USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fw: NIGERIA’S WORSENING IMAGE PROBLEM

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From: maggie anaeto <maganaeto@yahoo.co.uk>

Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2013 12:21:41 +0000 (GMT)

To: <ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com>

Subject: NIGERIA'S WORSENING IMAGE PROBLEM

NIGERIA'S WORSENING IMAGE PROBLEM   Ayo Olukotun          Two recent events, Baroness Lynda Chalker's rebuke of the Nigerian media for negative reporting and last week's Special Colloquium held in Lagos on 'Managing Nigeria's Image' have returned our image problem to the front burner of national discourse.      Interestingly, while for Chalker, the culprit is the Nigerian media, for several speakers at the colloquium such as former Minister for Information, Prof. Dora Akunyili, it is the international media that is mainly giving us a bad press.  Chalker who spoke at the 13th Honorary International Investment Council (HIIC) in London regretted that "Even people who have not been to Nigeria make negative comments about the country. If you ask them how they formed their opinion, they will tell you they picked it from the Nigerian media and from Nigerians."      Minister for Information, Mr. Labaran Maku should be clapping in ovation of Chalker who, it would seem was merely echoing the minister. Let us note preliminarily, however, that some of the most sensational British tabloids, even before the phone hacking scandals could use some of Chalker's advice which perhaps were better directed at the excesses of the notoriously aggressive tabloids in her country. For Akunyili as previously mentioned, it is the global media that is demonizing and stereotyping Nigeria.  Bristled the former minister: "My bag was stolen on one occasion at Charles De Gaulle Airport in France in broad daylight and there was no mention of it in their media."  In other words, the Western media selectively target or unduly focus on the vices associated with Nigeria and Nigerians.      Taken in context, complaints about our eroding image have arisen in the light of several travel advisories warning United states and British citizens about growing insecurity in Nigeria; bottom league rankings of the country on several governance and development indices; as well as focus by both the national and international media on the monumental scale of corruption in government affairs. A negative image, government officials and their international publicists argue will weaken on-going drives to increase investment flow to the country, crowd out whatever constructive things are going on as well as pigeonhole Nigeria as an endangered political space teetering on the brink of violent dissolution.    To be sure, Nigeria's current troubled image was not formed under the current administration, although the escalation of violence by Boko Haram, demonstrated in the bombing of churches and public buildings such as the United Nations office in Abuja deepened to an extent horrible perceptions about the country. Relevant too, is the frequent exposure of high level corruption for example in the extremely opaque oil sector; as well as the disappearance of huge windfall sums from the Pension Scheme Funds among others. If we add to this, the perennial scams involving Nigerian citizens abroad, then one can say that a good chunk of the gathering  image mess is earned, rather than  as is often alleged orchestrated by the Nigerian opposition media acting in concert with the international media – assuming such an alliance is even possible.     That is only one side of the story however.  The other side of the coin is that there is a geopolitics to information flow in the international system, a lesson which several emerging powers such as India, South Korea, Brazil, China as well as some in the Arab world absorbed but which Nigeria fails to learn. It wasn't so long ago, remember, that the New York Times reported the visit of an American President to Africa with the front page headline: "Dark Continent: A Presidential Torch to Light up Africa."  This is the familiar theme of the civilising mission of the explorers who 'discovered' river Niger, and a journalistic update of a distinguished Oxford professor's claim that African history is little more than the story of white men in Africa.    Lamenting unbalanced, crisis reporting about Nigeria however, will not alter entrenched routines and blindspots in the Western media. What will make a difference is for Nigeria to create a medium of the stature of Al-Jazeera to publish its own narratives to the world and thus countervail the hegemonic perception of the country in the international media.  To do this however, it must have a ruling class that will set a new discourse agenda by changing the narrative from one of tragic dissipation and dithering by a political class that does not see beyond building up financial war chests to contest the 2015 elections, to one that understands how to move the country rapidly up the industrial, technological and development ladder in a drastically competitive world.    Take for example, the Nation's Brand Index (NBI) which ranks 50 or so countries based on their attractiveness, reputation and image. Published four times a year since 2005, by British consultant and scholar, Simon Anholt, a country's image score is derived from its scores on the quality of its exports, the character of governance, its attractiveness as a haven for tourists as well as its culture and heritage.  True, Nigeria has things to showcase in the area of culture and heritage - by the way not the aspects of them projected in Nollywood films - but our positive attributes are for the moment overshadowed by low quality governance in a fractured polity, the siege of Boko Haram and roving gangs of kidnappers; the failure to diversify the economy away from its overwhelming dependence on oil; rampant corruption in public life and the rudimentary nature of infrastructural services.       Changing our badly soiled international image connotes a wholehearted focus on the outlined debilities and disappointments by a reformist political elite that can rally the nation behind a transforming vision. It is in this context that creating a Nigerian medium with global reach to narrate our progress will make sense; for to be convincing image must square with reality.     Regarding the alleged sins of the local media it does no credit to government and its external propagandists to continue to show irritation at Nigeria's robust and diversified media; one of the country magnificent assets.  It would have been more helpful for government to join the debate over its performance or lack of it where government feels that it has been genuinely misrepresented or downplayed. In the alternative, government can set up its own medium to propagate its perspectives although the fate of such enterprises in the past as a result of serious credibility problems cautions against such an option. The Nigerian media is audacious, buoyant and operate with the confidence of an institution which predates   the Nigerian state. There is no evidence however, that it is irresponsible as a social category, unpatriotic or invents situations or events to damage the government. At any rate, a productive and visionary political elite can make good use of adversarial analysis to refine its own positions and perspectives.     Nigeria's image will be lifted when government begins to seriously address the country's entrenched woes as well as stops to make the media – domestic and international – whipping boys.   Prof Olukotun is Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Entrepreneurial Studies at Lead City University, Ibadan. ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com 07055841236