Nigeria: "Super Villains of the Modern Age" Cont'd -- Rebranding Nigeria

This much awaited BBC World Service documentary, "Rebranding Nigeria," just aired.



BBC's Henry Bonsu starts with the "District 9" fallout (all blogged here) and goes ahead to look at Nigeria's image crisis, its roots in a widely shared "reputation [that the country is] a corrupt, fraudulent and ungovernable" collection of people, and if in fact the country's image can be re-branded as its current information minister Dora--"Madam Rebranding"--Akunyili seems intent on doing.

The minister has a good case when she argues that Nigeria is overlooking a lot of positives, has not been telling her stories and is making the mistake of letting the world define her image based on its notoriety alone. And she has some good examples of the positives. But the BBC sought out a few PR and branding experts who counter by saying, if the country wants to rebrand itself, it needs to give any PR team a lot more to build on. Those interviewed said, consistent power supply and an end to a diesel generator economy will make rebranding Nigeria "effortless." And to prove their point, 13:40 mins into the program... well, you don't need to be a Nigerian to figure out what happened.