithMeCampaignToday#
Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria!
Comr. Edu Rowland Amos Etukakpan
Media Consultant/Public Affairs Commentator
