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Though many Nigerians will remember COJA, the 2003 edition of the All African Games, for the cases of mismanagement that ushered in and bade farewell to the games, the event is fresh on my mind for two reasons: firstly, the perfectly done lighting of the games’ torch by a Sango priest. Secondly, the Nigeria Police band could not play the Madagascar national anthem after one of that country’s athletes was decorated with a gold medal. There was a prolonged silence of over three minutes before, out of the blues, a Madagascan in the audience went up to the announcer, collected the public address system and started singing his country’s national anthem.
While screening prospective Nigerian diplomats, the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs discovered that one of the ambassadors designate, Ijeoma Bristol, could not sing the national anthem. Though many of us Nigerians see this as a strong reason to reject Mrs Bristol’s nomination, the leadership of the upper legislative chamber says she will learn about Nigeria in the course of her job.
I am not a student of international relations and diplomacy but the three fundamental national symbols we learnt in social studies way back in primary school are: the national anthem, the national pledge and our coat of arms. None of these has changed in over two decades. Sending such a person as Mrs Bristol to represent a country she knows little or nothing about is like sending an athlete who does not know the rules of the game to represent his country in a relay. He will definitely not know how to change baton with his teammates.
If Mrs. Bristol is indeed a career diplomat and the next in line for the position as some members of the Senate claimed, what will she be telling the world about Nigeria when she is also learning about the country on the job? This explains why the executive arm of government will still have to spend taxpayers’ money to sell Nigeria to countries where we have diplomatic missions. If we have a good number of our diplomats scattered all over the world who do not understand Nigeria, do you still blame investors for not coming to Nigeria even after the rebranding campaign?
The fact that the Senate failed to see anything wrong with a Nigerian diplomat’s inability to sing our country’s national anthem is a confirmation that, to them, the anthem is just like any other song and that it does not matter. A patriotic citizen who does not know his national anthem is akin to a geography student who does not know the four major cardinal points. In some countries, the national anthem is referred to as a hymn. It is glaring that the ‘you are on your own’ syndrome created in the minds of Nigerians as a result of bad governance has made them not to attach any importance to such symbols meant to instil patriotism in us. Just take time to look into the cars of Nigerians and you will see flags of different countries on their dash boards, including flags of even countries like Somalia. Only a handful of cars have Nigerian flags.
To encourage patriotism in Nigerians is to make life worth living for them such that they will out of their own volition answer the clarion call as demanded by the first line of the anthem. In England, their national anthem is called, ‘God Save the Queen’; in the USA, it is the ‘Star Spangled Banner’; it is the same story for other serious countries of the world. What is the name of the Nigerian national anthem? How do you expect people to respect a nameless man? Urgent action must be taken to bring back the lost respect for the national anthem, the national flag and other symbols of nationalism, before our diplomats start flying flags with horizontal greens on the trunk of their cars (after all, it will still be green white green).
For starters, the government must ensure that every person in public office can recite the national anthem. It is disheartening to know that if one is to randomly pick 20 Nigerians in a busy street in any part of the country, probably only about two will be able to recite the anthem without flaws. Now that we are in the era of political debates, I suggest that the moderators of such debates should start by asking the country’s presidential candidates in the April elections to sing the national anthem. We might be shocked by what we will hear.