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 Cabinet's Collapse - "Cabinet Battle #1" & "Cabinet Battle #2" - North vs South, East vs West
Hamilton vs. Jefferson battling over the financial system. Should the federal government assume state debts? Should banks exist? Who controls the money?
Replace this with: Nigeria, 1960-1966. Should regions have autonomy or should the center (Lagos/federal government) control resources? Should the North dominate or should the South? Should the East have equal voice?
Nigeria's "cabinet battles" weren't sung but they were just as dramatic:
The Western Region Crisis (1962)
The Census controversies (whose population = whose power in parliament)
The revenue allocation formulas (who gets the oil money?)
Just like Hamilton and Jefferson, Nigerian leaders were fighting over POWER dressed up as principle. The Biafran War (1967-1970) was the ultimate failure of the constitution, the ultimate proof that the "room where it happened" didn't actually make room for everyone.
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The Cabinet's Collapse - "Cabinet Battle #1" & "Cabinet Battle #2" - North vs South, East vs West
Hamilton vs. Jefferson battling over the financial system. Should the federal government assume state debts? Should banks exist? Who controls the money?
Replace this with: Nigeria, 1960-1966. Should regions have autonomy or should the center (Lagos/federal government) control resources? Should the North dominate or should the South? Should the East have equal voice?
Nigeria's "cabinet battles" weren't sung but they were just as dramatic:
Just like Hamilton and Jefferson, Nigerian leaders were fighting over POWER dressed up as principle. The Biafran War (1967-1970) was the ultimate failure of the constitution, the ultimate proof that the "room where it happened" didn't actually make room for everyone.