The artificiality of Nigeria’s existence is clear. Like Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O’Malley Armstrong’s Life for Rent, ‘Nothing we have is truly ours’; at least, at the federal level.
From adopting Britain’s parliamentary system to jumping at the presidential system of the United States, while still managing to mess it all up. Nigeria is wonderful!
The Problem of Post-Colonial Succession
Handed down like a grandma’s big pant; riddled with holes and too wide and overstretched to wear. We just keep patching it up. Fake in the end. Nothing we collectively have is truly ours!
From inception till date, the existence of Nigeria as an entity is nothing short of forged and forced by guns and violence. The very name with which we call the jumbled-up pieces of resourceful lands and ancient civilisations; “Nigeria” was handed over to us by the colonial powers – through Grandma Flora-Shaw. How else would one describe lands of peoples and nations whose tongue differ? The name was coined by the then 45 years old Flora-Shaw as a “convenient” replacement for the rather long estate-name – Niger Company Territories. “It may be permissible”, she argued in an article, “to coin a shorter title for the agglomeration of Pagan and Mohammedan states”. With this, Nigeria was born as a convenient expression by Britain, for Britain and foistered upon us by successive generations of leaders whose self-worth is reflected in acting British even if it denies them the originality of their own existence (A story for another time).
The problem of National Language
Flora-Shaw’s “agglomeration of pagan and Mohammedan” peoples do not have a common indigenous national language. To address this, it was easy to force them to learn English even if they had to bastardise it to form ‘Broken-English’ – again, an attempt to patch up Grandma’s worn pant. To make it worse, your proficiency in the use of English is taken to symbolise how poshed and polished you are as a Nigerian. Flora-Shaw’s “agglomeration of pagan and Mohammedan” peoples are still divided, and we must almost always beg them to stop fighting. They fight over everything; politics, policies, and anything.
The Problem of National Anthem
At a time when we speak of decoloniality and originality. The Nigerian government came up with their biggest surprise yet of 2024; they reverted to a national anthem of “Nigeria We Hail Thee,” that was written by Lillian Jean Williams, a British expat who was residing in Nigeria. They refused decoloniality. They embraced coloniality. Into the bin, we tossed the creativity of P. O. Aderibigbe, John A. Ilechukwu, Dr. Sota Omoigui, Eme Etim Akpan and B.A. Ogunnaike for the charming Jean Williams. If there was a problem with “Arise O Compatriots”, why not make a public call for a new national anthem by Nigerians? Are we this lacking in creativity?
I cannot help, but ask; do we need to stay artificial forever?
If Flora-shaw gave us the name, and Lillian Jean Williams gave us the anthem, we might as well re-adopt the British crown as the monarch. That is if calling the British to come back to lead may not be too much to suggest.
