I am Hungry, Please Re-brand me
By: Salisu Suleiman

I am Nigeria. I have millions of acres of arable land and billions of cubic litres of water, but I cannot feed myself. So I spend $1 billion to import rice and another $2 billion to import milk. I produce rice, but don’t eat it. I have 60 million cattle but no milk. I am hungry, please re-brand me.

I drive the latest cars in the world but have no roads. I lose family and friends everyday on roads for which funds have been looted. I lose my young, my old, and my most brainy and productive people to the potholes, craters and crevasses they travel on everyday. I am in permanent mourning, please re-brand me.

My school has no teacher and my classroom has no roof. I take lecture notes through the window and live with 15 others in a single room. All my professors have gone abroad, and the rest are awaiting visas. I am a university graduate, but I am illiterate. I want a future, please re-brand me.

Malaria, typhoid and many other preventable diseases send me to hospitals which have no doctors, no medicines and no power. So my wife gives birth with candle light and surgery is performed by quacks. All the nurses have gone abroad and the rest are waiting to go also. I have the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world and future generations are dying before me. I am hopeless, hapless and helpless, please re-brand me.

I wanted change so I stood all day long to cast my vote. But even before I could vote, the results had been announced. When I dared to speak out, silence was enthroned by bullets. My rulers are my oppressors, and my policemen are my terrors. I am ruled by men in mufti, but I am not a democracy. I have no verve, no vote, no voice, please re-brand me.

I have 50 million youths with no jobs, no present and no future. So my sons in the North have become street urchins and his brothers in the South have become militants. My nephews die of thirst in the Sahara and his cousins drown in the waters of the Mediterranean. My daughters walk the streets of Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt, while her sisters parade the streets of Rome and Amsterdam. I am inconsolable, please re-brand me.

My people cannot sleep at night and cannot relax by day. They cannot use ATM machines, nor use cheques. My children sleep through staccato of AK 47s see through the mist of tear gas. The leaders have looted everything on the ground and below. They walk the land with haughty strides and fly the skies with private jets. They have stolen the future of generations yet unborn and have money they cannot spend in several lifetimes, but their brothers die of hunger. I want justice, please re-brand me.

I can produce anything, but import everything. So my toothpick is made in China; my toothpaste is made in South Africa; my salt is made in Ghana; my butter is made in Ireland; my milk is made in Holland; my shoe is made in Italy; my vegetable oil is made in Malaysia; my biscuit is made in Indonesia; my chocolate is made in Turkey and my table water made in France. My taste is far-flung and foreign, please re-brand me.

My people are cancerous from the greed of their friends who bleach palm oil with chemicals; my children died because they drank ‘My Pikin’ with NAFDAC numbers; my poor die because kerosene explodes in their faces; my land is dead because all the trees have been cut down; flood kills my people yearly because the drainages are clogged; my fishes are dead because the oil companies dump waste in my rivers; my communities are vanishing into the huge yawns of gully erosion, and nothing is being done. My livelihood is in jeopardy, and I am in the uttermost depths of despondence, please re-brand me.

I have genuine leather but choose to eat it. So I spend a billion dollars to import fake leather. I have four refineries, but prefer to import fuel, so I waste more billions to import petrol. I have no security in my country, but would rather send troops to keep the peace in another man’s land. I have 160 dams, but can not get water to drink, so I buy ‘pure’ water that roils my innards. I have a million children waiting to enter universities, but my ivory dungeons can only take a tenth. I have no power, but choose to flare gas, so my people have learnt to see in the dark and stare at the glare of naked flares. I have no direction, please re-brand me.

My people pray to God every morning and every night, but commit every crime known to man because re-branded identities will never alter the tunes of inbred rhythms. Just as the drums of heritage heralds the frenzied jingles, remember - the Nigerian soul can only be Nigerian - fighting free from the cold embrace of a government that has no spring, no sense, no shame. So we watch the possessed, frenzied dance, drenched in silent tears as freedom is locked up in democracy’s empty cellars. I need guidance, please re-brand me.

But then, why can I not simply be me, without being re-branded? Or does my complexion cloud the color of my character? Does my location limit the lengths my liberty? Does the spirit of my conviction shackle my soul? Does my mien maim the mine of my mind? And is this life worth re-branding? I am not yet born, please re-brand me.


http://naijablog..com/2009/06/i-am-hungry-please-re-brand-me.html

davidif:


My people pray to God every morning and every night, but commit every crime known to man because re-branded identities will never alter the tunes of inbred rhythms.

echo!!!!!!

na so o my sista.

@post
Spot-On.

Rather than the name re-branding, what Akunyili is really doing is SHADOW-BRANDING.

Please does anyone know where I can REBRAND my old Cortina shoes by Bata into a pair of Alligator skin Gucci shoes? Size 42 by the way.

puskin:

@post
Spot-On.

Rather than the name re-branding, what Akunyili is really doing is SHADOW-BRANDING.

she's fooling herself!

good talk

she aiming to get a better fame, she is pok nosing everywhere.

just for world to know she is working, but in the real sense there are other minister who i dont know but i give kudos to them for a job well done not her

quite a creative write up!!
We may just not get it right!!! Thats my only fear!!
All men to him self, God for us all!!

@poster, are you the same as @typewriter? I don't gerrit?

MUZBO:

@poster, are you the same as @typewriter? ,,,,,,,,,,,,?

Methinks typewriter's write up was plagiarized.

You cannot stop them. Just pretend nothing dey happen. As with all things in life, it will pass. Na today?
as Benjamin the donley said in Animal Farm, "Windmill or no wind mill,

bravo bravo
Nice piece

God pass dem

@poster

Nice one. You just chronicled the whole things that needs to be really done on this rebranding thing. But wait a minute: Has Nigeria been branded before that it thus needs rebranding?

We are yet to wake up from the October 1960 slumber or from the concotion that Lord Lugard made us to be. I pray dora Akunyili will read your blog.

I no blame una! As Ogaga Ifowodo will say GOD PUNISH LORD LUGARD

Amazing points!

u rebrand to upgrade existing structures that are working, in nigeria we have no existing structures not to talk of it working.

Why do I get the feeling that we are all making this rebranding scheme a Dora-only issue? I am sorry but NO, it is not just her problem to deal with but ours as well. The article above makes one particular point that I felt to repost that, and that is that every single Nigerian is a problem that needs to be dealt with. We are the problem here.

davidif:


My people pray to God every morning and every night, but commit every crime known to man because re-branded identities will never alter the tunes of inbred rhythms.

 

We pretend to rebrand ourselves daily with lies we tell others of how we are the best people, the happiest people on earth etc. Yet we are the same people who go out to commit all sorts of atrocities against our brothers and fellow men.  Sure, Dora decided to take the idea national but we have all been practicing her form of rebranding for longer and we need to deal with that at least.

Food for thought. I do believe that we have the capacity to make a change for better, question is why don't we?

can we have Yar-dull/fool/goat/slow re-branded or rather evolved to Yar-obama??
just think out loud

As long as we have a YAR A'LIAR  leading  A DO NOTHING PARTY  of PDP we  cannot rebrand anything.

Until the LEADERSHIP and people at the helm begin to show honesty it is the same story. Things like WAI became succesful because the messanger is carrying the message truthfully and leading by example.

I am only sorry for madam nafdac because all the reputation she built up will be soiled by 2011.

lectures from havard will re-brand us properly since those in governance will prefer to be students.

Word!!! I pray for this our nation Nigeria cos we have no other.

I think Dora knows the truth but she has decided to shy away from it. The PDP Government of the day needs rebranding (cos its branded with, thuggery, rigging, political killings, corruption and other vices); the president needs rebranding (he is slow, dull, inefficient, ineffective and an 'agendaless' being); Dora needs 'REREBRANDING' ( cos she branded herself as a woman who knows where she was going when in NAFDAC, she has now rebranded herself as a cohort of the worst party in Africa. Insincere, focusless and jobless. So, she needs rerebranding). If these three Rebrandings can be done, then the Job is 90% done. NIGERIA, GOOD PEOPLE, GREAT NATION

Kobojunkie:

Why do I get the feeling that we are all making this rebranding scheme a Dora-only issue? I am sorry but NO, it is not just her problem to deal with but ours as well. The article above makes one particular point that I felt to repost that, and that is that every single Nigerian is a problem that needs to be dealt with. We are the problem here.


We pretend to rebrand ourselves daily with lies we tell others of how we are the best people, the happiest people on earth etc. Yet we are the same people who go out to commit all sorts of atrocities against our brothers and fellow men. Sure, Dora decided to take the idea national but we have all been practicing her form of rebranding for longer and we need to deal with that at least.

Word!!! Nobody holy at all.

please tell them oooooooo


nigeria my ,

well this depends on the way you look at it

joobreel:

I think Dora knows the truth but she has decided to shy away from it. The PDP Government of the day needs rebranding (cos its branded with, thuggery, rigging, political killings, corruption and other vices); the president needs rebranding (he is slow, dull, inefficient, ineffective and an 'agendaless' being); Dora needs 'REREBRANDING' ( cos she branded herself as a woman who knows where she was going when in NAFDAC, she has now rebranded herself as a cohort of the worst party in Africa. Insincere, focusless and jobless. So, she needs rerebranding). If these three Rebrandings can be done, then the Job is 90% done. NIGERIA, GOOD PEOPLE, GREAT NATION

Haba, my people

Nigeria needs branding not rebranding.

dat woman (akunyili}lost my respect d day she join the papa deceive pikin party{PDP}

Rebrand wetin? who bin brand am before ? Talkless of rebranding.

abeg into which product are they planing to rebrand?