THE LIBYA ISSUE AND NIGERIA'S PERCEPTION
Perception is stronger than Reality".
The implication of the statement above is that people do not relate to you on the basis of who you really are, people relate to you on the basis of who they perceive you to be.
Growing up in the 80s my siblings and I were encouraged by our parents to become voracious readers and so I had unfettered access to my dad's piles of old editions of Newsweek and Time magazine.
One of the things I remember that was a constant feature of those mags was the immediate aftermath of the Cold War and the constant battles for international supremacy between the United States and the Soviet Union.
From scrambling for sovereign nations the combatants upped their game and began an ego contest over space.
The Soviet Union sends cosmonauts into space and the United States strives to outdo them and eventually sends Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon.
You see, that is what serious countries do.
They understand respect is earned and so they manage perception in order to create it.
Nigeria was once the Big Brother figure in Africa. We fought the Apartheid system in South Africa and helped build credibility for the ANC.
We owned ECOMOG and handled the Liberian issue and almost every other conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa with aplomb.
But now.....the people who should be managing our perception to boost our reputation seem to only be interested in doing the opposite.
From "trivialities" like the country's number one image maker going on international news media to proclaim another country has the best jollof rice to sending out messages that the President's office was infested by rats.
And then to the bigger issues.
Several Nigerian teenagers drowned on their way to Italy while escaping penury and abject conditions and it was broadcast globally.
Yet it was the Nigerian government that did not send a delegation to the public burial of those girls.
Now, Libyan militias are selling several African nationals including Nigerians as slaves.
Chad, yes C-H-A-D, has made an official pronouncement on the issue of its citizens and has since deployed military forces to fight these militia that are selling its citizens into slavery.
Meanwhile, we have done nothing.
And we still do nothing.
-Ugonna Emechebe