In Nigeria, you don’t purchase noodles, you purchase Indomie. You don’t purchase detergent, you purchase Omo. When did manufacturers turn out to be the house owners of our tongues?
Manufacturers don’t simply promote to us they colonize our language. They turn out to be the very definition of their class, swallowing rivals entire till options sound faux. We don’t simply use merchandise, we baptize them with the title of the strongest model within the room.
Maggi doesn’t merely season meals, it seasons language. Ask for inventory cubes on the market, and you’ll not hear Knorr, Royco, or Ajinomoto. You’ll hear one phrase, Maggi. The model has leapt from cabinets into sentences, from kitchens into consciousness, till it now not sells, simply seasoning however id itself. It’s the unseen monopolist of our style buds, proof that dominance begins within the tongue earlier than it reaches the thoughts.
However Maggi just isn’t alone. Within the Nigerian lexicon, detergent is Omo, even whether it is Ariel or Daylight. On the spot noodles are Indomie, regardless of if Dangote or Mimee is printed on the pack. Sausage roll is Gala, even if you find yourself chewing a rival’s try on the roadside. Cable tv is DSTV, even when StarTimes beams the sign. Sachet water is Pure Water, although manufacturers are numerous. The market overflows with names, but the individuals’s lips repeat just one.
Pink toothpaste? Shut-Up.Sanitary pads? All the time. Sausage rolls? Gala. Chocolate drinks? Milo or Bournvita. Petroleum jelly? Vaseline.Antiseptic liquid? Dettol. Bathing cleaning soap? Lux, Pleasure cleaning soap or Imperial Leather-based. Tricycles? Keke Napep.Sachet water? Pure Water.Pens? Biro. Balm? Robb.Tin milk? Peak.Lemon-lime soda? Seven-Up. Satellite tv for pc tv? DSTV or GoTV. Cooking oil sachets? Energy Oil. And on the web, looking for something in any respect? Google.
What begins as comfort quickly turns into captivity. It’s not merely about seasoning cubes, noodles, or bottled drinks,it’s about how monopolies colonize thought till alternative turns into phantasm. The kid who grows up calling each noodle Indomie has already surrendered part of their creativeness, and in time, their democracy.
For politics, like branding, thrives on the identical psychology. We’re educated, conditioned, and corralled into believing that one social gathering, one tribe, one candidate owns the poll simply as absolutely as Maggi owns the pot of soup. The dominance of the market prepares the way in which for the dominance of the state. When individuals converse of leaders as if no options exist, they don’t seem to be merely echoing propaganda they’re echoing the tyranny of branding itself.
And this isn’t solely Nigerian. Throughout the globe, monopolies rule greater than markets, they rule minds. Coca-Cola just isn’t merely a drink it’s happiness in a pink can. Apple just isn’t merely a tool it’s status in aluminum casing. Google doesn’t simply search, it defines the very act of looking. These manufacturers erase rivals not by silencing them, however by making them invisible. You could drink Pepsi, use Samsung, or kind in Bing, however in speech and in thought, the opposite has been swallowed by the one.
When dominance feels pure, resistance feels pointless. If Maggi owns the tongue, why hassle with Knorr? If DSTV fills the lounge, why think about a greater various? If one political social gathering clutches the poll field, why dream of one other imaginative and prescient for the nation? Monopoly dulls curiosity, suffocates innovation, and creates residents who now not ask what else is feasible.
This explains why our politics typically seems like a recycling plant. Faces change, slogans shift, guarantees mutate, however the construction stays. We trade one Maggi for one more, pondering the flavour has modified, solely to search out it’s the identical seasoning in a distinct wrapper. The tyranny of branding has numbed us into mistaking dominance for inevitability.
However inevitability is the best phantasm. There was a time when Maggi was not Maggi, when Gala was not Gala, when Indomie was simply one other noodle on the shelf. They fought for area, for recognition, for relevance. They constructed distribution, invested in advertising and marketing, and seized creativeness. Their dominance was crafted, not ordained. And what’s crafted may be challenged.
Nigeria can also problem. The hazard just isn’t that manufacturers dominate however that residents neglect they’ll create. When monopolies of the tongue turn out to be monopolies of the thoughts, societies slip into lethargy, leaving room for leaders who recycle mediocrity with the effectivity of a manufacturing facility line. We should do not forget that manufacturers solely rule the place individuals give up alternative.
A nation that permits Maggi to monopolize language is a nation that dangers letting corruption monopolize governance. A individuals who name each soda Coke could also be too fast to name each politician the one possibility. And when language itself has been colonized, thought quickly follows. The nice wars of the twenty first century aren’t fought with weapons alone, they’re fought with manufacturers, with narratives, with the ability to make individuals imagine that the world begins and ends with one product, one social gathering, one risk.
Maggi owns the pot.
Omo owns the wash.
Indomie owns the starvation.
Gala owns the site visitors.
Peak owns the morning.
Dangote owns the cement.
Authorities owns the individuals.
This sound eerily acquainted.That is the Nigeria’s story. One social gathering turns into authorities. One official turns into Oga.One tribe is stamped the issue. One chief turns into the daddy of the nation.One concept drowns out each various, till range of thought seems like an intrusion, not an possibility.
But the lesson of branding cuts each methods. If Maggi can personal the tongue, why can integrity not personal politics? If Coca-Cola could make itself synonymous with refreshment, why can justice not turn out to be synonymous with management? If Apple can flip gadgets into symbols of standing, why can’t we not make schooling the image of progress? The identical psychology that creates monopolies may be harnessed to create revolutions not of merchandise, however of values.
The problem is ours,to broaden the vocabulary of the nation, to show our youngsters that Indomie just isn’t the one noodle, that Coke just isn’t the one drink, that one chief just isn’t the one path. We should refuse the laziness of thought that makes monopolies comfy. We should domesticate a tradition that delights in options, that celebrates competitors, that understands freedom just isn’t within the one however within the many.
Nigeria stands at a crossroad between the tyranny of the acquainted and the journey of the potential. We are able to preserve seasoning our future with the identical Maggi cubes of recycled politics, or we will attain for brand spanking new flavors, new concepts, new leaders. The road should shout Gala, Maggi, Indomie, however the poll should shout freedom, alternative, and creativeness.
As a result of in the long run, no model ought to personal our future. Maggi might personal our tongues, Coke might personal our thirst, Google might personal our searches, Apple might personal our pleasure however no social gathering, no tribe, no oligarch should ever personal our future. That’s the freedom we owe ourselves, and the legacy we should guard for the generations but to return.
The excellent news? Even monopolies fade. Simply as new merchandise slip into the market and win area on the shelf, new voices and concepts are ready to slide into Nigeria’s story.
Till then, our politics, like our language, stays hijacked.
Names change, manufacturers fall, and in the future, we are going to cease calling each dice Maggi, each detergent Omo, and each failed system authorities. Perhaps, simply possibly, the techniques that hijack our politics will fall as absolutely as Maggi hijacks our soup. Monopolies gained’t final endlessly out there, or in our lives.
The submit When Maggi owns the tongue and government owns the people, by Stephanie Shaakaa appeared first on Vanguard News.
