The Setup - "Alexander Hamilton" & The Question of Narrative Power
Hamilton opens with a question that haunts all national origin stories: "How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence impoverished get up and climb?"
This is Lin-Manuel Miranda asking: WHO GETS TO BE REMEMBERED? Who gets their story told? Whose narrative survives?
Nigeria's founding story has the same problem. We celebrate Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello, and Kwame Nkrumah (the "Big Four"), but how many know about Herbert Macaulay? Samuel Ajayi Crowther? Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti fighting for women's rights while the "official" founding fathers got the credit?
In "Alexander Hamilton," we meet a young immigrant with ambition. In Nigeria's founding, we meet men shaped by colonialism, educated abroad, returning to fight for independence. But like Hamilton, the question persists: who decided these men were the heroes?
Building a Financial System - "Wait For It" & Patience in Nation-Building
"Wait For It" is about patience, timing, and the long game. It's also Thomas Jefferson's song and Jefferson, like many founding fathers, enslaved people while writing about liberty.
This is Nigeria's founding fathers' contradiction too. They fought imperialism but often preserved hierarchical, patriarchal systems. They promised democracy but built patronage networks. Azikiwe would become President. Awolowo would lose elections and spend years consolidating power in the West. Bello would maintain Northern dominance through the 1960s and beyond.
"Wait For It" asks: what are you willing to accept to get power? Jefferson accepted slavery. Nigeria's founders accepted that women would be marginalized. They "waited" knowing that patience would bring their turn at leadership.
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Building a Financial System - "Wait For It" & Patience in Nation-Building