CULTURE, INTERGRATION, AND AFRICAN RENAISSANCE

Introduction

We may all accept the label of Nigeria as the “Giant of Africa” in several respects.  Its geographical area is equal to the combined sizes of Belgium, France, and the United Kingdom, or the combined sizes of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi; its human population of about 90 million makes every fourth African a Nigerian; it has vast material resources with a highly educated and developed human capital, and it is one of the most, if not the most, culturally diverse and ethnically pluralistic nations in Africa.  Each of it’s presently identified 374 ethnic groups (otite 1990) is defined by a system of exclusive language and cultural symbols.  “symbols are objects, acts, concepts, or linguistic formations that stand ambiguously for a multiplicity of disparate meanings, evoke sentiments and emotions and impel men to action” (cohen 1974 : ix) . “Symbols are shared and collective, and are often highly charged.  They constitute viable resources in the struggle over scarce political and economical rewards in state systems” (otite 1990: 19) .

On the other hand, the hundreds and more definitions of culture as a way of life bear many common features derived from Tyler’s original definition which states that “culture… is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (187:1) .  Such conceptual insights highlight the problem of discussing African cultures, even as an overview, or as regarding contemporary Africa as an emerging culture of cultures.

Nigeria’s ultimate Oneness

As a people and as a territory, the argument which supports the artificiality of Nigerian boundaries is limited, despite chief Wallow’s assertion that Nigeria is “a mere geographical expression”(1947:47), a multi-national society which is not yet a nation. (1968: 237-239).

It is quite possible to argue that prior to their their classification into three main language families (Williamson 1971), a language being an important ethnic group marker and a powerful means of transmitting a distinct cultural heritage, the many ancient predecessors of contemporary Nigerians belong to one society with one culture in an ultimate past .  I have argued this point elsewhere stating that “although Nigeria formally became one entity in 1914, its artificiality is not clear”.  For instance, Hambly (1935: 390-480) refers to a substratum of Negro culture, particularly in the southern parts of Nigeria, which is indicative of some apparent degree of socio-cultural homogeneity among a large section of Nigerian Society.  Also, owing to a long and complicated migratory and settlement History, as well as admixture and overlapping in social relationships, Nigeria can hardly be successfully divided into neat somatic and cultural areas.  Arikpo referred to this Hambly-type argument when he stated that “long socio-cultural contacts between early racial immigrants in Nigeria suggests the conclusion that Nigeria is not an accident… (and) not an artificial creation” (Arikpo 1957:32).

We may observe further that Nigeria’s three language-families or socio-cultural units evolve over centuries of diverse historical experiences in different geographical regions into the more recent and complex heterogeneity of (indigenous) nations and cultures”  (ottie 1993: 23), Hodgkin (1960) and coleman (1958) noted that various kinds of links existed between the people and states located in the geographical region of what is now Nigeria, and compelling forces inclined sections of them to develop economic and relgio-cultural relationships with social groups outside the West African region and, in some cases, outside Africa.

Two observations may be made in respect of the preceding paragraphs.  First, Nigeria’s contemporary ethno-cultural pluralism is relatively recent.  This perspective promotes the view of a high degree of ultimate cultural homo-geneity among Nigerians thousands of years ago.  Second, there are various linguistic correspondences and shared cultural traits and symbols amongst Nigeria’s 90 million people and 374 ethnic groups.  We will now highlight a few aspects of these commonly shared cultural traits.
The culture of Respect

This cultural trait is mostly associated with the demands of indigenous political organization, as well as the structure and function of the family.  Nigerian cultures enjoin respect for, and obedience to, constituted authority and to elders and parents.

Three main types of socio-political organizations are found in Nigeria.  The first, which focuses power and authority on a central institution and it’s incumbent or chief functionary, such as the king (Obong, Ovie, Olu, Oba, Emir, Shuhu ect.) , requires that people uphold the position and roles of key actors.  They are enjoined to promote order, peace and harmonious coexistence in the polities concerned.  People play their part a loyal citizens or subjects and accept rewards or punishment, that is positive and negative sanctions, determined by constituted authority at any level, including those of sectional chiefs in the society. Examples are the Bini, Hausa, Itsekiri, Kanuri, Urhobo, and Yoruba.

The second type consists of those groups of people who though know themselves as members of the same ethnic group mainly because they share the same culture and speak the same language, nevertheless have no central institution or king.  Instead they traditionally recognize heads of “clans” villages or descent groups, and the constituted maximal authority.  Examples are the Tiv and many of the Igbo peoples.  The third group consists of moving or non-sedentary social organizations, such as those of the migrating Fulani, who take their animal stock, namely animal sheep and goats to graze.  Here the constituted authority is often the household head, with less concern for political matters and more for economic welfare and prosperity and group defense.  His decisions, sometimes after consultation with his adult sons and kinsmen are final and they are respected.

In all the political organizations, families constitute the key building blocks of  the societies.  In most cases in Nigeria, the societies are patrilineal, that is descent is reckoned through the male line.  Men are respected and obeyed as heads of families.  Children are brought up or socialized with this context of respect, and they obey your parents, within-family elders, senior kinsmen in the nuclear and extended families.

Tyrants and dictators are deviant authorities and there are practical, constitutional, and symbolic ways of demonstrating in the polities that such rulers are not wanted.  This point also implies that the people are not passive respectful followers, they take part in governance with democratic features, and abide by the decisions of their rulers.  The indigenous political structure and family organization have mechanisms for controlling recalcitrance and tendencies towards disintegration and criminal acts.  The phenomenon of respect for the continued existence of micro and macro socio-political organizations and family arrangements are central to cultures in Nigeria.

The culture of Work

Nigerian indigenous economies operate to sustain individuals, their rulers and constituted authority.  These economies are generally rural-based.  In any case, every adult male or female, married or unmarried, is expected to participate in the local economy to sustain himself/herself and his/her family.  Land is generally available, and where it is short, rural migrants find resources in host societies where they use their indigenous technologies to exploit well known and familiar economic niches.

Such indigenous economies based on farming and oil palm production, for instance, require the participation of everyone in the household – men, women, adults, and children.  Household heads and married men are especially expected to be able to provide for their family members who themselves are expected to engage in one or the other item of the economy. Hunting, fishing, and pastoral economy which require the key role of men as heads or as adult family members, also require women and children to engage in complementary economic activities such as sales of produce, farm work, milking ect, and preparing meals for their male members returning home after their hazardous and strenuous economic activities.

Many rural based economies demand that everyone be employed.  Everyone is socialized to feed himself, wife or wives, and his children.  In other forms of economies, for example trade-based ones, women may do more than men to contribute to the family daily bread.  In all, no adult is expected to sit idle at home while others work.  In some of Nigerian cultures, individuals and categories of people contribute their quota, for example, tributes and services to maintain political and religious functionaries.

They are hardly any beggars, begging is generally regarded as despicable, and shameful to the family.  Not even the very elderly or the sick and insane people are allowed to beg for their living in the locality in many of the cultures.  Such people are cared for or hidden away from the public while receiving medical treatment.  Some societies however allow begging, for example among the Islamic cultures of the northern parts of the country.
Southern Nigerian Cultures generally look down on the practice of begging as an economic means of survival.  The culture of participation in work and the local economy is entrenched as a strategy of individual, family, and group survival.

The cultures of Moral Life

Many Nigerian, like many African cultures, encourage a high moral tone in their lives.  The cultural trait of morality in economic, political, and social life is overwhelming.  Indeed morality is cultivated as the main context for other aspects of life, for example reciprocity and various kinds economic exchanges. Indigenous religious structure involving the High God with different named in different societies, provide a structured pool of supernatural policemen who guide, control, and sanction human behavior.  The atmosphere is generally believed to be spiritualized, and morality provides life and content for peoples conscience.  Religion with it’s practices as a belief system, enjoins respect for human life, the aged, and for the ancestors.  It also enjoins care for the sick, the infirm, and for religious officers such as chief priests and pastors in the different religious organizations.  Punishment and reward, health and ill-health, are often interpreted as the reactions of the overseeing supernatural beings, and as consequences of the upkeep or disregard for morality.   Worship, sacrifices, and propitiations are undertaken to promote good relationship with the supernatural beings and uphold individual and group moral well being.

It is important to remind ourselves that many of the indigenous religions are localized.  They have influence over their own local practitioners.  For example ancestor worship helps to control the moral life of members of the decent group concerned.  So also is a local earth or fertility god which requires certain rights, observances, and moral behavior, for the success of prayers and petitions.

The Culture Of Communication And Harmony

We have already noted that language is a chief instrument of communication and transmission of culture.  But the culture of communication is also important in interpersonal and inter-group relations.  It is a means of reconciling individuals to a society and promoting harmony amongst it’s various sections. Group meeting and assemblies require communication and harmony in order to succeed.  One of the most important and regular occasions for re-enacting group harmony is festival.  Festivals are usually annual, others take longer periods, as occasions for bringing many relatives, citizens and strangers together.

Religious services are often organized to “purify” peoples’ mind about their neighbors and bring harmony to the group.  Festivals such as the engungu and the new yam festival are convivial events. In some societies, certain festivals provide ritual occasions for releasing tension.  For example, only certain of such occasions are allowed for people to engage in immoral talks and dances without being vicious!  Strain, stress, and tension can also be reduced through talking to people on festive and other occasions.  In this sense, talking is medicinal and even shouting may be regarded as therapeutic.  Talking and the freedom to do so in the Nigerian and African societies are medicinal occasions and useful devices for  reducing or preventing conscience-based and tension-induced illnesses.  Here, talking, free communication, thinking and illness form different parts of one health promoting process.  The culture of talking and communication is one important means of “blowing out” mental overloads and of tranquilizing overcharged nerves.  Talking, organized festivals, and societal harmony are therefore un-celebrated cultural instruments for achieving and maintaining individual and group well being and sanity.

The Culture Of Mental Creativity and Symbolic Life

Many Nigerians have talents for creativity, demonstrated through arts, sculpture, carvings and handicrafts ect.  Specialists develop in these areas.  Apart from depicting aspects of the aesthetic life of Africans, there products import the symbolism of African  lifestyles,  They summarize aspects of ancient civilizations, the social and political structures, the difference involved in the relationships between rulers and subjects, and between men, women and children. African art-history and artistic heritage for example through the NOK and Terracottas, as well as the Benin, Ife and Igbo-Ukwu bronzes and various figurine works of different African peoples are well known deposits in famous museums throughout the world. These have various ages/dates.  For example Igbo-Ukwu bronze pots (about ninth century AD), Ife large copper masks, bronze statues of kings and chiefs (about 12th -15th century AD), Owo terracotta sculptures (about 15th century AD), benin bronze plagues, heads, and horseman (about 16th century AD), and Igala wooden helmet for royal ancestry cult (about 20th century AD).  Many of the work symbolize various various virtues, values, life principles, socisl relationships, order and discipline in the military, political, religious, economic, and ritual life of Africans.  They symbolize the lifestyle and culture of the people.
The Culture of Reflection

Despite their central concern with economic survival, many Africans, especially the elderly and members of the ruling class and of the royal lineage under restful conditions, reflect on the state of their society, both actual and ideal.  They study and ruminate over the principles of life, natural phenomena, moral tone of society, abuses on the social system, the roles and short-comings of rulers, the government and governance, relationships with the supernatural world and with one another, and the problems of ultimate social reality and the nature of the “good society”.  These areas of philosophical life are generally parts social thought and wisdom statements and proverbs.  They are used as means of telling people about expected life-style, duties of rulers, and philosophy of life, and as satives on immorality and the misbehavior of key actors in society.
Culture of Communalism

Africans are not only inclined to live with one another in societies as other human beings do, but they are also communalistic.  Through their socialization in the family and age-grade and other societal arrangements, they are brought up to be interdependent, mutually helpful, and to be brotherly and altruistic.  They are not socialized to be individualistic.  They are group and community oriented, and their satisfaction and contentment in life are derived from that situation.  Africans are well known for their extreme hospitality to visitors and strangers and their cultures encourage them to rely on one another during life crisis, economic failures, and natural hazards.

Nigeria – An emerging culture of Cultures

From the preceding paragraphs, it is clear that although Nigeria is culturally heterogeneous, certain common principles of life underlie their ways of living.  Although these common traits were there before Nigeria was created as a new state in 1914, they have become more visible and encouraged and visible since then, through common re-socialization as citizens under the same governmental structure and political system.

Similarly, two major universalistic religions – Christianity and Islam- have made important inroads with critical changes in the values and lifestyles of sections of the Nigerian Society.  Islam and, to a lesser extent, Christianity, have become more than mere belief systems; they have introduced new ways of life adopted by many Nigerians, for example in the matters of content of family organization, prayers and worship, beliefs and values, ect.  These and other cultural traits such as diet, dress, language and thinking patterns, songs and dances ect. From Europe and America through contacts, video films and cassettes, have had profound effect on the culture of Nigerians.  These “Uniformalising” actors in addition to the receiving cultures have tended to produce a curious cultural medley for many Nigerians.

Although each ethno-cultural group contains it’s identifying and cultural way of life, values, dress forms, food habits, child rearing practices and marriage institutions, ect., many Nigerians have traveled extensively , lived amongst other Nigerians, and share the culture of one another.  The Yoruba agbada and the Hausa babanriga, as well as Urhobo and Itsekiri ‘george’ wrapper and blouse for women, are shared by many Nigerians.  In addition to this pool of dress forms, Nigerians alike enjoy such dishes as eba, pounded yam, amala akpu, usi, edikang-ikong, ukodo, and pepper soup ect. Not minding the ethno-cultural origins of such foods.  Similarly music, drumming and dancing of different ethnic groups are appreciated and enjoyed by Nigerians along with indigenous music which has been adopted to ‘pop’ disco, and rap music from different countries.

Conclusion

The content of the Nigerian emerging culture is very eclectic indeed, and no one can give any definitive statement about the future of this development.  As I pointed out elsewhere, in spite of the homogenizing development, ethnic identities and ethnicity will persist at least to the foreseeable future as the different people organize and mobilize their exclusive cultural symbols as powerful means of gaining access to the nation’s political and economic resources.  (otite 1993:25). Thus, although there is an emerging national culture, it’s development is stunted by peoples desire to maintain ethno-cultural diversities for political and economic purposes in a situation of the competition for the scarce national resources.

Notwithstanding this socio-cultural and ethno-regional competition for regional resources, the various cultural traits discussed in this paper have strong potential for accelerating national, potential in two main ways.  Firstly, their emphasis on peace and harmony provides strong grounds for socio-political stability requires for local and foreign economic investments for national development.  The problem here consists in how to successfully subject party as well as military politics to the compulsion of this cultural context.  Secondly, the socio-cultural demands on people to work not only for their living but also for the welfare of their families, dependants and their communities, can be converted to national asset as part of human capital, and people motivated to work in this regard through the application of various strategies including positive and negative sanctions.  One of the hurdles here is how to displace and replace the concept of “government work” with “village or town work”, that is to widen the scale of cultural commitment to work to embrace the national level.

The most worrying problem regarding this culture of work and development in contemporary Nigeria is the overgrown and still growing subversive culture of corruption.  The problem is even more compounding and depressing when we realize that corruption is a central item in the cultural heritage which we are unwittingly passing on to the next generation of Nigerians.  Many Nigerians born after 1970, for instance, with the possible exception of a few lucky ones brought up in disciplined families, hardly know anything else but the acquisition of wealth for selfish ends and for vanity.

They are growing up learning and hearing about how to subvert morality and culture-bound ways of achieving wealth and popularity.  They are learning how two or three people can manipulate the political and economic subsystems, privities, national wealth and resources, and become richer than the state itself.  They are learning how to dupe others, sometimes including their parents and kinsmen, in contra-position to the cultural traits of altruism, brotherliness, morality and mutual dependence.  Although each of the civilian and military governments since 1960 vowed in it’s own time to eradicate corruption and indiscipline, the problems have remained intractable.  This situation threatens our ability to keep our cultural traits together for our next generation.

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