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 Unsung Heroes - The Ensemble & "What Comes Next?"
Hamilton has an ensemble, the revolutionaries, the soldiers, the common people who fought and died. They sing the big numbers, they carry the energy. But we don't know their names. We don't know their stories. They're the chorus.
Nigeria had millions of people who fought colonialism: farmers paying taxes, women marching, workers organizing, students protesting. Their names aren't in our founding documents. Their stories aren't in our national mythology.
"What Comes Next?" at the end asks: Hamilton's gone, now what? It's an unsettling question because we don't have a clear answer. The system continues. Power transfers. But does it transform?
Nigeria asks the same question every few years. The founders are gone (most passed away by the 1990s-2000s). Now what? Do we build on their legacy or do we finally acknowledge their limitations and create something new?
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The Unsung Heroes - The Ensemble & "What Comes Next?"
Nigeria asks the same question every few years. The founders are gone (most passed away by the 1990s-2000s). Now what? Do we build on their legacy or do we finally acknowledge their limitations and create something new?