BRF Delivers City People Publisher’s 60th Birthday Lecture At Oranmiyan Hall, Airport Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos On Thursday, 24th April 2025
Ladies and Gentlemen, we gather today in honour of a symbol of the Nigerian dream; a dream about which enough is not said. A land where those from the humblest of beginnings have been transformed to national champions and icons.
We gather in honour of Oluseye Olugbemiga Kehinde, better known as Seye Kehinde, an accomplished Nigerian journalist and publisher, the founder of City People Magazine, Nigeria’s leading celebrity fashion and society publication.
A son of civil servants who by his commitment and dedication to his chosen profession, after receiving an education in Nigeria has earned his place amongst the country’s high and mighty.
It is a credit to the measure of the man that the magazine he founded in 1996 is still strong and treading the waters that have consumed many of her predecessors and competitors.
He asked me to give this lecture almost 6 months ago and I accepted very enthusiastically, because till today I feel indebted to him in an unrepayable way, and my presence here is in gratitude, not an attempt at recompense, and I will come to this shortly.
But how many who read the City People magazine know the man who birthed her and the values that drive him?
Whilst we were reviewing my calendar to schedule an event, and I mentioned my prior commitment to this event, a young and very patriotic friend of mine said words to this effect: “You and City People. What’s the connection? They are not your kind of people.” To which I responded, “They are my kind of people.”
Unknown to many, Seye Kehinde and City People are more than fashion and celebrity.
They are about development and shared values concerning our quality of life. They are proudly Nigerian.
That is why City People in August 2016 organised a public discussion about Housing in Lagos, at which I unveiled my plans as the then Minister for Housing, a plan which resulted in the delivery of Houses across the 36 states and the FCT under the National Housing Programme.
In addition, in spite of its bias for what appears to be the soft and fun side of journalism, City People and Seye Kehinde have committed to the strong ethical values of the journalism profession, and I should know.
At the time in 2006, when I became a most unlikely aspirant for the ticket of the Action Congress for the Gubernatorial elections in Lagos State, there was, I later learned, a well-planned and well-executed media attack on one hand, and a blackout on the other against me.
During my inaugural political outing at a party rally held at the Onikan stadium, while I was on my feet hale and hearty, a media outfit (not City People) had broken a news, which was evidently fake, that I had collapsed at the event.
It was their offering regarding my unsuitability for office. Those who knew me were busy explaining that they played football with me every Sunday and it was impossible that a party rally that was not as exerting as playing football would cause me to collapse.
Fake news, therefore, predated social media and will outlive it, unless men and women of goodwill occupy the media space.
There were also allegations making the rounds that I went to bed as early as 7 (seven) p.m., even when my designation as Chief-of-Staff took me to work at 8 a.m. and kept me busy usually till 1 a.m. the following day.
No media house was willing to grant me an audience to state my own side.
One correspondent who granted me an interview later refused to publish it because, according to him, his employers felt it was too positive and would weaken the chances of another candidate they were disposed to.
This was how I met Seye Kehinde, who sought me out to hear my side of the allegations against me and my plans for office in the event that I succeeded.
So instead of joining the crowd, Seye Kehinde and City People chose to know the facts and became the first to publish me.
In addition, the measure of the man can be gleaned by the Topic of the lecture that Seye Kehinde himself chose which is: “Why I remain optimistic about Nigeria.”
How many people dedicate their birthdays to the optimistic pursuit of the cause of their country.
When he asked me to speak and I agreed, he gave me the liberty to choose the subject, and in hindsight I should have listened to him and chosen an easier topic.
When I insisted that he choose, he chose Nigeria and here I am, with measured concern, but delighted, because what I intend to say comes from a place of conviction.
If the question were posed by a survey about whether we should remain optimistic about Nigeria, I hazard that opinions would be diverse.
Depending on what we have individually experienced the reactions will be varied.
For people of my generation or those who are older perhaps there is much to relish and therefore still expect.
Some have experienced Nigeria the colony, the independent nation, the turbulent sixties, a very devastating civil war, a period of stupendous wealth in the 1970s, fuelled by oil wealth arising from crises in the middle East.
Some others have a democratic experience of the late 1970s to the early eighties that was to be followed by military rule that culminated in our current democratic experience.
For people of the current generation who constitute the undisputed majority their views will certainly be also different.
I think this is the difficult conversation that Seye Kehinde wants us to have.
Why have we not healed from our pains, some of which are self-inflicted.
Why are we reaching out seemingly more than ever to our ethnic identities, when we are now inter marrying across ethnic lines at a rate that was unthinkable in the 1970s?
I remember that in the 1970s, inter-ethnic marriages used to be front page news, simply because they happened and not because the contracting parties were famous or rich.
I can only guess that they were then very important because they represented shoots of integration and healing from self-inflicted pains, which must be protected and encouraged.
IDENTITY
But if there is one reason for optimism, it is the identity that Nigeria as a name gives all of us. The importance of that is that we have a territory and global recognition in the comity of nations.
For those who don’t understand what this means, they should consider statelessness, because as I learned in my international law class there are stateless people.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) published an estimation of 4.4 million people who are stateless. (Wikipedia).
An illustration of this is at the opening ceremony of the Olympic games, where athletes march with their country’s flags and some other people compete under the Olympic flag without their country’s colours or name. A most common cause is conflict; others are operation of law, ethnicity and other reasons.
BRAND
Therefore, if for nothing, Nigeria gives us a brand, and for those who are in the business of Brand Management, this is an asset to work with and I will come back to this, to discuss what we have done with and to our brand, which includes our flag, our coat of arms, our Name and culture.
Other components of our brand include our food, our music, which now has a global audience, our movies, with which we need to propel ourselves more positively and move away from rituals and voodoo, and our clothing, especially the prints that the whole world is now embracing.
A few quick examples will suffice. When I visited Cancun in 2014 during the annual bar conference, I met an American from Oklahoma who was asking me if he could order Amala, Ewedu and Gbegiri, on-line because he had eaten it in Abeokuta when he visited and could not get over it.
In February of 2025 when I visited Rwanda to play veterans walking football, a steward in my hotel was so obsessed with the Yoruba native Gobi cap and I promised to send it to him.
He has since received it, taken photos with it, which he sent to me.
When I visited Egypt a few years ago to watch the Nations cup, some of the people who interacted with me, knowing I was a Nigerian, did not ask me about the names of those who damage our brand, they are in a small minority and we must overwhelm them, they asked me about Amokachi, Jay Jay and Nwankwo Kanu; some of our most patriotic brand ambassadors.
We must complement the work that they do and project the positive images of our country as our 1999 Constitution enjoins in Section 24, where it provides that all citizens shall:
“…Enhance the power, prestige, and good name of Nigeria…”
PEOPLE & POPULATION
Beyond our identity and brand is the most important reason that fuels optimism about Nigeria; and that is we the people.
I have alluded to ethnicity, that is, diversity and variety in a most unusual way.
This must provoke us to ask why Italians, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch and many nationalists co-exist across the Atlantic in across 50 states that assert unity in one country.
Why did the Welsh, Irish, and Scottish who are not English, agree to be united under one kingdom even when the oil that partly fuels their economy come from Scottish territory, just like our oil is produced from a few oil producing states?
What are the lessons that we can learn from their sacrifice and compromise that keeps them together and breeds hope for their people in spite of differences, conflicts and high cost of living?
How can we leverage our large numbers to optimum advantage?
Indeed, if people from other countries are living in our country and building prosperous lives and businesses for themselves and their families on our land, we must become challenged to look inwards and ask whether we are optimising our opportunities, and further still whether we recognise them.
Certainly, if people from other countries chose to live and work in Nigeria, it cannot be anything but a place of possibilities and optimism.
If a Nwaneri and Saka are playing football for England, an Adeyemi is playing for Germany, an Ugochukwu is playing for Armenia and many of our Nationals are flying the flags of other countries in a world that is capitalizing on immigrant human capital, has the time not come for us to change our game, heal our wounds and re-brand ourselves to keep what is ours and take from those who are not optimizing theirs?
It is my unshakeable belief that if we put our best foot forward, stop hating ourselves and stop diminishing our brand, some of our neighbours will ask to become states in our country.
After all, many of their economies and social life live off what we provide.
In the economic agglomeration that is ECOWAS, made up of 15 states, we represent roughly up to 40% of the productive capacity, with possibilities for increment.
Put differently, we are the classic case of an enterprise that is too big to fail, and we must stop blaming ethnicity and colonialism because the nations that we currently envy experienced all that and more and they are thriving.
Unlike other nations that are either landlocked, lack natural resources and have only people who have prospered with them, we have more.
But before I move further let me ask some of those who valorise countries like Rwanda if they are aware that they have no sea port and import through Tanzania or Burundi.
They have evolved from near bankruptcy before the 1994 conflict and have moved on from the conflict to nation building.
For me the lesson is that we gain nothing by refusing to heal.
TOURISM AND NATURAL RESOURCES
But beyond people, Brand and identity, I find optimism in the assets of nature and history that abound in Nigeria.
As far as Tourism assets and destinations are concerned, how many of us are aware that in our country there are no less than 170 tourist sites and destinations that require either access roads, manpower training and management to become lucrative centres of job creation, enterprise and enormous wealth that help to bridge inequality and expand our economic diversity.
In the course of my tenure of public service as Minister in the Federal Government, I travelled across the 36 states twice by road, driving averagely twelve hours per day and it afforded me an opportunity to see the beauty and diversity of the land where our home as a people is situated.
My inspection tours of projects like the Chanchangi Bridge in Taraba State the home of the Jukuns, Bodo Bonny Bridge in the kingdom of the Famous King Jaja of Opobo, reconstruction of damaged transmission power stations in Borno, the home of Shehu El Kanemi of the Borno empire, Oyo-Ogbomoso road, part of the territory of the old Oyo empire to mention a few, simply reminded me that I was treading in the precincts of greatness.
There is just a lot to unpack which gives me such optimism, that I wish I could bring them before those who seem to think otherwise.
It is impossible in a speech like this to cover the entire field and therefore I will do what is practicable:
THE NIGERIAN DREAM
Let me suggest that our identity and our brand must exude ideas, ideals and dreams.
Do we know what the Nigerian dream is? Will we recognize it, when we see it? Can we agree on a shared vision?
It might interest many to learn that the 1999 constitution that some have made a sing song of maligning actually provides some ideas and ideals of what the Nigerian dream consists of.
In Chapter II under sections 13-24 the fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy are set out.
Because the courts have refused to enforce these ideals by compulsion does not in my view diminish from their enabling and endearing objectives such as:
- that sovereignty belongs to the people of Nigeria, from whom government derives all its power and authority – Section 14(2)(a);
(b) that the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government – Section 14(2)(b);
(c) inclusion through federal character that no predominance of persons from a few states or ethnic groups shall exist in the composition of government or its agencies – Sections 14(3) and (4);
(d) that national integration and loyalty shall be actively promoted above sectional loyalties – Section 15(4);
(e) that corrupt practices and abuse of power shall be abolished – Section 15(5);
(f) that the nation’s resources shall be harnessed to promote national prosperity and ensure self-reliant economy – Section 16(1)(a) and 16(2)(b);
(g) that the economic system shall be managed to secure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every citizen – Section 16(1)(b);
(h) that the state shall provide for the right to food and food security, a living wage, old age care and pensions, and social welfare for the unemployed, sick and disabled – Section 16(2)(d);
(i) that the sanctity of the human person shall be recognised, and human dignity shall be maintained and enhanced – Section 17(2)(b);
(j) that there shall be equal pay for equal work without discrimination on account of sex or any other ground – Section 17(3)(e);
(k) that free secondary and university education shall be provided as soon as practicable – Section 18(3)(b) & (c);
(l) and that national ethics shall be built on discipline, integrity, dignity of labour, social justice, religious tolerance, self-reliance and patriotism – Section 23.
Some of us might seem surprised to learn that provisions like this exist in our Constitution, but they do.
Some of the so-called constitutional lawyers and others, who condemn this Constitution when it suits them, readily assert their “fundamental” rights under the same constitution as they are entitled to do.
By the same token, I urge we the people, to whom the Constitution has given sovereignty to own, propagate and do our best in different spheres of life to make the ideas, ideals and the dreams enshrined in this Constitution possible.
THE DO’s and DON’Ts
There are many DOS and DON’TS that we must imbibe as a people with an identity, a brand, and resources but I will deal with a few to demonstrate first that all is not lost, and secondly that the life of a nation or country is similar to a terrain of hills and valleys.
What we must strive for is to experience more hills than valleys.
THE DON’TS
DON’T GIVE UP ON THE NIGERIAN BRAND
The first DONT is that we must never to give up on our brand, and there are lessons to learn from the evolution of countries and in sports.
In an article titled “A Century of Humiliation: Understanding the Chinese mindset” written by Andy S. Lee on 18th February 2018, the author traces the story of the subjugation of China by western powers and how they triumphed to become the super power they have become, and to show those who once dominated them now look to them for their economic sustenance.
And if a century is too far away (and I am not suggesting we should wait for a century), recent developments in sports, especially football in Europe, will make the point more clearly to the current generation about the value and virtue of not giving up on our brand and identity.
Recent watchers of English football will have witnessed Newcastle Football Club’s first cup win after about 70 years.
In that period that club had some of the best players who never won anything.
But the relevance of their success to our conversation is that in almost two generations or more they did not abandon the Newcastle brand in spite of their despair and disappointment.
They kept and nurtured the brand and passed it on to the next generation who now know what the experience of success and victory feels like.
Inherent in that arduous journey of nurturing and keeping the brand, they had to accept finance from the Middle East in some controversial circumstances which perhaps was unthinkable in a previous era.
And to conclude on this point by reminding those who have forgotten, and those who may not know, that clubs like Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa who are now showing signs of a renaissance, were once champions of England and power houses of Europe in the 1970/early 1980s who have been experiencing difficulty since the 1990s.
They are relevant today in spite of decades without success because they did not abandon the brand.
DON’T DISPARAGE THE BRAND
The concomitant Don’t to the Don’t give up on the brand is to never disparage the brand.
I have referred to the Constitutional provision that imposes this on all Citizens of Nigeria as “a duty” in section 24(b) of our constitution and this bears repeating.
Many years ago, myself and a few colleagues at a reception hosted by one of our Ambassadors while attending the International Bar Association Conference pledged never to speak ill of our country.
Indeed, none of the nations we wish to be like have their citizens disparaging their country.
The word is very powerful and regrettably some of the most damaging things to the Nigerian brand have been said by Nigerians especially at home, and a few who are “bad enough” to do so abroad.
And the distinction between Country and Government must be clearly emphasized for those who are disappointed with governance or politics.
As I said in my book, Nigerian Public Discourse at p. 94:
“We must understand that government is different from country. We must criticise government and politicians without throwing our country under the bus. This is possible. Governments will change, politicians will come and go, but the Territory of the Federal Republic of Nigeria will outlive us. Let us enhance the power, prestige and good name of Nigeria, for ourselves and for generations to come.”
Politicians and government may have given us the short end of the stick and deserve all the criticism – and I dare say vitriol – we can muster, but the sovereign entity called Nigeria has done us no wrong. On the contrary, she has given us an identity and a brand to do with as we wish.
I regret to say that if we disparage our brand, we disparage ourselves.
Now then if we must not forsake or disparage the brand, what should we do with it.
THE DO’s
There is an inexhaustible list of things we can do with the brand for our own benefit, and the benefit of those who will come after us; and I will mention a few before I close.
i) Law and order
It is my view that the greatest invention of the human civilization that has helped to prosper mankind is law and order.
Therefore, our brand must be rooted in law and order.
On its own it is a big investment attraction as businessmen and women want to keep their money not only where it is safe and orderly, but also where members of their families can live and work.
What a major boost it would be in addition to our food, our music, tourism and culture if anybody mentioned the name Nigeria and it is simply said: “Oh, I have been there, or I hear it is orderly and safe.”
That on its own would be a game changer and it is more than what government alone can do.
One way to do this is to obey laws, rules, regulations and respect our authorities and institutions.
Of course, those authorities and those who man them must expectedly also operate within the law or be liable to sanction in a transparently demonstrable way.
Of course, rooting our brand in law and order does not mean that there would be no breaches from time to time. What we must do is to locate those breaches in the places they occur and not as a pan Nigerian occurrence.
The latter misrepresents us gravely.
ii) Promote the Nigeria Brand
This is the responsibility not only of all citizens but of the news media and our professional diplomats abroad.
One of the most prosperous nations of the world has thrived on an economic diplomacy strategy of inviting people to visit their country.
As a nation and as a people we must intentionally embrace this practice.
All too often those who visit us for the first time only get here to be surprised as they themselves say, that, we have painted a more horrific picture of ourselves than what their experience supports.
iii) MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions)
MICE, which is the acronym for Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions, is another strategy for national branding distinct from National Advertising on Global News Networks that we see daily, and perhaps a variant of Diplomatic Invitations.
Countries have intentionally invested in infrastructure and then convinced their people to be visitor-friendly, as a strategy for positioning themselves as a destination of choice for meetings, conferences and exhibitions.
While incentives help businesses and drive the MICE agenda, I see no reason why Nigeria cannot offer more fiscal incentives, more liberal visa and immigration policies to attract event organizers and before you know it all those who visit go away and spread the message of their positive experience.
We also have some, if not all, of what it takes to be players in this arena and we can only improve on our capacities if we try.
iv) Films, Video, Photo & Music
I must acknowledge the positive ambassadorial roles that our athletes, artistes and those in the creative industry have played in the largely positive positioning of our brand.
But there is more to do as a matter of strategy and intention in the stories that we tell on film, videos and in songs.
We can project some of the successes of our law enforcement, we can put up more of our infrastructure in addition to only the Lekki-Ikoyi link bridge.
We have good hotels, restaurants, night clubs, schools and hospitals to mention a few and they must become part of our story in films and videos.
The Lagos Blue and Red line must feature in our films and cast a story of our intention to move away from the chaotic yellow minibuses and their reputation.
The men and women behind each camera in Nigeria must have a positive mindset, because there are always positives and negatives.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, those who are negative-minded might be inclined to bet against Nigeria.
I assure you that they are mistaken and most likely to lose. Nobody has bet against this country and won. I will not.
I remain optimistic about Nigeria and my optimism is well founded on the reasons I have shared with you and those that time did not allow me to share.
With land, an identity, a large and youthful population almost year-round sunshine with some rain, a brand with which to work, some visible signs of global appeal, my optimism about the Nigerian entity and enterprise is unshaken.
I must thank our host Mr. Seye Kehinde for convening this conversation, and I conclude by wishing him a very Happy Birthday and many Happy returns.
Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN CON
