‘Change Begins with Me’ not to tame Nigerians – Lai Moh’d
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has said that the campaign “Change Begins with Me” recently launched by the Federal Government is neither to tame nor to lodge any hardship on the citizens but for Nigerians to change from their old ways of doing things to a more decent practice.
Alhaji Mohammed was reacting to a story credited to the Economist publication datelined Lagos and featured in the paper’s print edition of September 24, 2016, entitled: “Nigeria’s war against indiscipline, Behave or be whipped”.
In a press statement released on Wednesday, the Minister said the self-professed belief in ”plain language”, the article from the headline to the body, is a master-piece of embellishment or dressed-up language loaded with innuendos and decidedly pejorative at best, and downright racist at worst.
“The Economist wrote that President Buhari wants to ”tame” Nigerians with the ”Change Begins with Me” Campaign. For those who are the owners of the English language, the use of that word is unpardonable.
“The verb ‘tame’ suggests that Nigerians are some kind of wild animals that must be domesticated, and the usage reveals the mindset of the authors of the article; a deliberate put down of a whole people under the guise of criticizing a government policy”.
Alhaji Mohammed emphasized that in Mr. President’s speech at the launch of the Campaign on September 8, 2016, the President, a globally-acknowledged leader who believes strongly in the rule of law, left no one in doubt that moral suasion, the very antithesis of force, will be employed to achieve attitudinal change among Nigerians when he said, “I am therefore appealing to all Nigerians to be part of this campaign”, pointing that the words ”appeal” and ”enforce” are not synonymous.
Said he: “The Economist made the same mistakes that most critics of the ‘Change Begins with Me’ Campaign have made, rushing to comment on a campaign they do not understand. The Campaign had barely been launched when the critics brought out their big guns to shoot it down. In the process, many of them ended up shooting themselves in the foot. If they had tarried a while to allow the government roll out the details of the campaign, they might have shown more circumspection than they did in their criticism.
“The Campaign which the President said will help restore our value system and rekindle our nationalistic fervor is not designed to shift any responsibility to Nigerians, as many have erroneously said. It is an all-inclusive campaign that was designed to start with the leadership.
“Much was explained by the President when he said the government would drive the campaign and that it must be strongly supported by all concerned individually. Change Begins with Me was designed to start from the President, and then trickle down to the Vice President, Ministers and other top government officials and to all citizens.
“What is the campaign asking Nigerians to do? Be the change they want to see in the society. In other words, if we all want an orderly society, for example, the motorists among us must obey traffic rules, our aggrieved youth must stop destroying public properties, patent medicine sellers must stop selling fake drugs, and commercial vehicle drivers must stop taking alcoholic beverages before driving. There is nothing extraordinary or over-burdening in all these. We are the fundamental units of the society. If we are not willing to change our ways for the better, we cannot expect a better society”, he said.
The Minister chronicled countries of the world that launched similar campaign and is doing well saying; “In 1979, Singapore launched the National Courtesy Campaign to encourage Singaporeans to be more kind and considerate to one another. In 2011, Mozambique launched a campaign to educate students on how to treat foreign tourists as part of preparations for the country’s hosting of the All-Africa Games in that year. In 2015, China launched a campaign to ”name and shame” any of its own tourists who behave badly, either at home or abroad.
“And this year, the Tokyo Good Manners Project was launched to improve manners in the metropolis of the Japanese capital. It is therefore uncharitable for The Economist to hide behind the facade of its own prejudice to denigrate Nigeria’s genuine effort at national re-orientation”.
