By Reuben Abati
THE image of Nigeria and that of its citizens was the
subject of much representation and examination in the
international media in the last few days, specifically
on CNN and BBC. The CNN on Sunday, June 11 had aired a
special documentary titled "How To Rob A Bank" in
which some Nigerians living in the Houston area in
Texas, United States had been shown to be master
fraudsters who are adept in the art of credit card
forgery and identity theft. There were Nigerians on
the programme who helped to confirm this stereotype,
including those who confessed that corruption is a way
of life in the Nigerian society. For sure, there are
criminals in other nationalities, but in the
international media and most especially CNN it is
often so easy and convenient to present Nigeria as the
global headquarters of crime. Frank Nweke, the
Minister of Information has since protested, noting
that the CNN portraiture of Nigeria was tendentious
and unfair. Okay.

But the dust had hardly settled on the CNN story when
on Wednesday, the BBC World Service aired a special
live, interactive programme on Nigeria between 5 and 6
pm. It was an open programme: "Africa Have Your Say"
in which selected participants from all over Africa
and Europe were required to give their impressions
about Nigeria; these participants included
non-Nigerians from Cameroun, Malawi, South Africa, ,
Nigerians at home in Nigeria (Lagos, Enugu, );
Nigerians in diaspora (South Africa, Sweden, ) and
Nigerians who have changed their nationality. The BBC
programme had not been pre-determined; the responses
were spontaneous, and in fact the presenters had tried
to be kind to Nigeria by focusing on her positive
aspects and future possibilities.

I had been invited to participate in the programme but
I arrived late at the studio, due to traffic problems.
The other participant had had to wait near the BBC
office at least two hours earlier because he didn't
want to be held up in the traffic! To arrive early for
any appointment in Lagos, you have to set out at least
two hours earlier because the traffic is
unpredictable, and if you are unlucky, the event is on
one of those rainy days, you could spend the whole day
on the road. I eventually arrived and ended up simply
listening. The neutrality of the presenters
notwithstanding, it was the same story as in the CNN
programme. I was angry, frustrated, amused and in many
instances, I felt like defending Nigeria.

One Emmanuel from Cameroun who had lived and schooled
in Nigeria had nice things to say about Nigeria. He
observed that Nigerians are "aggressive" and that
whenever he is in their midst, he feels "challenged".
But such positive comments were few. One lady from
Malawi said "Nigeria has lots of beautiful girls but
scandalous". Another fellow observed that Nigerians
are famous for their "crookedness; they are not
straightforward. People don't like Nigerians". Both
Malawians and Kenyans complained about too much
witchcraft in Nigerian movies. Text messages were sent
to the presenters, also full of complaints.

Some people said they know Nigeria for its oil and the
arts. Fine, but the general impression is that this is
a country of demons where nothing works, a country of
contradictions and unfulfilled potentials. Nothing was
ever more frustrating than the comments of Nigerians
about their own country. So much pessimism and anger
particularly from Nigerians in diaspora: One fellow
called Sola, who confessed that he had changed his
nationality, was very bitter. "Nigeria is like a bad
marriage", he declaimed. "It will collapse", he added.
He is obviously very happy with his new country. But I
felt like asking him: does that change who he is? Does
the mere change of colour in one's international
passport change a man's true identity, background and
heritage?

It is perhaps pointless to debate the various
perceptions of Nigeria; there is a sense in which the
BBC and CNN have offered useful service by letting
Nigerians know what others think about them, and what
Nigerians think about themselves. There are lessons to
be learnt from the continuous negative representation
of Nigeria in the international media. Patriotism
overflowing with emotions may be an appropriate
response from those of us who live in Nigeria and are
actually putting up with so much and still managing to
be happy in the midst of it all, what Jenny the BBC
presenter called our "resilience", but a more useful
response would be to deconstruct the content of local
and international responses and seek to use that to
re-examine Nigeria as a brand and a country. In the
past few years, the Federal Government has been
working on an image project through which it seeks to
improve the country's international standing and turn
it into an attractive destination for tourism,
goodwill and investment. The import of the programmes
on BBC and CNN is in part that this has not really
worked. Nigeria as a brand is a failed brand. It is
rejected by Nigerians themselves and treated with
great suspicion by outsiders. If we have any
strengths, we have not managed to market them as
advantages.

The root of the problem is in part the crisis of
citizenship. Nigeria works fantastically well as they
say, at the individual level. Don't mind the
Malawians, South Africans. Camerounians and Kenyans,
this country has the greatest and the richest human
resource in Africa. Nigerians have a natural gift for
distinction. As private individuals, they want to
excel; they want the best for themselves. They are
expressive, eternally optimistic and fiercely
independent. But unfortunately, we have not been able
to pull all that energy together to create a country
that works. We are in a real sense not yet a nation.
We are all trapped in the private sphere, in
individual and ethnic compartments. For us, Nigeria is
an abstraction; it is a distant idea imposed through
colonialism; and so we are faced with that original
dilemma: can a nation be built without citizens,
without that sense of commitment to the motherland?

The same Sola who dismissed Nigeria as a bad marriage
would never have said the same thing about his Yoruba
ethnic group. He may have changed his nationality, he
may have given up on Nigeria, but he is not likely to
ever give up on his identity as a Yoruba man.
Similarly, the fellow who declared on CNN that he is
corrupt because every other Nigerian is corrupt would
never say the same thing, specifically about his
ethnic origin. The task ahead remains how to turn
Nigeria into a nation with citizens. The pessimism of
the average Nigerian derives from frustrations with
the leadership and governance process in the country,
rather than the Nigerian character. International
media often makes the mistake of assuming that it is
the Nigerian character that is the problem. Professor
Kole Omotoso contributing to the discussion from South
Africa had tried to make this distinction when he
noted that he may have given up on Nigeria as a brand,
but that he will never give up on Nigerians as a
people.

The truth of the matter is that the credit card
fraudsters, the con artists, the drug couriers who
seem to attract the attention of the international
media constitute a minority. The majority of Nigerians
is made up of honest, hardworking persons who are
trying to earn a living. There may be problems in
terms of the value system, in terms of an obsession
with money for its own sake. But there is nothing in
Nigeria that is so different from other countries.
There are more criminals in America than there are in
the whole of Nigeria. How about the ENRON scandal, the
mismanagement of the Hurricane Katrina relief effort,
the robberies and killings on the streets of America:
do these necessarily make every American a gangster?
Indians and Koreans come to this country to do
business and they treat our people badly but I don't
consider either Indians or Koreans superior to
Nigerians. If the CNN were to investigate Italians and
Hispanics, its investigators would find a lot to put
on air, except they may not consider it politically
correct to do so.

Malawians and Kenyans complain about too much
witchcraft in Nigeria: they are responding to fiction
not reality. Nigerian home videos are shown on
MultiChoice, so they base their impressions on what
they see on television. American films are full of
violence but it hasn't stopped people from thinking
that it is "God's own country". Nigeria is not as
Hellish as they imagine. South Africans are flocking
to Nigeria and setting up businesses through which
they exploit the population to make huge profits!
Average Americans come here and live in big mansions
that they would never dream of owning in their own
country. Indians, Lebanese and Koreans set up
factories here and they never want to go back home.
The Chinese are also flocking to Nigeria, and setting
up Chinatown everywhere. Other Africans from Benin,
Cameroun, Ghana, Togo, Niger and Chad struggle,
illegally to obtain Nigerian passports and identity
cards. Portfolio investors from Europe and the United
States are all over our hotels, looking for business.
It may well be that they are exploiting the country's
limitations but if this was truly Hell, they wouldn't
stay this long!

Nonetheless, there is a lot that Nigeria and Nigerians
have to do. First, we must resolve the issue of
nationhood. Without a nation, we do not have a country
in the real sense of it. There are too many issues
that divide Nigerians. We lost it all because we have
mismanaged our country. It is not enough to blame the
British colonialists. Creating a nation would include
setting up a rewards and sanctions system. Having
lived under military rule for so long, Nigerians
wherever they are believe that there is no system that
cannot be compromised, beaten or cheated. And that the
individual can escape sanctions after doing so. This
encourages the widespread disregard for the rule of
law that is common among Nigerians.

When you ask a Nigerian: "where are you from?" He is
most likely to look at the ground before offering an
answer. Americans and the British don't look down,
they look up because they have something to be proud
of. Nigerian leaders now and in the future must create
for the people something that they can hold up as
symbols of their Nigerianness, and which will be
recognised by the entire world. Oil used to be a
strong symbol of our national strength, but now it is
associated with poverty, violence and terrorism in the
Niger Delta. Football used to be a veritable symbol as
well, but it has been so mismanaged, we are not even
at the current World Cup. In Liberia, our soldiers
ended up as cannon fodders. The Americans came and
rescued their soldiers before the blow out. Even
during Holy pilgrimage to Mecca, it is only Nigerians
that create problems for the Saudi Arabian
authorities: they are usually the last to arrive and
the last to leave.

Leadership is central but the difference that we seek
will not come through mere propaganda, or by junketing
all over the world. The best way to sell Nigeria to
the world is to transform the conditions at home,
humanise the country, address the crisis of social
development, and engage Nigerians in diaspora and turn
them into volunteer ambassadors for their motherland.
If our roads are motorable, access to social
infrastructure is regularly guaranteed, and there are
jobs for school leavers, the people would become less
angry because they can see the value in their
citizenship. Then of course, this would become another
country, in our eyes and in the eyes of the world.

Patriotism overflowing with emotions may be an appropriate
response from those of us who live in Nigeria and are
actually putting up with so much and still managing to
be happy in the midst of it all, what Jenny the BBC
presenter called our "resilience", but a more useful
response would be to deconstruct the content of local
and international responses and seek to use that to
re-examine Nigeria as a brand and a country.



Nigeria as a brand is a failed brand. It is
rejected by Nigerians themselves and treated with
great suspicion by outsiders.


First, we must resolve the issue of
nationhood. Without a nation, we do not have a country
in the real sense of it. There are too many issues
that divide Nigerians.


When you ask a Nigerian: "where are you from?" He is
most likely to look at the ground before offering an
answer.


Leadership is central but the difference that we seek
will not come through mere propaganda, or by junketing
all over the world. The best way to sell Nigeria to
the world is to transform the conditions at home,
humanise the country, address the crisis of social
development, and engage Nigerians in diaspora and turn
them into volunteer ambassadors for their motherland.

Surprisingly, finally, some truth from Abati’s lying tongue.

Pray tell my friend, where else did he lie?

I'm back in Lagos by the way, had a nice time in Sharialand.

@Chxta,

Abati is an utter twit with boundless mischievous energy, ready (and clearly very willing) to peddle his snake oil to an unsuspecting world. You, my friend, appear to be one of his many unfortunate victims.

See:

www.usafricaonline.com/obinwaka.igbohater.abati.html+reuben+abati+lies&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=4">http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:66Wus1Cni3oJ:www.usafricaonline.com/obinwaka.igbohater.abati.html+reuben+abati+lies&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=4


http://www.usafricaonline.com/chuksilo.igbohater.abati.html


Also,

I’ve got to say that your return from - as you put it - ‘Sharialand’ seems to have filled you with impetus and clearly put a (some would say gay – not I though ) swagger in your NL stride. I am yet to determine if this imprudent confidence is as a result of relief at your ‘incident-free’ trip, or if you are currently propelled by a copious amount of consumed Kunu. Time shall tell, my Nigerian friend; time shall tell.

@chxta

read one of your threads where you said you visited the north(makurdi,jos,kano etc)
are you by chance calling makurdi sharia land?

Chxta, over to you.

Makurdi and Jos have majority Christian populations. The question I believe that I have been arguing over for a while now is not about Islam, but about the Hausas.

That being the case, Makurdi and Jos have majority populations that speak Hausa as a first or second language, which if we are to follow the saying one language, one destiny makes them part of the North.

Does that answer you?



P.S: I know that the North is not the monolith that everyone assumed it was back in the 1960s. . .

Does that answer you DRANOEL? It doesn't answer me.

I believe Draonel is quoting my post where I referred to Kano as Sharia land. You are a bright chap my guy. . .

THE ANSWER IS IN THERE.

@chxta
makurdi is in benue and it is 99.9% christian
it is dominated by the tivs
the idomas follow in population
it is the only state in the north that does not speak hausa(they speak tiv and idoma)

next time be sure of your facts!

It doesn't speak Hausa as a first language. But once again, and I make it clear, A LOT OF THEM SPEAK HAUSA AS A SECOND LANGUAGE.

On all occassions that I've been to Makurdi I speak mostly Hausa.

@chxta
you have never been to makurdi, i happen to be from benue and i can tell you that the people do not speak and do not understand hausa (the only ones that understand are the ones that grew up or schooled in hausa land or jos)

Chxta? Next?

Yeah yeah what next? In this forum someone has told me that I'm not Igbo. In this forum someone has told me that I've never been to Makurdi (was there last week last time I checked).

So what next? I am not male?

Perhaps.

Fact is, you claimed Makurdi and Jos are Northern cities. They are not. Simple, really.

@chxta

you were at lafia not makurdi

Guy, sorry to sound personal,but I take that as an insult. I know the difference between Makurdi and Lafia.

I hereby apologize on his behalf.

It would make more sense if he apologises. By the way, as the admin, I'm sure you have access to the IP logs whenever we make our posts. Please can you tell him where I made this post from?

everyone is entitled to his opinion about anything under the sun.

@chxta accept my apologies!

but you should know somethings are quite touchy, how will you feel if i say yoruba is spoken in abia?

Apology accepted.

As to Yoruba being spoken in Abia. . .

Ibadan Poly boys at the NYSC Orientation Camp there speak Yoruba

When did Makurdi become Hausa?
That isn't true. I grew up in Makurdi and spent considerable time in Kaduna and know the difference. I can confidently say that less than 10% of the people in Makurdi can understand Hausa.

DRANOEL:


makurdi is the only state in the north that does not speak hausa

huh?