Nigeria is a strange state where strange situations surface normally. Of all the problems choking the country, the Presidency and National Assembly activated an absurd antic: revert to a rejected colonial anthem. Thus, we complete a triangle of British women taking prime positions in three centuries. In accepting the alternating anthems (it will be reversed, quote me), we show a certain unseriousness about the Nigerian project.
Journalist Flora Shaw, later Lady Lugard, purportedly coined “Niger-area” 17 years before boyfriend Frederick Lugard’s amalgamation in 1914. Out of thousands of entries, the departing colonists took as anthem “Nigeria, We Hail Thee,” a piece written by Lillian Williams, an expatriate ministry official. For another £1000, a London ballet musician, Frances Benda, composed the music.
In 1978, Olusegun Obasanjo changed the anthem to agreeable “Arise, O Compatriots.” The honor of the lyrics went to a panel of five Nigerians. Police music director Benedict Odiase coordinated the more upbeat music.
What level of miseducation triggered a return to the “tribe and togue” anthem? Why don’t smaller European ethnicities subscribe to ‘tribe’? Many Nigerian nations extend into two or more countries, something that is rare in ethnic-balkanized Europe.
‘Tongue’ is worse than ‘vernacular.’ At best, it refers to a person’s speaking style—not a language. We took it from the Brits. The now-new old anthem asked God to “Grant this our one request: Help us to build a nation.” We do not need to build a nation; God has created many nations.
For an anthem written by a woman, it desired a “brotherhood… where no man is oppressed.” Then in a proud patriarchy, this faux pax: “Our sovereign Motherland.” The change to fatherland is a bit better, but “Nigeria” (a coined classification for a colonial contraption) is something else. Chinua Achebe captured it thus: “…[I]t has occurred to me that Nigeria is neither my mother nor my father. Nigeria is a child. Gifted, enormously talented, prodigiously endowed and incredibly wayward.”
Bola Tinubu did not believe in one Nigeria…. until it favored him again. No one believes. We all believe in what Nigeria has to offer as-is, fearing that any slight disruption—innovative or regressive—may take food out of our mouths. So, we ‘manage’… until breakfast is served.
If we were serious about Nigeria, Tinubu would not have thought of denting Obasanjo’s legacy.
MOEne, June 1, 2024
aladimma.net 