When Maggi owns the tongue and government owns the people, by Stephanie Shaakaa

In Nigeria, you don’t buy noodles, you buy Indomie. You don’t buy detergent, you buy Omo. When did brands become the owners of our tongues?

Brands do not just sell to us they colonize our language. They become the very definition of their category, swallowing competitors whole until alternatives sound fake. We don’t just use products, we baptize them with the name of the strongest brand in the room.

Maggi does not simply season food, it seasons language. Ask for stock cubes at the market, and you will not hear Knorr, Royco, or Ajinomoto. You will hear one word, Maggi. The brand has leapt from shelves into sentences, from kitchens into consciousness, until it no longer sells, just seasoning but identity itself. It is the unseen monopolist of our taste buds, proof that dominance begins in the tongue before it reaches the mind.

But Maggi is not alone. In the Nigerian lexicon, detergent is Omo, even if it is Ariel or Sunlight. Instant noodles are Indomie, no matter if Dangote or Mimee is printed on the pack. Sausage roll is Gala, even when you are chewing a rival’s attempt at the roadside. Cable television is DSTV, even when StarTimes beams the signal. Sachet water is Pure Water, though brands are countless. The market overflows with names, yet the people’s lips repeat only one.

Red toothpaste? Close-Up.Sanitary pads? Always. Sausage rolls? Gala. Chocolate beverages? Milo or Bournvita. Petroleum jelly? Vaseline.Antiseptic liquid? Dettol. Bathing soap? Lux, Joy soap or Imperial Leather. Tricycles? Keke Napep.Sachet water? Pure Water.Pens? Biro. Balm? Robb.Tin milk? Peak.Lemon-lime soda? Seven-Up. Satellite television? DSTV or GoTV. Cooking oil sachets? Power Oil. And on the internet, searching for anything at all? Google.

What begins as convenience soon becomes captivity. It is not simply about seasoning cubes, noodles, or bottled drinks,it is about how monopolies colonize thought until choice becomes illusion. The child who grows up calling every noodle Indomie has already surrendered a part of their imagination, and in time, their democracy.

For politics, like branding, thrives on the same psychology. We are trained, conditioned, and corralled into believing that one party, one tribe, one candidate owns the ballot just as surely as Maggi owns the pot of soup. The dominance of the market prepares the way for the dominance of the state. When people speak of leaders as though no alternatives exist, they are not merely echoing propaganda they are echoing the tyranny of branding itself.

And this is not only Nigerian. Across the globe, monopolies rule more than markets, they rule minds. Coca-Cola is not simply a drink it is happiness in a red can. Apple is not merely a device it is prestige in aluminum casing. Google does not just search, it defines the very act of searching. These brands erase competitors not by silencing them, but by making them invisible. You may drink Pepsi, use Samsung, or type in Bing, but in speech and in thought, the other has been swallowed by the one.

When dominance feels natural, resistance feels unnecessary. If Maggi owns the tongue, why bother with Knorr? If DSTV fills the living room, why imagine a better alternative? If one political party clutches the ballot box, why dream of another vision for the nation? Monopoly dulls curiosity, suffocates innovation, and creates citizens who no longer ask what else is possible.

This explains why our politics often feels like a recycling plant. Faces change, slogans shift, promises mutate, but the structure remains. We exchange one Maggi for another, thinking the flavor has changed, only to find it is the same seasoning in a different wrapper. The tyranny of branding has numbed us into mistaking dominance for inevitability.

But inevitability is the greatest illusion. There was a time when Maggi was not Maggi, when Gala was not Gala, when Indomie was just another noodle on the shelf. They fought for space, for recognition, for relevance. They built distribution, invested in marketing, and seized imagination. Their dominance was crafted, not ordained. And what is crafted can be challenged.

Nigeria too can challenge. The danger is not that brands dominate but that citizens forget they can create. When monopolies of the tongue become monopolies of the mind, societies slip into lethargy, leaving room for leaders who recycle mediocrity with the efficiency of a factory line. We must remember that brands only rule where people surrender choice.

A nation that allows Maggi to monopolize language is a nation that risks letting corruption monopolize governance. A people who call every soda Coke may be too quick to call every politician the only option. And when language itself has been colonized, thought soon follows. The great wars of the 21st century are not fought with guns alone, they are fought with brands, with narratives, with the power to make people believe that the world begins and ends with one product, one party, one possibility.

Maggi owns the pot.

Omo owns the wash.

Indomie owns the hunger.

Gala owns the traffic.

Peak owns the morning.

Dangote owns the cement.

Government owns the people.

This sound eerily familiar.This is the Nigeria’s story. One party becomes government. One official becomes Oga.One tribe is stamped the problem. One leader becomes the father of the nation.One idea drowns out every alternative, until diversity of thought feels like an intrusion, not an option.

Yet the lesson of branding cuts both ways. If Maggi can own the tongue, why can integrity not own politics? If Coca-Cola can make itself synonymous with refreshment, why can justice not become synonymous with leadership? If Apple can turn devices into symbols of status, why can’t we not make education the symbol of progress? The same psychology that creates monopolies can be harnessed to create revolutions not of products, but of values.

The challenge is ours,to expand the vocabulary of the nation, to teach our children that Indomie is not the only noodle, that Coke is not the only drink, that one leader is not the only path. We must refuse the laziness of thought that makes monopolies comfortable. We must cultivate a culture that delights in alternatives, that celebrates competition, that understands freedom is not in the one but in the many.

Nigeria stands at a crossroad between the tyranny of the familiar and the adventure of the possible. We can keep seasoning our future with the same Maggi cubes of recycled politics, or we can reach for new flavors, new ideas, new leaders. The street may still shout Gala, Maggi, Indomie, but the ballot must shout freedom, choice, and imagination.

Because in the end, no brand should own our destiny. Maggi may own our tongues, Coke may own our thirst, Google may own our searches, Apple may own our pride but no party, no tribe, no oligarch must ever own our future. That is the freedom we owe ourselves, and the legacy we must guard for the generations yet to come.

The good news? Even monopolies fade. Just as new products slip into the market and win space on the shelf, new voices and ideas are waiting to slip into Nigeria’s story. 

Until then, our politics, like our language, remains hijacked.

Names change, brands fall, and one day, we will stop calling every cube Maggi, every detergent Omo, and every failed system government. Maybe, just maybe, the systems that hijack our politics will fall as surely as Maggi hijacks our soup. Monopolies won’t last forever in the market, or in our lives.

Vanguard News

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