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?
Independence from one oppressor doesn't guarantee freedom. It just redistributes power.
America freed itself from British rule and created a system that oppressed enslaved people for another 60+ years.
Nigeria freed itself from British rule and created a system that oppressed women, peasants, and the poor for generation after generation.
The founding fathers of both nations told a beautiful story about freedom. But the system they built wasn't actually designed for freedom, it was designed to preserve elite power.
That's the tragic tragedy: they might have genuinely believed in their own rhetoric. Hamilton might have believed in the system he created. Nigeria's founders might have believed in the independence they fought for.
But belief isn't enough. A system designed by and for elites will serve elites. No matter how beautiful the language about freedom sounds.
ifiokambrose
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The Uncomfortable Conclusion
Here's what I think both stories teach us:
Independence from one oppressor doesn't guarantee freedom. It just redistributes power.