PART ONE:
It was like a dream.
On October 1 1960 Nigeria gained her independence from British Colonial rule. Of course, in case you hadn’t realized, I wasn’t born then. Records of African history - from my primary school social studies class in Lagos to my graduate class discussion on decolonization in Africa in London, and of course the vivid and almost surreal anecdotes of parents and others - were enough to stir my imagination. You detected the hint of pride and nostalgia when they spoke about Nigerian leadership and leaders in those years;
Obafemi Awolowo premier of the then-Western region;
Ahmadu Bello premier of the Northern region and
Nnamdi Azikiwe premier of the Eastern region. When Nigeria began self rule, with
Tafawa Balewa as Nigeria's first and only prime minister and Azikiwe as president, hopes and aspirations were at an all time high. And yes, whilst our politics did fragment along regional and ethnic lines, very early on after independence, we knew we had a great sense of responsibility to ourselves and our nation.
In Africa, they say a name can tell a lot about a person, and can immediately establish the circumstances of one's birth and the influences in one's life. Contrary to popular belief, Nigeria wasn't named after the River Niger. It was
Flora Shaw; the colonial officer's wife in 1898 joined together the words
'niger' meaning black, and the word
'area' to name Nigeria. At almost 150million today from a population of 35 million people at independence the weight of expectation from our name, Nigeria, as representatives of black people everywhere in the world, is still heavy. While we should celebrate our achievements thus far, we should also face square on the challenges that lie ahead.
Tafawa Balewa proclaimed that our country's 'great day' had arrived in his public declaration on 1 October, when he accepted constitutional instruments from the British colonial government. After that ‘great day’, how well have we done? Well the momentum of independence certainly propelled Nigeria to the world stage.
After we became a republic in 1963, nothing seemed impossible. Economically spurred by the oil boom, as sub-Saharan largest oil producer, and most populous country, we were blessed with a mandate for continental leadership. We championed Pan-Africanism, following Kwame Nkrumah's leading light. Our anti-colonial and anti-apartheid struggles were the hallmarks of our foreign policy for three decades. Nigeria has been at the forefront of the establishment of regional organisations, implementing the then-
Organisation of African Union’s (OAU) (now African Union (AU)), strategy for de-colonisation. We championed regional brotherhood, providing financial support to liberation movements in
Angola, in South Africa (ANC's anti-apartheid struggle) and Namibia's SWAPO. Under the leadership of
General Yakubu Gowon, we pioneered the formation of 15-member regional integration body, ECOWAS, in 1975. As a nation we have made phenomenal contributions to Africa's economic prosperity and political independence. As a country, we adopted highly principled stances against white minority rule in places like
South Africa and
Rhodesia (present day Zimbabwe). Actually, Nigeria for many years chaired the UN’s anti-apartheid committee.
Our strong belief in self, and in the ‘responsibility to protect’ doctrine, informed our African and global peacekeeping missions, which have been exemplary, and have in many instances, cost the country dear in financial and human resources. In West Africa's troubled spots of
Sierra Leone and Liberia we played leadership roles, helping to bring peace, so much so that till this day the head of Liberia's armed forces is a Nigerian. So was his predecessor. Some of
my generation may not even be aware that Nigerian troops served in the Allied cause of the
Second World War and have been contingents in peacekeeping missions, not just in Africa, but as far flung as
Bosnia, and Lebanon. Of course these achievements haven't been without their shortcomings, but my goal today is to celebrate what has been good, great and positive about our country. We've never been one-dimensional as a nation, and the ways in which we've found to celebrate our cultural and social diversity has throughout our history created remarkable achievements, by equally remarkable people.
Our artistic and literary talents are too numerous to mention. We've been at the forefront of Africa's literary tradition for decades. Africa’s first Nobel laureate in
Wole Soyinka, an Orange prize winner in
Chimamanda Adichie and the author of
Things Fall Apart; arguably Africa's greatest piece of post-colonial literature,
Chinua Achebe, who won a Man Booker Prize International Prize for Fiction (2007). We’ve also had several winners of the Cain Prize for African writing, not to mention
Ben Okri, Helen Oyeyemi, Adaobi Nwaubani, Segun Afolabi, Amos Tutuola, Elechi Amadi, Bola Agbaje etc.
CNN's fantastic piece earlier this week on new up and coming literary talent is another testament to our innate gift to tell moving stories about our history and culture and make that relevant to both to an Africa and global audience. Our musical artistes are world renowned. Africa's most famous tune,
Sweet Mother, often called Africa's anthem was written by
Prince Nico Mbarga a Nigerian-Cameroonian, who was born in Abakiliki in eastern Nigeria. The enigmatic
Fela Kuti, his fiery spirit and politically charged invention Afro-beat, were deemed worthy of a Broadway production, called FELA, now coming to London's National Theatre in November. Then there's
Sunny Ade, Victor Uwaifo, Bobby Benson and His Combo.
However modern Nigerian music has become today, it still hasn't lost the sense of cultural and African pride, from our Lagbaja's to our Nnekas and Asas, and yes, I cringe to say it, even our very own Tu face Idibia and D'banj. Nigerian music and Nigerian-inspired music are still trailblazers on the African continent today. How we've continually evolved, and innovated, always amaze me. Each time I go back home, there is always some new fad that's sprung up. Through all this we haven’t lost our pride. Africans often remark how Nigerian leaders are usually the only African leaders to don national attire on the world stage!
In the late 1980s my parents would often tell us amazing stories of the second
Festival of Black & African Arts and Culture of 1977 (Festac 77), which took place in Nigeria. I would listen in awe and amazement that Nigeria could have played host to what was acknowledged as one of the greatest gatherings of African and black culture, so much so that an entire Lagos suburb – Festac - is still named after that festival! Yes, it happened on Nigerian soil. Earlier this year, I went to see the art exhibition -
The Kingdom of Ife – at the British Museum, with a British colleague of mine and I remember the sense of overwhelming pride I felt at the time to be a Nigerian. From our highly-valued
Benin Bronze sculptures ancient to our sophisticated
Nok Terracotta. Many deemed so valuable by art historians that they continue to be the subject of repatriation tussles between western museums and Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments. During the British museum Ife exhibition an art critic writing in the UK telegraph paper went so far as to comment that
'West African sculptors reveal an empathy with the 'other’ that you only find in the art of highly advanced cultures'.... had an understanding of the human body that would not be seen in European sculpture until Donatello and Lorenzo Ghiberti more than a century later'.
I was born in
Ibadan, in Oyo state in south-western Nigeria, and so have always had strong affinity with the place, despite growing in Lagos.
The University of Ibadan, like Ahmadu Bello University, or University of Nigeria at Nsukka in eastern Nigeria, and the great OAU in Ife, are still all emblems of Nigeria’s early record as host to first class educational institutions. My mother would tell us time and time again about how she turned down a very attractive scholarship to study at
Baliol College in Oxford (I think) so she could study at Ibadan University instead. She told this story so many times with that same ‘things-have-since-changed’ air about her. It is quite true. The University of Ibadan in the 1970s was ranked the fifth best university in the British Commonwealth.
Nigerians are also innovators. The famous Nigerian scientist,
Philip Emeagwali first entered the limelight in 1989 when he won the prestigious
Gordon Bell Prize for his work with computers. He has submitted over 41 inventions to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and is still making waves in the IT industry today. It is that same spirit of innovation that birthed
Nollywood, the third largest film industry in the world, according to a UNESCO report. Who can forget creative minds like
Mohammed Abbah, the local teacher in Northern Nigeria, who earned his place in
Time magazine’s best inventions of 2001, with a simple refrigeration device that solved a wastage problem helped revolutionise the lives of rural people in the north. Both Abbah’s invention and Nollywood are just one of hundreds of examples of how Nigeria's do consume what they produce. These creations are marketable worldwide. Nollywood these days is a household brand, even here in the UK. Our sporting legends are also well known worldwide. Who can forget the Kanu-generation that inspired Nigeria to Olympic football victory in Atlanta in 1996? And there was
Hakeem Olajuwon in the NBA, of dream-team fame, and the
Onyalis and
Ezinwas that made up our very own Olympic dream teams.
But Nigerian achievement is not just rooted or anchored in the past. In the 21st we've tasted and seen glimpses of how political and economic reform can trigger change and accelerate economic growth, how committed and fearless leadership can help shift our sometimes non-chalant attitude towards corruption. We've seen how since the 1999 democratic transition, the determination of a few political leaders to create jobs for youth has instilled a greater sense of national pride. We've seen how brave individuals have practically laid down their lives in the war against counterfeit drugs in our country. We've been witness to how the judiciary has earned renewed respect and independence, insisting on the rule of law. This was reflected in a number of landmark decisions after the controversial 2007 elections. We’ve seen how a handful of reform-minded technocrats have helped break new grounds in policy, eventually brining
Paris club debt relief in 2005.
When you travel these days, compared to the 1990s when I was at school, the flights are packed with expatriate business travellers looking to do business in Nigeria. One often wonders if the headlines that Nigeria was such a difficult business landscape were true, why there is such a rush to invest here? Perhaps the explanation is everyone wants to keep the good news to themselves and keep the competition out.
I have always believed that if the earth, indeed, if Africa, had veins, Nigeria would be the blood that flows through it. If that blood was ever to be drained, the rest of the body would completely cease to function. It would just die. We should be proud of who we are and live up to our importance, strategic and cultural, to Africa and the world.
On a more personal level, what about this question of what it means to be Nigerian? What really is Nigerian identity? I'm sure ethnic affiliation and cultural identity come to mind;
Igbo, Yoruba, Efik, Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri, Ibibio, Ijaw, Igala, Idoma, Igbirra, Efik, Urhobo, Tiv, Edo, Fulfulde, Itsekiri, Andoni, Nupe etc. But I think it is much more that ethnic identity, it is about the spirit, the drive and indeed the constant ray of hope that trails every disappointment we experience in Nigeria or as Nigerians. Many of the experiences I had as an African in Africa, made me realize just how many Africans, have a silent, often unspoken admiration for Nigerians and Nigeria, despite all the criticism we hear and often attract. And sometimes being Nigerian can just as much be about the reaction we get from others. I lived and worked as an intern for the
International Crisi Group in
Dakar, Senegal in 2004. I would often be walking down the street in my local Dakar neighbour hood, to a shop, and a local would chat to me in the Senegalese language of Wollof, on the assumption that I was Senegalese, because I looked like them, (The Senegalese are naturally tall, as I am). But I would then respond in French to say, sorry I don't speak Wollof,
'Je suis Nigeriane' (I am Nigerian), at which point conversation would immediately turn to the marvels of Nollywood, and popularity of Nigerian music and movies in those parts. You sensed a hint of admiration, that they'd met a Nigerian, and quickly a small crowd of 3 or more would gather to give their take on Nigeria, and what they knew about us. It was almost as if they took pride in the fact that they knew about Nigeria.
Then there's the Nigerian spirit, and sheer gusto and ‘can-do’ attitude of our people. In his book,
The Education of a British Protected Child (it’s a great read by the way!)
Chinua Achebe recounts an experience he had on a bus in 1961 in the British Colony of
Northern Rhodesia (now present day Zambia). Achebe was asked by the driver of a bus in Northern Rhodesia, what he, Achebe, was doing sitting in the front of a bus (which then had segregated sitting based on race, pretty much like in America’s deep south), and the driver was amazed and asked Achebe where he was from to which he responded;
'Nigeria, if you must know, and by the way in Nigeria, we sit where we like in the bus'.
The Late Chief Justice of Nigeria,
Bola Ige, once said
'if you know how to package shit you can sell it in Nigeria'. Being Nigerian is also just about our ability to be, and to do. Although I recounted to you my Senegal story, what I hadn't mentioned were the other slightly more uncomfortable encounters I had in places like
Conakry, Guinea. On one occasion, when sitting in the back of a taxi, I started a conversation in French with the driver, and he figured, rightly, from my French accent that I wasn't local. When I told him I was Nigerian, he immediately launched into a tedious tirade about the dozens of Nigerian drug traffickers and peddlars operating in Conakry suburbs. So we really are a mixed bag. But the fact that we are talked about at all is indicative of the fact that we stand out.
During my preparation for this speech, I decided to compile a list of contradictions often used to describe Nigeria, or what it means to be Nigerian. And here are a few that so aptly capture the complexity and humour, and intensity of this great nation;
the incompatibility of behaviour and aspirational rhetoric - abysmally frustrating and unbelievably exciting - like a child, gifted, enormously talented, prodigiously endowed, and incredibly wayward; it simply overwhelms the senses - Nigeria has proved to be the most confounding, frustrating and at the same time engaging place I have ever visited - it is work in progress, though no one is ever sure if it is being assembled or torn apart - Achebe said if he was re-incarnated he would still chose to come back as a Nigerian, but then in the same breadth, he said, while dismissing Nigerian travel advertisements, that only a tourist with a kinky addiction to self-flagellation would pick Nigeria for a holiday. I'm sure you can think of many more such contradictions from your own personal experiences and encounters. But somehow, these still lend a certain mystery to the concept of ‘
Nigerianness’. Often times you hear people lament;
“Why can’t Nigeria just be a ‘normal country’ like everywhere else?” Well the response in my head would probably go something like this:
“How normal is 250 ethnic groups under one roof, with 300 or more distinct languages, in 36 states, and mostly relying on oil revenues from a small part of the country to keep the economy afloat. That’s just not normal!” I jest. Our diversity and complexity should never be an excuse. But what I think binds us all together as Nigerians in the diaspora, and at home, is our instinct for survival beyond the odds. It is much more than 'suffering and smiling' as Fela Kuti once put it, instead it's the sheer creativity and muscle that we dig deep to find when everything seems to be working against us. I recall the survey by the
UK’s New Scientist magazine in 2003 which found that Nigerians where thee happiest people in the world!
I’m sure most of you will re-call the widely talked about BBC trilogy
‘Welcome to Lagos’, aired earlier in the year. Despite the criticism leveled at the BBC, I dare to say, that documentary has somehow done us more good than all our recent our recent re-branding efforts put together (I hope I don’t get in trouble for saying that). Only a Pharisee would have failed to have been moved by the story of
Vocal Slender, the poor young man who lived and made his living honestly on a rubbish dump in a Lagos slum saving up every penny he made from selling recycled rubbish, to pursue his dreams of making it big in the music industry. He was by no means perfect, but was willing to learn from his mistakes. Within a year, Vocal Slender has already become one of the rising starts of Nigeria’s fast evolving music industry. What I saw portrayed in that BBC documentary was hard work, determination, humility, honesty, and the sheer grit of our people. However misleading the title may have been in terms of its portrayal of Lagos, at least this documentary wasn’t about the other darker side of Nigeria – the corruption, the fraud, 419, crime etc.
We have always been our own biggest critics, but let us at 50 years, in our journey as a nation, also be our biggest supporters and advocates, if for nothing at all, but for our resilience. Nigeria experienced over around 3 million deaths in the
Biafra civil war, the assassination of two sitting heads of state, six successful military coups and four failed ones. In total thirty years of army rule. In fact between 1914 and 1967 there were eight attempts at secession. Yet, we, a nation, once called a
'mere geographical expression' by the British and our own nationalists (Awolowo), have managed to stay together. We've almost defy the logic of 'no house divide against itself can stand'! Even in the hair-raising years of
Gen Sani Abacha’s stifling dictatorship, the fearlessness and courage of democracy activists and civil society groups was still apparent in places like
Ogoniland in Rivers state, home to the late MOSOP activist
Ken-Saro Wiwa.
In honour of and tribute to my
dear friend Komla Afeke Dumor 
