By Austin Ogwuda
ASABA—MINISTER of Information, Prof. Dora Akunyili, yesterday in Asaba, said that the Delta State has taken the leading position towards embracing the Rebranding Nigeria Project, just as the Delta State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan called for the prosecution of writers of frivolous petitions to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and other security agencies in the spirit of the on-going rebranding effort.

Speaking at a stakeholders meeting and launching of the Delta State chapter of Rebranding Nigeria Project, the Information Minister said: “I commend Governor Uduaghan of Delta State . I must say that Delta State has since started the rebranding.

“The negative perception about Nigeria has gone unchallenged for so long that it is beginning to stick in the consciousness of most people around the world, that most Nigerians are criminals or fraudsters.

Consequently, across the globe, in airports and public places, whenever the green passport is sighted, we are asked to stand aside for special screening. We are not even given the benefit of a doubt,” she lamented.

She called on Nigerians to see the rebranding project as a worthy cause, noting that “Nigeria is the only developing country that has been courageous enough to accept that corruption is a problem and consequently instituted anti-corruption agencies, such as the EFCC and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC, to prosecute the war against corruption”.

On his part, Governor Uduaghan said: “When you write a petition and the petition is investigated either by EFCC or other security agencies and they find that that petition is false, the petition writer should be prosecuted because we have a lot of people calling names, that this person is corrupt and it enters the internet and people pick them up.

“I keep saying that one of the reasons why Warri was not accepted for the Under 17 World Cup was because of security reasons. And what was the security reason? At that time, we did not have security issues. We lobbied and lobbied and I was able to talk to top security agent in FIFA and when I was talking to him, he was referring to newspaper publications right in front of him.

So because of all those publications, Warri was turned down it was not because of infrastructures. So in the process of rebranding, I want to emphasize that we have critical roles to play”.