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?
The Ten Dollar Founding Document - "The Ten Duel Commandments" & Constitutional Battle
"The Ten Duel Commandments" is about codes of honor, about how men settle disputes. It's absurd (they're literally preparing to shoot each other over words) but that's the point, male ego dressed up as principle.
Nigeria's 1963 Constitution, then 1966 coup, then 1979 Constitution, then 1983 coup, then 1999 Constitution. Every "new" document was supposed to fix what the last one broke. But they were all written by men in rooms, based on honor codes and elite politics, excluding ordinary Nigerians.
The Washington Monument wasn't built by Alexander Hamilton, it was built by enslaved and free laborers, by the people Hamilton's financial system exploited. Who built Nigeria's independence infrastructure? The workers, the farmers, the women, whose stories we don't tell.
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The Ten Dollar Founding Document - "The Ten Duel Commandments" & Constitutional Battle