Culture is what makes nations strong. Culture is not fashion or music and dancing. Culture consists in the values that we hold dear and that translate into the way we relate with one another and manage our affairs.
National culture is the blood that flows in the veins of national institutions to lead to sustained national development. It determines how people get to national institutions and how they conduct themselves in those institutions to conceive, nurture, protect and sustain national aspirations. A strong culture means that there are perceptible national aspirations that undergird the relationship between the leaders and the people and amongst the people. It also means that the nations looks outwards to aim at providing for its people a better quality of life than is found in other nations.
Unfortunately, we have a wrong idea of culture in this country. We do not see the everyday records of our national life as defining our national culture. We think of culture only in the terms of anthropology and as an expression of ethnicity. Culture for us is the point of difference between one Nigerian and another. Cultural competition is therefore internal with the effect of provoking the division of the country along ethnic and religious lines.
However, the world outside is blind to the internal cultural stratification of which we are so proud. It sees all of us only as Nigerians. While we spend our time profiling devious conduct according to the ethnicity of the perpetrator, the world sees only a Nigerian.
We would do better to concentrate on building a strong national culture that will impact every Nigerian irrespective of ethnicity or religion to put up his best act at all times and in every station of life to provide the best quality of life that we can for ourselves, which ought to be our aspiration.
Published by Chuks Nwachuku
