On the Formation of the Sustainable National Identity We Can Call Nigerian (1)

It is a well-done job. Well composed and well presented. How I wish those who read your note will do justice to it by getting deep into the epistemological bases of your assumptions in order to give their comments the same depth you gave... to your note. I exceptionally liked Waziri's comment for its depth.

I totally agree with you in your presentation of the Nigerian problem of lack of national identity and that there is a need for one if Nigeria has to forge ahead. It is equally a time-bomb that many young Nigerians did not realize the venom in promoting sectionalism in whatever form; regionalism or religious. But I do have a problem with your presentation of the solution. You seem to take the concept of good and bad for granted and declare them universal. In the version of the national identity you may want to be promoted, you are likely to buy the ideas of Waziri of the domination of one cultural identity on the rest and which I don't find politically moral. It sounds to me an oversimplification of the theories of ideological culture and the way it works. Not even in the Cultural Relativism theory, which is the most flexible of all will the concept of good and bad mean the same to different cultures. Okay, you submitted that there are good and bad people in all Nigerian tribes, why the good people fail to come together and form a single national identity for 50 years now. To me, Sardauna is good and even a legend. The same applies to Awolowo in the sight of somebody who came from Ogbomoso.

No doubt that Waziri proved his point by citing examples from the currently developed polities. But I neither find them a moral justification for domination nor did I find them concrete. Let us take the only surviving empire of the 21st century USA for example. WASP (which means White of Anglo-Saxon Origin and Protestant Christian) has three major problems for which we cannot use it as an evidence. 1. It has never for once been declared official in the American society but always as a topic of discussion among intellectuals. 2. It is always talking about the potentiality of becoming American president, not an American citizen. 3. The jinx of WASP is broken by Obama's government being of African origin.

The truth of the matter is that promoting one culture at the expense of another can solve the problem only temporarily. Evidence of this is what is going on currently in Sudan. With more than 250 tribes most of whom were Arabized with differing degrees, they continued to live peacefully until the Arabization process was made official with the advent of Inqaz government starting from 1989. Now they are most likely to go for secession in next few months. That is after the loss of millions of lives properties. Talking from what I experienced during my stay in Sudan, the Muslim north of Sudan is more likely to secede again in the few years to come and which is a direct result of single culture domination. It is likely to give us the first example of the Muslim society breaking into counties for cultural reasons in the 21st century.

My submission is that we can develop a neutral national identity benefitting from the experience of all parts of Nigeria in order to have something we can call Nigerian.