t is interesting to learn Nigeria's information minister has a pet project, the "Rebranding of Nigeria". Professor Dora Akinyili is concerned about what the outside world sees rather than what they seem to know about Nigeria; she wants to remake the face of her country by retouching the picture and its frame. Like Andre Agassi the famous tennis player and his commercial, "Image is everything". Incidentally the sister is an accomplished professional, a woman familiar with the pleasurable instincts and the art of makeup. The idea is to dress it up and package it properly for prime time exhibition; at the end the covered iniquity will be shown when exposed to sunlight the ultimate sanitizer, to be nothing but vanity, the glorified illusion. Nigeria and Nigerians are not new to this kind of exuberant exhibitionism; it would not be the first time such an attempt is made towards image laundering.

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Abacha and his information minister, Tom Ikimi wanted the world to believe even the impossible for a country where the impossible is what has yet to happen. They hired public relations firms in New York, spent millions of US Dollars courting recognition from the corridors of power in Washington. In the end all efforts amounted to mere window-dressing. The Obasanjo administration created its own imprimatur, christening Nigeria the "Heart-beat of Africa". That administration spent hundreds of millions of US Dollars for the make-belief while ignoring Nigeria's quest for a bath at the World Cup soccer in Germany 2006. Those who listened to the ex-president and heard him over and repeatedly on TV in parts of Europe have to wonder when that heart-beat stopped before commencing autopsy for the Akunyili corona's inquest.

"Ndaa" Dora might be putting her best dance steps forward and it would be too early to dampen her spirit by criticizing an idea believing it to be the same "old dog" crushed in traffic in the neighborhood before sunset. The lady with the Midas-touch is coming up with the "new and improved", and she had better be advised to begin again from the beginning, the inland basin, the home front. There is nothing more frightening about Nigeria than what the outside world cannot fix that happens and is still happening within Nigeria. Sometimes the nightmare is reading about such occurrences that go beyond the pale of those horror movies, Dr. Frankenstein and Vampires of Halloween.

The Daily Sun newspapers captured such an image with its featured article on Sunday February 15, 2009, the day after Valentine. Many Nigerians who were still carousing through Valentine night until the last dew point might have missed it. If those who had hang-over ever stopped throwing up, reading this article might have been potent enough to trigger an acid reflux. It was hardly a story but a crime scene report, what is going on "Inside human parts market in Lagos".

The cautionary was as graphic as the attention to the color photo of a peddler kneeling beside a basin of what looked like dismembered human body parts. He was clad slightly to the waist, bare feet and skin and dusty, gazing further to the far left, perhaps in a deliberate attempt to disengage his emotions from the spirit of the dead whose body he has come to acquire and own.

It is hard to know this "special commodity trader" was posing for the photographer any more than an indication of that casual disposition displayed waiting for the next prospective patron. The picture in set was taken from somewhere around the notorious Jankara market, the dungeon gallery of Eko master-sprawl, where anything humanity considers saleable is either on shelf or on order. Jankara has its own layout and only those who claim ownership of terrain and vicinity have the carnal knowledge of exactly what happens in and around the area. It is essentially a special place for buying and selling anything, everything and whatever. While doing the same in other market places might be seemingly routine, one has to have very compelling reasons to visit Jankara. In the trails of oral tradition, curiosity could be one such reason besides the surge of adventure. But not anymore, certainly not since occultism joined politics making Nigeria's voo doo industry a permanent feature in the stock exchange around state capitals and government houses across the land.

Jankara market lies within the Idumagbo local authority of Isala Eko part of Lagos Island whose crowd and population both human and animal species spill over beyond the brim of any available land space. With huts of corrugated and rusty tin roofs and open gutters, a cesspool meandering through nooks and back allies tracing a dirt-track whose beginning ends at nowhere certain is same as embarking on a journey to the ancient weathered murals of Afghanistan, an escape to the unknown. If there are designated exits or fixed addresses, they are familiar only to those who create them. The dead-end merges into an urban jungle, a conglomeration of human filth, the blight of misery too degraded to qualify for a ghetto. The few rubble roads and trash-filled pathways when discernible lead to nowhere safe; the entire area is too intimidating for normal peace of mind and any measurable comfort what would pass for the idyllic only to those who call the place home. To describe Jankara is best to visit; to behold Jankara and have the opportunity to engage the market is one chance in a life time when one must pray not to make any stupid mistake; chasing that snatcher who just made away with the wallet or purse would be one such mistake. The thief has a chance of raising enormous dust turning the victim into the villain forced to deal with an angry mob whose judgment is deliberate, summarily irreversible and final. Whatever gets lost in Jankara, man, woman and material or all of the above will remain missing forever and ever; no law in the land prevails against a cold code of silence for those who know but must never talk and those who choose to talk but never know enough to make a difference.

There it was the setting that led the Sun newspaper reporter to pose as a patron, the "juju priest" in search of "human body parts for urgent rituals". The dealership would not operate on trust alone believing its prospective customer is exactly who he claims to be. The ground rules require the juju priest to pass through serious verification screening, tossed from one agent to another, with the terms of negotiation changing in content and context location by location. Accordingly, dried body parts are shelf-ready for cash and carry; the here and now body part still dripping in its human blood, would require a waiting period; that kind of rain-check would be time sensitive and therefore placed on quick turn-around order. Victims of hit and run accidents not rescued on time end up in the hands of such scalpers parading as the Good Samaritan. The so-called early responder turns out to be the body snatcher on scavenging mission rather than the paramedic supposed to take the victim to the hospital for emergency care. Imagine a place where the ambulance is good only for the dead. Unclaimed bodies at mortuaries are discarded to the waiting arms of hostlers with orders to fill.

Eventually when the orders arrive, the customer is left to distinguish between monkey and gorilla parts from the human; bargaining proceeds and transaction is concluded in cash only, with no warranty, no known location for return receipt. According to the Sun reporter, the street value for a fresh human head is about N250, 000.00; the heart, lung and kidney are priced N500, 000.00 a piece. Depending on the prevailing situations, nature of rush-orders and exigencies fully dismembered human body parts are likely to fetch over N5.00 million and counting. The reporter rightly identifies Jankara, that special place "where missing people go" only to reappear under controlled circumstances but "reduced to faceless, lifeless body parts" ready for the juju priests and their rituals. Those rituals are conducted for rich patrons mostly politicians, corporate executives, civil servants and heads of departments and a host of others including armed robbers and fraudsters seeking the supernatural intervention to get ahead. Those who must die or be killed do so for others to continue living to keep Jankara in business.

The leftovers, the unsold commodity parts readily find their way, consigned to refuse dumps and garbage heaps often set to incinerate with bellows of smoke at discrete localities around the market. Everything described including those said and unsaid, would seem to be flying over the attention of the local police station located near the market. The police officers keep watch, knowing what they know; but the more they hear, the less they see to talk about. The reporter even took further troubles to locate the managing director of the Lagos state waste management authority who confirmed "street sweepers and refuse collectors picking dismembered corpses and body parts" in the area. Obviously, someone in the position of authority is consciously aware of this dead zone.

It has been a few days since this article, the police have yet to talk to the reporter or make any effort at locating the young butcher whose photo was placed with a bowl of human body parts. Nobody else in government, not the governor, not his deputy, not any member of the legislature, not the local government chairman in-charge of Idumagbo area, has ever read this article since Sunday February 15, 2009. The Inspector General of Police resides in Abuja; he does not read the newspapers either. Sister Dora is certainly not in-charge of Internal Affairs; therefore it would not be within her jurisdiction to call the attention of the federal executive council members, pointing to this horror in the market place at Jankara. It is none of her business, right? But then "Image is everything" and certainly the case is made for "Rebranding" Nigeria.

While this make-over plan is underway, the Rotimi versus Ojo conundrum is taking center stage in Washington D.C and more so, playing out around the world. The breaking news is the recall of Nigeria's Ambassador to the United States of America, the retired Brigadier-General Oluwole Rotimi. Essentially he is being accused of bad manners and "gross insubordination" by his own government. Talk about image problem, how Nigeria would like to be perceived by the world; the least of the options in doing so would not be to begin by laundering all the dirty sacks of "Agbada" at the banks of the Potomac. The newspaper account might be short in capturing the real causa bellum between the two protagonists, the immediate and the remote. It is easy to imagine why there would be no love lost between Maduekwe and Rotimi.

A few weeks ago, in the series "Victim Empowerment…." enough was said about the caliber of individuals selected and appointed to run the affairs of Nigeria especially these days of crisis and hard times of global proportions. Brigadier-General Rotimi was not specifically named and identified in person. However, he belongs to the group that served with Yakubu Gowon and his band of brothers who set Nigeria on the collision course with its fate and destiny to the extent turning back has become as difficult as going forward. Rotimi was the governor of Western State, the first generation partitioning of Nigeria in the wake of the civil war in 1967. He became governor at the end of that war serving between 1971 and 1975 until the overthrow of Gowon, the then head of state, by Murtala Mohamed. Rotimi served as garrison commander and also quarter-master general.

The irony of the Nigerian-Biafra war has always been the tendency for the weaker links to claim credit for whatever little contribution they made towards Nigeria's tragic history and experience. The most vocal among them has been Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, always ready to remind his listeners at every bus stop, how he single handedly defeated the Ndi-Igbo. While visiting the Delta, at which time Alams was governor and still toasting in "ogogoro" with the then president, Chief Obasanjo told the people there would have been no Bayelsa State if he had not liberated them and the oil fields.

Thus, the Nigerian-Biafran war by Obasanjo's own account was never about keeping the country one but essentially for controlling the oil resources of the Niger Delta, keeping them in the hands of the occupying force, the Nigerian unitary government. Obviously, if news reports are correct, Rotimi was not about to let go the past either. He was quick to remind Foreign Minister Ojo Maduekwe, he was the Adjutant-General of the Nigerian Army that humiliated Biafra's ragtag army. Before taking this commentary further it would be important to really understand what the adjutant-general does. He is essentially the chief administrative officer of the army. If Oluwole Rotimi saw any fighting during the hay days of the war, it must have been in his wife's kitchen. Doing just that would not stop him from continuing fighting the last one or joining his kinsman to embellish his lowly service and role during that war.

Of all the officers of Yoruba origin, only Brigadier Benjamin Adekunle, the Black Scorpion would have strong legs to stand on in this debate. He proved his mettle at the war front and he has the scars to show for his valor. Adekunle had already crossed Azumiri, taking the Third Marine Commandos far into Biafra before he was relieved of his position. Obasanjo took over after the real hard battles had been fought, won and lost. It is true Obasanjo received the flag of surrender from Biafra's General Philip Effiong; his detail on that occasion was a logistical expediency, an operational support that had nothing to do with Obasanjo's military prowess, special recognition, honor or acclaim for any exceptional or outstanding performance at the war front. It is equally true the only distinguishing accomplishment of Obasanjo's command was the raping and killing of women and children by his vandal soldiers in the waning days and weeks preceding end of war. To Adekunle and the many brave ones who really bore the brunt of the war, both Obasanjo and Rotimi and all their kind are cowards who have tended to reap the benefit of other people's sweat and labor. The same group always felt uncomfortable around Adekunle and through intrigue and bad blood Nigeria's foremost fighting warrior was soon branded a radical. Adekunle would never play ball with these weak minds; unfortunately he was stigmatized as one too angry and dangerous to resist any opportunity to ferment coup; sooner than later Adekunle was unduly retired; the man never made it to the rank of a three star general.

Ironically, people like Oluwole Rotimi whose major achievement was to keep shining shoes for Gowon and his Panshin gang was elevated to the rank of Brigadier-general. For all the revisionists-in-command recalling the war stories as told about Jerry Boy might be timely and appropriately so just for the heck of it. He was an ordinance delivery driver; during one of his stops at the war front he found the Nigerian troops in disarray. He quickly alighted from his truck and rallied a platoon together, embarked on a chase. The Biafran soldiers thought the Nigerians had regrouped to mount a formidable offensive, not knowing the pursuit was being mounted by Jerry's suicide squad and enough to buy time for the federal field command to provide reinforcement. The Biafrans retreated and Jerry and his gang held the grounds until help arrived.

Jerry was recognized for courage and bravery, rewarded accordingly with field commission as a Lieutenant. Subsequent acts of heroism followed his path and throughout the campaign as an infantry commander. At the end of the war and in years following Jerry received series of promotion, held every position available within the junta hierarchy of every federal military government in power between 1970 and 1999. He served as military governor in Bendel, was minister of various ministries at different times, headed government corporations and parastatals. Jerry is among the very few who saw the maximum dictator alive just before the last cock on that fateful night at Aso Rock. He was retired shortly after with the rank of Lt.-General. Knowing everything he knows, recalling his journey through the thickets and vicissitudes of One Nigeria, nobody has ever heard Jerry boast or make any condescending references to Ndi-Igbo whatever his exploits in the war. Not even Babangida, not Abacha ever showed the same quality and level of courage as Jerry in fighting that war. Obviously these other folks were better at making coups than fighting war when it really counted. Unfortunately the empty vessels, the many who wrapped themselves with wet blankets to survive the war have been making the most noise, the Obasanjos and the Rotimis.

The news report also indicated Ambassador Rotimi referred to the Minister as a tribalist. Many of us patrons of "Nigeriaworld" have had cause to criticize Ojo Maduekwe for any number of reasons. He has been chastised at every opportunity especially for carrying Obasanjo's nocturnal bucket. Ojo Maduekwe is brash, arrogant and sharp-tongued. He could be ruthless too if the situation warranted. A few encounters in the 1980s when he had his law offices at Western House Lagos gave away a cursory insight into the man. He is not as brilliant as he is given to being gregarious but he is ready to learn; and whatever he knows he certainly knows very well almost to perfection. Ojo could be exuberant if needed to be to garner attention. The man never gives up an opportunity to go for the kill if doing so furthers his course and cause. Short fuse is possible at times, typical for short-man syndrome. There are certainly too many and any number of nouns and adjectives one could use in qualifying and describing Ojo Maduekwe; however, calling him a tribalist would not be one, certainly not. If "Ojo" is what it is, and not an abbreviated name, one would have a hard time finding any Igbo man whose name is "Ojo"; not many Ohafia people in Abia state call their children "Ojo". Chances are Ojo Maduekwe is "Omo Eko" and it would not be a surprise to hear him speak other Nigerian languages than his ethnic Igbo.

Ojo Maduekwe graduated from University of Nigeria Nsukka in 1972 with an LLB degree; most likely he was a transfer student from the University of Lagos Law School at the wake of the civil war. By the time the war started in 1967, Ojo was about turning 22. He was therefore within the age of military service in Biafra. Only the man would be the right person to give a full account of his life in Biafra, what he did or not do to survive those dangerous and harrowing times.

Whatever his experiences, there is no discernible evidence that Ojo harbors any lingering animosities or bitterness towards those who made life miserable for him and his kind for 30 months and counting in the war jungles of Biafra. Ojo Maduekwe has been too much an advocate for One Nigeria that he has in many occasions alienated himself from so many of his own. In Abia state, Ojo is among those the locals describe as "Abuja Politicians" too far removed from the grass root issues in the life of the communities. In fact someone described those politicians as bats who fly and hang around yet never qualify to be called birds.

On the other hand, Oluwole Rotimi was already an adjutant-general in the Nigerian army when Ojo Maduekwe was still an undergraduate. For all intents and purposes, the Brigadier-general sees Ojo as a small boy. Taking routine orders from his junior would cramp his style; diplomatic civility and protocol be damned. Rotimi is about to turn 73; expecting this old man to stoop that low and swallow his swagger and personal pride to accept Ojo Maduekwe as his boss is certainly a tall order. The command and control culture of the Nigerian military makes it very hard for retired military officers just as those currently serving, to take orders from "Bloody Civilians".

Blame has a way of leaving too many orphans along its trail but the truth has to be told. In the year 2008, President Yar'Adua of Nigeria had all things considered and still chose to appoint a 73-year old retired general to head his country's diplomatic mission in America. What really was the president thinking? Was there no other way to compensate the old man as the president's former campaign manager in the southwest? Could anybody imagine Rotimi on NBC "Meet the Press" one Sunday morning talking and answering questions about his country Nigeria? The USA is the foremost country in the world that should deserve an ambassador with ample knowledge of the world around him. Such a person should be the brand manager-in-chief of his country, the kind Dora Akinyili needs in her effort to smoothen the scars and give Nigeria that desired pretty face, the prepossessing looks. Unfortunately, Oluwole Rotimi is hardly "Our Man Flint" in that regard and especially for this all important assignment. The man lacks decorum and as the foreign minister rightly identified, he "has no temperament to be an ambassador of Nigeria" especially in a place like Washington D.C. The news situation and its cycle would be different if Rotimi was serving in Haiti, Barbados or even Venezuela but then he is where he is.

Again part of "Rebranding Nigeria" has to do with credibility. It also means not wearing face mask while parading the street butt naked still pretending to be clothed and covered. A few days ago, the National Publicity Secretary of the Action Congress (AC) made an observation. He had a beef such that many would dismiss as pedestrian, political partisanship and lousy rhetoric, just an effort to cause undue embarrassment. Recall Nigerians and the world were told a few weeks ago President Yar'Adua was proceeding on a two-week vacation.

The official release indicated he would be spending resting and relaxation time at Obudu in Cross River, Dodan Barracks in Lagos and his home in Katsina. It was also announced the president would take some time and catch up on his reading. Alhaji Lai Mohammed wanted to know and rightly so, where the president actually spent his vacation and specifically why he never showed up in Lagos and Cross River as advanced. He also wanted to know what book(s) the president read if any both title and author. The presidential spokesperson and in particular the Information and Communication Minister have yet to address this simple but important credibility gap. The Alhaji's concern might appear subtle, or be casually dismissed as being politically motivated and misguided but its implication for a country wanting the world to take its leadership seriously is very huge indeed. "Rebranding Nigeria" should start by setting a performance standard as a guiding principle, the reference point for leadership. The office of the president should not be trivialized by the same people wanting the rest of the world to see Nigeria in a better light. A government that does not have credibility loses its essence as the standard flag-bearer of its country and people. Thus, the world is waiting for Nigeria to create that internally consistent matrix for rebuilding and healing itself towards eschewing irresponsibility at the highest order. That high school kid in Potiskum might have been motivated to learn his president actually read at least one local author during those two weeks. What a missed opportunity!

Nevertheless, good news shows up in small measures at times. Chief Segun Odegbami, the "Mathematical" and former captain of Nigeria's senior soccer team, the Green Eagles, must have been making very good use of the ideas often elicited herein the Nigeriaworld. The darling of Nigerian football has just cut the foundation ribbon, ushering in 52 students, the future sports ambassadors of Nigeria. The International Academy (TIA) located at Wasimi Orile along Lagos-Abeokuta road is a senior secondary school with special emphasis on sports, film and dance. The students will be exposed to formal education while receiving skills training and talent coaching for excellence, self development and improvement. The school is also affiliated to some American institutions and also locally to the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife; those TIA graduates who decide to take further advantage beyond whatever professional sports or career arts have to offer will have the opportunity for a second chance. The Odegbami initiative is exactly the right step towards "Rebranding Nigeria". It means empowering the young people by giving them the tools to succeed; it means retooling the infrastructure of human resource and ingenuity, investing in people; it is through such an effort that sustainable development can be realized within the life-span of the many it is supposed to serve.

The foregoing provides examples of what Professor Dora Akunyili, Information and Communication Minister, would need towards "Rebranding Nigeria" for real; the country must clean-up its act, no gimmicks, no slogans and no propaganda will do the job. No "spinning" either; the world is waiting and watching.