By Gabriel Enogholase
BENIN — FORMER Special Adviser to Ex- President Olusegun Obasanjo on Project Monitoring and Policy Implementation, Prof Julius Ihonvbere, yesterday, took a cursory look at the re-branding project of the Federal Government and concluded that it was a waste of the tax payers’ money which at the end will not make any impact.

Ihonvbere, who fielded questions from journalists shortly after he was made patron of the Local Newspa-per Publishers Association, Edo State chapter, insisted that the re-branding project was like climbing a tree from the top, saying the whole idea was misplaced, lacked ideological content and does not have structural solidity to succeed.

According to him, “it is not the money or noise you make on television that gives you credibility. The quality of your product, the quality of your deliverability, the quality of leadership, the contentment of your citizens and the level of security in your country is what should matter.

“Foreign investors will not come here because you advertised in the television every hour. They will come here because of the strategic role analysis provided to them by investors or organisations and those who are responsible for giving them information.

“Rather than spending money on re-branding, the government should spend money on fixing infrastruc-ture, providing good roads, healthcare, good governa-nce, fighting corruption, create effectiveness and efficiency in the social services and provide a platform for people to feel that they are part and parcel of Nigeria without being forced to be Nigerians.”

“Then Nigeria would have  re-branded itself. We don’t need to tell anybody and the history of the world is there for us to see. It is not countries that shout most on CNN that investors go to. Rather, it is those countries that people see that are re-building, refocusing, reposi-tioning, re-directing the energies of the countries, building responsibilities, accountable and disciplined leadership, that is what people are looking for.”

Solution to fuel scarcity

On the way out of the annual shortages of petro-leum products in the country, Ihonvbere canvassed the setting up of modular refineries by the private sector to augment what is produced by refineries in the country.

He said that it was in a bid to put an end to perennial fuel shortage that the Obasanjo-led government gave 18 licences to private individuals for the establishment of modular refineries and called on the NNPC to give fix stocks guarantee for investors in order for them to be able to produce petroleum products.

The former governorship aspirant in Edo State, while appealing to the federal government to discourage importation of petroleum products into the country, insisted that some people were making billions of naira without leaving home as a result of their involvement in the importation of crude oil into the country.

Ihonvbere, who is eyeing the 2012 gubernatorial election in the state, said the perennial fuel scarcity, especially between November and December every year, had become a source of embarrassment not only to government but to the nation as a whole.

He added that asking ministers not to go on holidays was not the solution, but fixing the ailing refineries in the country.