Rebranding Naija

Is it more to say the brand we seek is not that which we exhibit as individuals and as a nation? This may be an assumed statement, but it’s been more right than wrong. Defining the stuff we are made of actually gives us a brand? My wonderful friend and brother the Independent one gave a most detailed explanation of what a brand is since I heard the word of the first time, I couldn’t agree more because the details are there, all in white and black. I bet we’ve all heard the gospel of rebranding Nigeria over and over again on different media from that lady that traded dignity for a shinier crown, selling her soul on the line of duty and still feigning sanity, steadfastness and good radiance all along the way.

We sure are peaceful but far from united; I stand to say Lagos is the only part of Naija where unity is a verb and not a noun. Yes we are a good people and a great nation, we need not be told or scream it out to anyone, all we need to do is show the world we are. Rebranding Nigeria that is as simple as placing a bomb in your underpants became a national project that has gulped billions of naira, and we are still spending more.

Need I say more; that actions speak louder than words? Need I say it again, maybe in French “l’action parle plus forte que des mot”. The act of genius of one man and his forever hidden allies gave Nigeria a new brand name overnight “Terrorists”, a task that is taking a whole council of elders, ministries and a nation as a whole to achieve with months of campaign and lame blame games. The leadership are obviously not making the branding exercise much easier, brandishing the northern agenda in the face of emptiness in the sit of power, afraid to concede power duly, knowing who they are and showing they’ve never had anything good to offer and terrorizing the nation from deep within it walls in the process. They stab their own rebranding cry in the heart, right there in the presence of the world with their actions and reactions, and still they play a different tune, a different song thinking the world would listen and believe their lies… they profess they’ve turned a new leaf but all we see is still the same old skin inside and outside. The voice of Jacob but still the skin of Esau, what they preach is “do what I say” but the real world in reality sees interprets and say what they do in their plain insanity.

Obviously, Umar Mutallab acted from precedence, he’s seen is father and mentors murder thousands at once with their actions and inaction, he has seen hundreds of lives butchered just to see him smile and comfortable, he’s seen enough on the altar of religion and politics, so he felt it was natural to blow it up and probably get more than a virgin in the end in Hades, his case personally is that of total confusion and probably a mental condition that needs attention, thank God he survived his suicide attempt. Small wonder he pleaded not guilty, citing lack of parental care but not bothering about the ill wealth and blood money that gave him the freedom to roam and plan to wreck more evil, the little he was able to learn is how not to value life just for his own pleasure. The brand they teach, brand we detest, he was more of confusion that sanity, no sane young Nigerian of his age that I know will gladly blow of His balls on the altar of anything.

Sure we want a full rebranding; low and behold we got it in Mutallab explosively, we wanted to look sane in the eyes of the world and still we confirm our unrefined insanity with illicit, unimaginable acts at all level of leadership and followership. The federal characters hides our president and still they refuse to concede power to whom it is due, they muddle things up with different interpretations of the constitution, making everything look incorrigible and worn, more deception, more digression but in the face of all of this I say change is still inevitable. Nigeria can be changed, yes things are changing at diverse echelon of the society, the Nigerian brand we carry now can be changed and the green passport a 3D access to anywhere in the world and not a 3D scan criteria plus+ full body massage at various ports of the world.

Yesterday was the celebration of the birth of a great man Martin Luther King Jr., a man whose principles were inspired by another legend who branded and rebranded his world with not just his words, but his daily living, “be the change you want to see” was his watchword, and truly he was the change that changed the whole of India in his days with ripples still caressing the world he left behind till this day, Mahatma Gandhi, a brand a legacy. Luther King Jr. was a revolution without violence, with dreams that opened the heavens and the today, his legacies live on and his dreams are alive and kicking. We Felaberate in his memory, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, a rebel he was but the vision he saw and decried are the realities we live and face today in this country that as been tagged ominous to the rest of the world.

All it took to build our existing odious profile were many corrupt men, and all it took to give us a brand new brand was one man. What will it take to turn it round? It is not far fetched; our new brand lays latent in every Nigerian, whom it will take to redeem and renew us in the heart of the right thinking world is you alone, the recipe is in you, the ingredient is you and the master chef is your action which will bring back the good taste the tongues of the world can tell. It is your genius that the world awaits; it is your action that will change Nigeria forever and your reaction that will rebrand her in the hearts of men. There is more crime and abuse in South Africa, but the brand Mandela brings to heart forgiveness and renewal, for Ghana it was Jerry Rollins, and the country is still a work in progress even when he’s stepped aside from the scene, for India M. Gandhi, for the blacks in America Luther King Jr., for Nigeria Abidemi Oderinlo and for the world as a whole, it was the manger boy Jesus Christ who rebranded us with the father. Where do you stand, what would you do to keep our passport green and desirable because even if the colour changes and we don’t the world will notice.

I stand as an ambassador of the brand Nigeria, I am a problem solver, I be real Naija Boy. Even if Mutallab as rebranded us with more foul cries from the western world, lending a hand to save him will definitely show the lee way to saving our skin from the crawling nails of the real terrorist. I know the new brand begins with me, arise Nigerians, arise oh! Compatriots and be the change you want to see, Let's save the MUTALLAB, let's save Nigeria.

Silence!

 
A word defined by action demanding no reaction. The Oxford Advanced Learner dictionary takes it as a noun, verb or exclamation, giving it the same definition in all contexts as“A complete lack of noise or sound”

I have always seen silence as just a word used in depicting quiet, unreachable or death, I have always had the feel it could also stand for peace, sanity or maybe concentration depending on the context of use e.t.c but a closer look gives me a whole new idea because I found out that silence is not just for the rational but also a trait of the irrational, I noticed that it is not just there in sanity but also very evident in insanity. Phlegm’s could be quiet but every other trait is not quiet but could practice silence. Silence is quite different from being quiet because there is still sound in quiet while silence is without, and neither does it depict peace because silence could be cold and deadly too, but believe me, silence is present in all.

It is a state of the mind, it is the place of thought, the only time when the human mind produces regular or even irregular thought patterns is when it is silent, and silence is the one true birthplace of thoughts. It is not a complete lack of noise or sound because there never will be a time there will be none and probably never a time to think, rather it is the time when the mind consciously or by reflex shields the entry/influx of noise or sound from its minute environment, while it process that which it as already received not just via the ears, but through all the five physical senses. Silence is beyond just sight or sound, it involves cutting out all vents of data absorption while creating a definite thought pattern. More reason why the deaf listen but not with their ears, they talk with making any sound at least not with their mouth, and they are always in dictionary silence, still they think! SILENCE is therefore not just the absence of noise or sound but a state of mind isolation that produces thoughts, while THINKING is the creative processing of sight, smell, sound etc assimilated by shutting out the entry of more sight, sound, smell etc during the creative process producing solutions to identified problems, or birthing new ideas.

To be silent is to think! Unconscious silence is reflex, happens in split second and could last longer producing unprecedented actions or definite reaction that satisfy its minute environment cognitively, while conscious silence takes a longer coordinated but not necessarily regulated duration and as such produces substantial results in thoughts and ideas, great imaginations and unusual actions or reactions that causes invention or creates solution to situation on a positively larger retrospect. I have discovered that the biggest imaginations and brightest ideas are brewed in silence, that the greatest people around me are great disciples of productive thinking which they duly achieved in silence. Although they are not as quiet as the monks underground the Basilica, they have produced more glittering ideas than the Solomon mines, and they live and speak with of ages that can only be found in silence. Even the thoughts I pen today I found in silence, not in the corner of my room but in a shower and I gave more life to it in a seemingly noisy café.

Think about it, compare your thought pattern and rate in silence to when you allow everything go loud deep within you, sit back and see how beautiful, creative and lofty your thoughts get when you mind is silent, feel how good you feel when you turn your ears off and turn your mind on. It’s like moving from a war zone into redemption, your thought pattern gets pretty defined and produces uncommon solution to common problems and uncommon results with seemingly common ideas and techniques that looks like everybody can do but no one ever did. Silence is not meditation, it involves the conscious and reflex processing of data while meditation is concentration on one to bring the extraordinaire out of it, and this requires both dictionary and real silence. Silence is consciously exploring the subconscious and it usually produces desirable unusual results that make you stand out and stand tall.

I have discovered that silence is a trait common to the rich, a quality of the wise and meditation is their bad habit. I have also discovered that the content of their silence are sights, sounds, smell etc assimilated through right listening, deliberate study and reading, they enrich their noise so that when they are in silence, they are caught up processing well patterned data. I have learnt that silence is a sign of HIS blessing; I practice it already and am never relenting. Who needs a better new year resolve when I can pick on silence, officially, I will be silent for the rest of this year and will be adding the bad habit of the wise to my resolution, and you can watch out for the end result. I will listen rightly and read productively in other to enhance the quality of the content of my silence, I will be meditating on all the tangible thoughts and ideas I receive in silence under the inspiration of HIS spirit so help me GOD.

Shhhhhh Silence! or you get silenced and become silent! Not the way things are, just the way I see things… thimk!

I’m just being grateful

Although my story might not sound unusual in the Nigerian atmosphere, just like 9ice’s account in is new song “Anytime” sounds like normal life to me, it is unique because it is mine and cannot be replicated in any other person, it is unique because in it stands me, just me, myself and I.

It is indeed with a grateful heart that I speak of God’s wonder in my life, with gratitude that I ink my thoughts today, remembering how fateful my life as been and how faithful God as been to me. I am thankful for all days, everyday of my life and especially for the first decade in this new millennium. This decade as been a tertiary knowledge advocacy era for me, and gladly I breasted the first tape before it dawned, after riding the tides of tertiary education for six years within the stretch. Out of secondary education in the first year of the millennium and now I am out of the tertiary right at the brink of 2009; I bet you can only imagine how jolly the ride was. It’s a phase in the race, and I get equipped better and better as the days go bye, hopefully I become better than the best, standing out and standing tall in the midst of it all.

I have learnt quite a lot and am still learning more, I hope I can share the little I know with the world around me, here online and offline in how I live my life day after day. I have learnt love and I know lust, I have found victory and I know the pains of defeat, I have found you and now my heart is at peace with all. Yeah! The ropes are long, but where you are holding it now is the most important part of the rope, the way you hold on determines the tension in it and holding on keeps you going on. Do not worry, the rope is strong enough to carry your weight, the link is not going break. Let your will power drive you on and your thoughts chart the course. Where you desire to be looks more glorious and better, but where you are now determines when and how you get there… what you want is more, but first you need to get better than where you are now, get uncomfortable in it like and old shoe, outgrow it then you can advance beyond it.

Let this year be a new beginning indeed, a special time to develop new organs and special unusual system for better existential purposes. The changes in the physical climatic conditions call for it, evolve, mutate but do not improvise, rather invent and improve on you so you can conquer old enemies and gain new grounds. Surprises your challenges by being prepared, the floods are coming, now is the time to grow gills or get drown, now is the time to grow wings and fly instead of weathering the storm. You might think it is impossible, I don’t have the tools… there you go again deceiving yourself; the tool is just within and hey! It’s free, it is your mind, your thought pattern, your creative imagination, and all you need to do is think, act, think and be grateful for the result of your actions and reactions and inaction.

It is 2010, a twosome year, mene mene. The hands of God is written all over this year and HIS presence is just so evident and filling the air. Go all-out creating the world you desire and imagined in your thoughts and dreams knowing HE’s got your back, do things the way you think things and not the way you see them and watch the results file out just the way you imagined it. Bite more than you can chew, that’s what God is there for, HE’s not here to watch you do things you can handle, he’s here to help you finish up that which is bigger than you, that is why HE’s always with you. Here’s the time to walk in HIS presence following the divine protocol, now is the season of his blessing, the rules are simple and here they are:

•  Get thirsty to enter into HIS blessing and be grateful
•  Think out of the box, yes beyond your limits
  
•  Say it if as if it were, pray it into being
•  Act on the thoughts you receive when you pray
•  Respect constituted authority (that policeman is one)
  
•  Acknowledge the gate keepers on your journey through
•  Be a giver and
•  Study to show thyself approved

Work and walk around with all of this, be silent, meditate upon it and watch things happen they way you imagined they will. HAPPY 2010!!!

ON A CLEAN SLATE

This piece of white jotting pad I am writing on is indeed a clean slate, so clean it is that it is without lines or margins, header of footer. The words I write on it today makes it and the things I write here and now on this piece of paper today will be on it forever if not destroyed. The ink I write with today is not erasable but yet can be modified for reason that could be either negative or positive by manipulating it, but the content I give it today stands as it value as long as it is seen or hidden without being altered or modified, whatever it acquires now defines it for as long as it exists.

A drawing will make this paper an art piece, an article or write-up will make it a good source of information while quotes, ideas, ideologies and quotations will make it a lasting source of inspiration. Just like the human mind, a "Tabula Rasa", our action and reactions are defined by data acquired and information gathered along the way. The definition of the human mind is as a result of the product of his experiences and content, while the value placed on it is the brain child of its personality, breed from his behavior and disposition.

It is indeed a clean slate for me ‘cos I graduated a few days ago as a Computer Scientist, I will be defending my project a few hours from now and this will be a pitch marker for my new beginning. Soon it will be NYSC but still it will be a whole new experience, fresh and exciting. Like the salty taste of the sea, I can already feel the real world with its mixed taste on my lips; the streets are calling for the arrival of the new king. It’s definitely going to be a fresh start for me, words, ideas and inspiration pouring out from the river within. New wine, new skin but as the newest wine on the block, I will be bursting even the newest of skins on my way, the old skins stand no chance at all. I will be all out brewing new information and presenting fresh ideas on the cleanest and freshest of platters, catching in on new phenomenon with a new dashing look.

I am wiping my slate clean and starting out on this my new beginning with vigor. I have the Blessed assurance that it is going to be “UZOAMAKA” all the way for me on this new slate. It is a race with so many to contend with, but I will always stand out and stand tall uniquely because I am who I am and Christ defines me because he lives in me. Who and What defines you?.

Come join me as I start out afresh in this race that is set before us all. What are you waiting?