WHAT IS THE NIGERIAN CULTURE: Nigerian culture is as multi-ethnic as the people in Nigeria. The people of Nigeria still cherish their traditional languages, music, dance, and literature, Nigeria comprises of three large ethnic groups, which are Yoruba, Hausa-Fulani, and Igbo. However, there are other ethnic groups as well. The culture in Nigeria is most positively multi-ethnic which gives a lot of value to different types of arts, which primarily include ivory carving, grass weaving, wood carving, leather, and calabash. Pottery, painting, cloth weaving and glass, and metal works. The role that culture plays in society is as vast as they are complex. For example, it can be argued that the health of a society depends on its culture, as this determines what people eat, how they prepare their food and how they treat themselves. Culture also determines how people relate to their environment and shape how they commune with their ancestors and their gods. Culture is not only a means of communication between people, but it helps, through shared identities, to create a feeling of belonging and togetherness among people in the society. It is also through a culture that the entire knowledge-base of a people is transmitted from generation to generation.

It is often forgotten that traditional African societies were among the few in the world that created harmonious environments that had no standing armies, police or prisons yet where the security of lives and properties were to a large extent guaranteed.

Over time, our Nigerian indigenous languages seem to go into extinction. English language has swept over our local languages, this is very clear in our Nigerian homes were parents converse to their wards in English language phasing off our local languages.

Similarly, 95% of schools in Nigeria teach in the English language and when they are taught with it, of course, less should not be expected from the students because every speech made around them is in the English language. Nigerian local languages are barely taught in schools. In fact, some schools’ management has laws in place to punish any student caught conversing in his/her local dialect.

In addition to the aforementioned, Nigerian parents prefer bearing their kids English names to some of our local names like Seun, Chima, Edidiong, Aishat, etc. pertinent things that would help promote our culture (material/immaterial) are centered on English.

However, our good morals and virtues are being relegated as well. Good morals like a good sense of dressing, respectful manner of speech, honesty and hard work. With the advent of western education, obscene dressing has now become a part of us which our forefathers greatly opposed. Also, materialism has overshadowed honesty and hard work which Nigerians were known for.

Consequently, one of our good morals was the respect Nigerian youth’s accord to their elderly ones. Before now, some parts of Nigeria, the Yoruba’s to be precise prostrate to greet their elderly ones. These days, that is gradually becoming a fairy tale as some youths find it difficult to greet and even when they try, respect will be lacking in it.

Even our African mode of marriage is gradually phasing off with time, all these and more are the disadvantages of western education on our Nigerian cultural background.

Let us take a look at some areas where we can benefit directly by integrating our culture to our educational system.

Note; The sited areas are being drawn from an article Written by FEMI AKOMOLAFE

FOOD: Many professionals in the health sector have had occasions to bemoan the dreadful increase in hitherto relatively unknown crippling diseases that is now overwhelming our health service. They often cite diabetes, heart problems, obesity and stroke which are assuming epidemic proportions. These professionals also pointed out that the increases are directly linked to our changing eating habits. According to these experts, our people are committing what they term ‘Nutricide,’ (Suicide through nutrition). Sadly no one is taking them seriously; there are no policies in place to stem the tide.

It is said that we are what we eat. And it ought to be a great concern to us that we spend our scarce resources to import foreign eating habits, which tend to give us crippling diseases, we then look for more scarce money to import foreign pharmaceutical products to treat these diseases.  Our president has also had occasion to complain about the huge amount we spend on rice import. The restaurants that used to serve our traditional foods are fast disappearing, and they are being replaced by ‘Fast Food’ joints, which continue to serve fatty dishes with little or no nutritional value whatever.

It is often argued that we live in a globalized world and we have to follow “WTO” and other international treaties, but this is an erroneous and disingenuous argument. What is needed is the policy to directly link us back to producing and consuming the traditional food our bodies are evolved to process. It does not mean that we say goodbye to eating imported foods, but that these should only serve to complement our indigenous foods. We should remember that in years back, every school from primary to secondary, maintained farms and gardens. The first hours of every morning were devoted to tending the farms and students got grades for their efforts. It is not too late to revive this.

Rather than our university students sitting down in classrooms gobbling down theory upon theory, our syllabus and curriculum should be restructured to make practical work form the biggest percentage of their grades. Every human being has to eat, it makes eminent sense therefore for everyone to have a basic knowledge of agriculture. There should be a policy formulated to make agriculture, once again, become the bedrock of our economy and not only in the production of cash crops but in the foodstuffs that we need for our survival.

FASHION: It is sad that our dear country is never mentioned wherever/whenever the fashion of Haute couture is discussed, yet our fashion-designers are among the most creative in the world. We just have to look at the gorgeous designs our women folks wear, and the types of head-gear they tie on their heads to recognize the incredible amount of untapped creative energies abounding around us. Their creativity is also well evidenced in the incredible array of weaving\plaiting styles our womenfolk sprout on their heads. Most of the creators of this tasteful fashion designs are self-taught or are those taught by a seamstress who is, in turn, mostly self-taught. They function outside all our formal institutions and so are unrecognized. The country can benefit immensely by formulating a cultural policy that firmly puts Nigeria’s fashion at the center of official policy. We need to make conscious efforts to actively promote our own and all that is needed is to formulate the proper policy framework. In the very shortest time, we shall start to reap bountiful fruits. The rest of the world is bound to recognize and respect us when they see that we take pride in who we are and that we take pride in our own products. We got our independence more than half a century ago, so it makes little sense for our officials to continue to dress like colonial overlords.

LITERATURE OR ORATURE: For those so lucky enough to have been born more than three decades ago, one of the best things to happen to them was the sheer corpus of stories we learned from our grandparents and elders in our villages. Some of our writers have tried their best to chronicle some of these stories in their books, but the largest bodies of these stories remain unknown, especially to our children who, sadly, continue to be fed on foreign culture disseminated by television and the Internet.

Like most things, we have simply abandoned this old practice in the name of modernity. It is not too late to formulate policies to bring this noble tradition of story-telling back to our lives.

Most of our parents and elders are just sitting down at home the whole day with little or nothing to occupy their time. They will also be glad to see that we stop neglecting them and see them as useful and relevant part of our new society. We should put policies in place where we call upon our elders to become active participants in imparting their vast knowledge to us and also to our children. We can set two days in a week whereby old people will go to the schools in their area to teach traditional things like herbal medicine, singing, dancing, story-telling, agriculture, cooking, traditional healing methods, etc. We can learn from other societies that have successfully brought their tradition into the computer age by using ICT tools to create indigenous games based on local stories. Our children could be stimulated to improve their ICT skills by transforming our Tortoise’s stories into computer games which they can play instead of the violent Hollywood stuff that imparts to them zero moral values. Our traditional sports could also be transformed into computer games. In this regard, I will advise the government should focus on a public figure known as Tunde Kelani a veteran who can tell old stories in an educative manner thereby making it appealing to the younger generation

ART: Art is another very important area that remains largely disconnected from official state policy. Yet, all around us, we see ordinary Nigerian creating impressive works of art. Most of the artists are self-taught with absolutely no formal education and with absolutely no support or recognition from the state. Again sadly, these men and women, boys and girls remain largely unnoticed by our policy-makers. Only the tourists pay them the scantiest attention. Of course, our students continue to be thought all the theories of art with very little attention paid to the practical side of things. What is needed is needed here is to directly link this informally-educated roadside education to the schools where they can impact their practical knowledge and experience to complement the theoretical side of things.

It is time to have a policy that recognizes art and try to directly help artists. In the Netherlands, for example, a certain percentage of the budget of building a state’s office is devoted to purchasing artworks from Dutch artists. The Ministry of Culture can start a small loan scheme to help upcoming artists who will be gainfully employed, stopped being burdens on parents’ societies, pay taxes, help their families and create works that could sell to earn foreign exchange for the nation. These efforts taken together will also contribute very positively as the country will benefit immensely from the creative energies that would be released by this combination.

MUSIC: Sadly, traditional Nigeria music is dying. That’s the only conclusion one can draw despite all the glamorous razzmatazz awards that are being doled out yearly. The older generations of musicians are passing away and the new ones refuse to learn skills that will perpetuate the rich musical heritage of the nation. Our youth are contended to call themselves musicians as long as they can use computers to generate beats. It is easy to blame globalization but the failure to develop and consciously promote a coherent Cultural Policy is also partly to blame. Why, for example, are there no regulations governing the percentage of indigenous content in our media? Many of our radio stations play foreign music the whole day because they are not obliged to have local content. We cannot afford not to make a conscious effort to promote our own thing and expect to reap something in return. We are happily promoting tourism, yet we are busily promoting foreign ways of life – eating, singing, dancing, etc.

There also should be a policy in place whereby our media should also set aside a percentage of their air-time to allow our elders to teach some of these things.

HEALTH: It is sad that we seem to have forgotten the old wise saying that “Health is wealth.” Not only were our parents sensible enough to eat wholesome food from their surroundings, they also pay particular attention to the type of medicine they take. That is the reason why we today have Octogenarians in our villages that are still sprightly but yet have never seen the inside of a hospital.

Sadly, the herbal knowledge of our parents remains untapped whilst the whole nation is going gaga over Chinese medicine. The Chinese take great pride in their indigenous herbal knowledge; they formulated policies to link these into their school curriculum. The result is that they are leading the world in traditional medicinal products. Our parents are dying away slowly and the experiences they have accumulated over the eons are perishing with them. We should try and collect as much of this knowledge before it is too late. We should have a policy whereby our old parents should be invited to impart their knowledge at our school of medicine. They could work in tandem with the Western-trained medical specialists to formulate new methods of medical treatment that are uniquely Nigerian.

Reference Sahara Reporter Femi Akomolafe