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 Unfinished Constitution - Still Arguing About the Foundation
America's Constitution (1787) lasted. It's been amended 27 times, but the structure holds. Partly because it was written to preserve slavery and elite powe, things the powerful wanted to keep.
Nigeria's constitutions:
1963: Republic Constitution
1966: Suspended by coup
1979: Presidential system (copying America)
1983: Suspended by coup
1999: Current constitution
Every 10-15 years, Nigeria has to argue about its foundation again.
Why? Because the founding was never really resolved. It was imposed by a small elite on a diverse nation. Every generation since has tried to renegotiate it. Coups are basically saying: "This deal isn't fair, let's start over."
Hamilton's system worked (for the powerful) because it extracted wealth while allowing enough political theater (elections, debates, congress) to make people feel represented.
Nigeria's founding tried to copy that system but without Hamilton's financial machinery, without America's existing wealth, without the ability to extract resources from distant colonies.
So Nigeria's independence looked like freedom on paper but felt like continuity in practice. And every few years, someone tries to violently reset the table.
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The Unfinished Constitution - Still Arguing About the Foundation
America's Constitution (1787) lasted. It's been amended 27 times, but the structure holds. Partly because it was written to preserve slavery and elite powe, things the powerful wanted to keep.
Nigeria's constitutions:
Every 10-15 years, Nigeria has to argue about its foundation again.