President Umaru Yar'Adua on Tuesday in Abuja unveiled and launched the logo and slogan of the ``Re-branding Nigeria’’ campaign.
The slogan is: ``Nigeria: Good People, Great Nation’’, while the logo is ``Nigeria’’ with the second letter, ``i’’ indicated as a tick with a dot on it and the sixth letter, another ``i’’, has the map of Nigeria as the dot on top of it.
Performing the ceremony in Abuja, Yar’Adua challenged Nigerians not to perceive the campaign as another ceremony or exercise in sloganeering.
He said that it should be perceived as a genuine attempt at making every Nigerian have a renewed commitment to the regeneration of the country.
"The campaign signals a new dawn in our collective quest to entrench a culture of moral rearmament and ingrained positive values of resilience, diligence, transparency, accountability, and selfless service.
``It is to entrench our faith in God and abiding pride in our country’s values which would not only drive the maximisation of our creative and productive energies, but also help galvanise a shared and progressive future," he said.
Yar'Adua, represented by the vice-president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, noted that if Nigeria must meet its Millennium Development Goals and actualise the Vision 20-2020, the nation must put the requisite institutional and structural frameworks in place.
This, he said, was for national reorientation toward fostering a positive perception of Nigeria at home and within the international community.
"There is no doubt that suffocating negative attitudes constitute a grave obstacle to the attainment of our developmental objectives.
"It is therefore vital that we frontally, and in a structured manner, face up to the challenge of negative attitudes and negative perception to our national regeneration efforts”.
Earlier in her address, the Minister of Information and Communications, Prof. Dora Akunyili, solicited the support of all tiers of government and that of the private sector to make the campaign a success.
An engineer with the PHCN, 30-year-old Chike Obika, won the competition on the design of the logo and slogan.