SUBMITTED
BY:
ANTEVOSSO
DANIEL
MATRIC
NO: U14/MCM/2007
THE
STUDY OF NIGERIAN PEOPLE AND CULTURE: A FIGHT AGAINST CULTURAL IMPERIALISM
The Nigerian culture is fading away
simply because everybody wants to be white’s equivalent.
The Nigerian culture is as old as 2000
years and what makes it stand is its diversity. There are more than 250
languages spoken in Nigeria,
but English is considered to be official language. However, it is noticeable
that more than about 50% of the population are able to speak English. Every
tribe has not its own languages which the prefer following as the standard mode
for communication among themselves. But the worst part of it is that not
everyone can speak their local dialect. Some of these are resulting from poor
cultural background from parents or guardians to children. Some parents who
think they are civilized dump their culture thereby resulting to a child
growing up without knowing anything about his or her culture let alone speaking
the dialect. Everybody wants to emulate the whites and be their equivalent by
being ignorant of our own culture due to what we watch on televisions, read in
books, music etc. in 100% of Nigerian girls, only 10% can portray what is
Africa but the rest 90% are always with weave-on, fixing Brazilian hairs and
all sort of thing that portrays foreignness.
Our culture is being dominated and
flushed by foreign cultures. If this continue this way, time shall come when
nobody will care about traditional culture let alone practicalising it. Let’s
learn to give a lot of value to our culture because it carries everything about
us. Nigeria embellishes a rich blend of traditionally African carbohydrates
such as yam, cassava as well as vegetable soup made from native green leaves
praised by our forefather for the strength it gives, bush meats from wild game
like antelope and giraffes are well known delicacy also popular fermented farm
products are used to make traditional liquor, palm wine. Nigerian foods are
spicy but since culture is said to be dynamic, many Nigerians do not like such
native food as they prefer to copy foreign food, way of life and dressing. Most
Nigerians music are known to be “folk” and popular music
known nationwide but nowadays we don’t emphasize anything cultural as our
musicians are also emulating foreign musicians to rap and hip-hop. We are
dropping our culture to white men’s culture we know about. Nigerian girls
sometimes ago are knows to dressing decently but with modernity girls dress
half naked emulating the foreign way of life.
We are proud to be black because we
are Africans, but these days how many ladies and gentlemen maintain their
complexion? Everybody live a life like that of the white. Our respective
cultures are gradually fading away. A Yoruba boy traditionally is supposed to
prostrate for an elderly person as a sign of respect, but this is hardly seen
this days because we are taking a white man’s way of life. Let’s live the best
for Africa because we are in Africa and Africa
is in us. The study of Nigerian people and culture is doing more than good
because these are some of the weapons we can use to fight against foreign
culture. Cultural display as it is done in respect of the study portrays
everything about everybody’s culture, as it is also put students in a
traditional and cultural atmosphere that everybody appears in his or people and
culture in Nigerian universities is a tool for fighting against cultural
imperialism as it keeps teaching students more about Nigerian culture, how it
started and how it came to existence, and also the importance of culture from
generation to generation.
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