Guardian Nigeria
The Nigerian culture is in crises of abandonment, bastardisation, bankruptcy, lack of appreciation, patronage and preservation. It sits, dangerously, on a tinderbox as it is now a potential source of widespread ignorance about our identities.
Very soon, therefore, we Nigerians will only learn about our own cultures in books, journals and films as Nigeria’s cultural echoes and traditional values have been jettisoned by her leaders and her people.
A few examples of Nigeria’s culture’s afflictions with many tribulations of abandonment, bankruptcy, mis-branding as fetish, we are heading to no destination. We must manage our culture if we must progress as a nation and as a people in a country of civilised nation and people who live in a well ordered, disciplined and morally valuable societies long before the coming of the Europeans.
For instance, Nigeria’s former Ambassador to the United Nations, the late Maitama Sule was unhappy with the abandonment and bastardisation that have been visited on the nation’s cultural heritage. According to him, culture is an essential ingredient in nurturing a disciplined society. It is the moral values of the people, their manners, mannerisms, their costumes, customs, their characters, characteristics, their philosophy, religion and everything the totality of their existence is their culture… “Once people abandon their culture, as it is the case with Nigeria today, the consequence of it is the loss of identity.”
The former Archbishop of Canterbury and Head of the Anglican Church Worldwide, Archbishop George Carey admonishes Nigerians to preserve their rich cultural heritage because Christianity: “Nigerians should not abandon their rich culture heritage despite Christianity,” the Archbishop said when he visited Nigeria in 2001.
The number three citizen in Britain after the Queen and the two heir –apparent, expressed this opinion during a courtesy call on the Alake of Egbaland, the late Oba Oyebade Lipede: “I just plead with you and your people to make your culture endure and pass it on to future generation, not because it is a tourist attraction, but more importantly because it says something about the people of Nigeria. We cannot be bright citizens if we refuse to pay heed to this plea from the Archbishop, a foreigner. We must embrace our culture and tradition rather than brand them as fetish and idolatry.”
The former Director-General of the National Commission for Museum and Monuments, the late Omotosho Eluyemi also spoke in the same vein. He said the commission was out to ‘educate Nigerians on the need to explore the richness of Nigeria’s culture and tradition which was being better appreciated by foreigners.’
Renowned medical expert and joint Medical Director of Eko Hospital, Dr Sonny Folorunso Kuku, has blamed Nigeria’s woes on moral decadence and failed cultural values: “For the nation to get out of the present social predicament, there must be a cultural revolution that will inculcate in the people, those values of the family level that make them to add honour to their name and be positively disposed to the progress of society. We have to go back to our roots… we have thrown away our morals and parents should have the larger blame for this. Mothers and fathers don’t see it worthwhile to discipline their children anymore. They attribute this to civilisation, which is to the detriment of our society.”
The focus of this article is for Nigerians to appreciate our culture, revive and develop it to help diversify our economy beyond the oil industry. Through repositioning of our arts, culture and tourism potential, Nigeria has a unique opportunity to expand its economic base to meet the yearning needs and to fulfil the aspirations of its teeming population in a globalised world economy.
The repositioning would package arts, culture and tourism as viable products that would become competitive commodities for internal and external consumption. The Imperative of Culture is the essence of a people; and it is the totality of their way of life. Culture is oftentimes referred to as the bedrock of human civilisation and it is the dynamic centre of development of any nation.
Culture not only gives a sense of belonging and identity to the people, it severs as agent of national unity and integration. According to Webber, ‘‘culture is the way of life of a group of people, the configuration of all of the more or less stereotyped patterns of learned behavior which are handed down from one generation to the next through the means of language and imitations.’’
As a strong pillar of deepening democratic process, culture has not been allowed to play its significant role since the advent of democracy in Nigeria.
Nigeria leaders have not optimised culture by rightly directing the path of nationhood and development. Rather than look inwards and tap our cultural resources to empower growth and unite the country’s diversity, the leaders of all persuasions are different to culture, and even encourage cultural dislocation, which results from the fanatical frenzy with which Nigerians embrace foreign culture and consume foreign products which inhibit our quest for development.
To stimulate national development through culture, the National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC) was established by Decree 3 of 1975 and amended by Decree 5 of 1987 as a government organ committed to the development and promotion of the living arts and culture of Nigeria, its mission statement is ‘‘to employ arts and culture as a tool for national integration, unity and the sustainable growth and development of the nation.”
Culture is the only sector through which Nigeria enjoys comparative advantage over other nations of the world because it has a gigantic cultural diversity and indeed, it is the most pluralistic and the largest multi-cultural society in the world.
According to the late Professor Onwuejeogwu, “Nigeria is the only country in the world with about 480 ethnic or cultural nationalities. Nigeria has unique four possibilities or problems not experienced by any country in the world past or present.”
Other countries of the world, according to him, have lesser ethnic or cultural nationalities than Nigeria. For example, former USSR had 127, China and India have 40 each, U.S.A. has 50, France has 7, Germany has 15 and England has 4.”
According to a report in The Guardian Newspaper of 2015, Nigeria is home to about seven per cent of the languages spoken in the world. Taraba State alone has more languages than 30 African countries put together. The importance of this fact is appreciated when you understand that language is the “soul of culture” as Ngugi wa Thiong’o said. It is language that gives birth to proverbs, riddles, stories and jokes that give us identity.
Nigeria’s inability to exploit the rich potential of culture and give the requisite attention to cultural development, which will stimulate the economic transformation of the country, is the bane of the leadership-political, economic, industrial, technological, scientific and even academic as well.
The people must appreciate the political economic potential of our culture so that other people will emulate them in respecting it. In his foreword to Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of Culture, Louise Lamphere says that “…the book is a fundamental text in teaching us the value of diversity of culture.”
She argues that knowledge of how culture works gives to human beings a greater control over their own future. She rejected the view that Western culture is the best; the more evolved, and asserted that each culture must be seen as it sees itself.
Nigeria needs cultural rebirth because the neglect of core cultural values by the Nigeria people is responsible for the incessant civil unrest, youth restiveness, militancy, oil and sea piracy, illegal bunkering and oil pipeline vandalisation, kidnapping, armed robbery, bomb attacks and other crimes in many parts of the country.
As a result, Nigeria is probably 50 years behind the rest of the world culturally, after the January 1996 coup d’etat! The Nigerian psyche has been so bastardised and denigratory. We have to re-order the damaged psyche of Nigerians.
Unethical submission of modernity devalues our cherished and hallowed core African values, a consequence of which is the adverse culture of ethnically-induced violence and unrest in many parts of the society.
The revival of our culture and traditional Nigerian values will stem the tide of youths’ criminality and produce thorough-bred Nigerians who would eschew violence and misdemeanor and exhibit excellent personal credo.
Nigeria’s inability to develop her culture, technology and science is responsible for her taste for foreign products as there are no local intervention models to mediate the penchant for foreign goods.
At the heart of the craze for uncritical foreign values is the lack of confidence and pride in what is inherently Nigerian. We are not proud of what we have, who we are, and what we can do or achieve. We are proud of motivating ourselves to do the best for our country. Nigerians do not even wear locally-made fabrics. We are enchanted and fascinated by foreign textiles and merchandise. Any country that prides itself in importing other people’s culture, products and commodities will never develop its own industry.
As John Beatties has rightly said, “every human society has somehow developed its own distinctive culture and social system; its own way of life. Therefore, we should be very proud of who we are and what we produce.”
Prof. Wande Abimbola, President and founder of the Ifa Heritage Institute, Oyo, blamed African elite for the destruction of the African culture. According to him: Culture rests on two pillars: languages and religion. It is only in Africa that these two pillars are not reckoned with. It is only in the African continent that a child goes to school to study foreign language at the expense of his/her mother’s tongue. It is only in Africa that the native tongue is described as vernacular, while traditional religion is labeled as paganism.
Elites are the agents of destruction of the African culture. It is very sad! It is time for us to be concerned about the culture that gives birth to us. Let us promote our culture by promoting our languages and religion. So, after all, it is not the political leadership alone that kills our culture! The elites, the rulers and leaders of all shades, as indicated earlier in this article, contribute their quota to the killing of our culture!
The former United States Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. James F. Entwistle, has said that the cultural diversity of Nigeria should be a source of strength not strife.
Speaking during his tour of cultural Northern Nigeria in Makurdi, Benue State capital, the envoy said, Nigeria has great potential. Your cultural diversity should be a source of strength, not strife. People must learn to tolerate and get along with one another.
Across the globe, history has shown that countries which make progress are those whose communities live in peace with one another. Branding Our Culture
Nobody is interested in our culture because we have not made it appealing. Nobody is therefore willingly to pay a kobo or a dime for it. In this way, our culture will gradually go into extinction. We allow our culture to die gradually without taking positive steps to halt it. We have to brand our culture positively, monitor it, and let it influence the world. If need be we can force it down the throat of the rest of the world like example of the Cable Network News (CNN).
If we buy their foreign products, they must find it reassuring to buy our own cultural products too. That is the way the world economy works. If we do not wake up from our cultural slumber, the world will pass us by and we will be in great mess in the nearest future. Indeed, Nigerian children do not know anything about our culture as we indoctrinate them to believe that our indigenous tradition and culture are backward, idolatrous and fetish. Hence our children do not want to identify with our culture.
So, every one of them wants to be like Americans or Europeans! But African- Americans want to be like Nigerians. So they come here with hope and aspiration only to discover that there is nothing left for them to see, appreciate or acquire in our culture. They are baffled and disappointed. They then go to Ghana that has branded her culture; they immediately appreciate it and identify with it.
However, a few Nigerians have branded our culture to make it more appealing as a product, ready for sale. For example, Wole Soyinka has branded the Nigerian culture in several of his plays, poetry, prose and music. Femi Osofisan has branded the Nigerian culture in many of his plays.
With remarkable intensity, he has reinterpreted the Yoruba myths, history and folklore that he inherited to suit the contemporary realities in Nigeria. In plays sparkling with witty dialogues, marked by clear –cut characterisation, and full of brilliant and spectacular scenes, Osofisan fashions out a drama that gives voice to the underlings of society – a drama in which the peasants, the poor and the down –trodden are imbued with positive and revolutionary virtues.
Olu Obafemi’s dexterity and versatility as an accomplished artist is brought to the fore as a multifaceted dramatist, playwright, poet and novelist who has branded the Nigerian culture in those genres.
May Ifeoma Nwoye has branded Igbo culture in her novels, poems and short stories. Ahmed Yerima has branded his Edo North culture in plays, poetry and fiction. Peter Ukpokodu has branded his Etsako culture in plays, poetry and novels. Tony Afekuju has branded his Itsekiri culture in poetry.
Chinyere Okafor has branded her Igbo culture in plays, novels and poetry. Sir Victor Uwaifo has branded the Edo culture, mythology and folklore- in music and video tapes. But a prophet is without honour in his homestead.
Securing Our Future
In securing our future, Nigeria should harness her cultural resources and revitalise them and teach them to her children in schools because our education curriculum does not teach, promote or sustain our cultural heritage. We should develop a sense of pride in ourselves and in our culture as a people, and become self – sufficient. We should learn from the Asian Tiger countries that, in spite of modernisation and Christianity and Islam stick to their culture and traditions and, therefore, are advancing faster than African nations.
For example, we were at par with some of these Asian Tiger countries at independence in 1960, but now they have outstripped us and we have become consumers of their products. We pride ourselves in wearing their lace an silk products while our own textile factories are grinding to a halt.
No nations can really develop without drawing from its culture and traditions. Our cultural socialisation must be emphasised for our future development. Art is everywhere; culture is enormously available; we are immensely endowed in tourism. But what are lacking in contemporary Nigerian artistic and cultural landscape are the managerial functions of planning, organising, leading, controlling and effective leadership and coordination of the available massive cultural materials in the country.
Therefore, to secure our future, the following steps must be taken. If Nigeria vast arts, culture and tourism heritage are properly controlled and effectively managed, they can collectively become the driver of not only our national economic development through creation of employment opportunities for our unemployed youths, but also serve as catalyst for national integration.
Repositioning of Nigeria’s culture will power the branding of the Nigeria project through the use of our creative industry, performing arts, visual arts, film and home video (Nollywood) to improve and sustain our image and identity at home and abroad.
Culture is the bedrock of human civilisation without which no nation can make economic, social and political advancement. In this great regard, the Nigerian government should make arts, culture and tourism priority areas in the nation’s economic development projects.
In using arts, culture and tourism to grow its economy, the Federal Government should adopt a policy of patronising the public and private cultural enterprises in order to help develop their domestic and foreign markets.
Besides, the Nigerian government should also employ the services of the performing and visual arts regularly in her programme of activities. This patronage will boost the financial resources of the artistes, and uplift their spirit psychologically and aesthetically.
For example, during the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th American President on January 20, 2009, the American artistes exhibited their talents in poetry, visual and performing arts, musical and dramatic concerts at the ceremony.
Cultural tourism calendar of events across the country should be developed to serve as a guide to both local and foreign tourists. A National arts competition among secondary school students should be instituted soon. As a matter of urgency, we should revive and speak our native languages to our children because our languages embody our culture. If our native languages die, 9 our culture will die natural death with it.
According to Obafemi, “the imperative of language as the sole vehicle and conveyor of culture cannot be over emphasised.” Recommendations
Nigeria should become, by now, the centerpiece of the World Carnivals, given our cultural diversity as the most pluralistic and the largest multicultural society in the world.
Since human beings “are culturally groomed to think and behave in certain ways from the time we are babies, and most people are not aware of their own cultural programming”, the Nigeria government is therefore urged to culturally programme its children to respect and admire Nigeria’s traditions and cultures, hence, historical studies, cultural studies and museum studies should be introduced to the elementary and secondary schools syllabus.
It is clear from these recommendations that imminent danger await Nigeria if she allows her arts and cultural heritage to be swallowed up and be suppressed by Western civilisation and foreign cultural dominance. The government should commit itself to the development of our cultural heritage, natural resources, history and tradition in a manner that will preserve our national pride and the dignity of Nigeria people.
In this regards, the Nigeria government should resuscitate and implement its cultural orientation, and cultural liberation policies, aimed at reorientating and re-sensitising Nigerians on the values and uniqueness of our cultural heritage.
This can be achieved through the services and operations of the National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO) Conclusion Nigeria would break new grounds, if she diversities her economic base from her over dependence on crude oil revenue to other non-oil sectors of the economy, especially arts, culture and tourism industry as the bedrock of the country’s economy.
The Federal Government (and States Governments) should learn lessons from those countries that have made economic advancement without crude oil but depend on their culture and tourism revenues to run their economies. Some of these countries include: America, Australia, Spain, Germany, France, China, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Thailand, Switzerland, Japan, Turkey, South Africa and Kenya.
Professor Omolewa persuasively asserts that in Africa, “our strength is in our cultural heritage … Our culture is our wealth and the African continent is full of so many cultural goldmines. We may not have skyscrapers, castles, synagogues, landmark structures and so on as you can find in other places. But we have the festivals, dance, the music, language, dress, the eating habits, we have all the potentials…we need to draw attention of the world to our rich cultural heritage that should be sold to humanity… to boost our direct foreign investment drive.”
• Prof. Awodiya, a retired Professor of Theatre Arts, can be reached on 08037424915
