Opinion

“New” national anthem is national self-debasement – Farooq Kperogi

Published

2 years ago

June 1, 2024

Farooq Kperogi

“New” national anthem is national self-debasement – Farooq Kperogi

Nothing in my adult life has made me more ashamed to be a Nigerian and more inclined to completely divest my emotions from Nigeria than the readoption of “Nigeria, We Hail Thee,” a colonially created national anthem whose first stanza drips wet with the spit of racist condescension, gender exclusion, and stodgy, ungainly archaisms.

First, it’s inexcusable national self-humiliation to discard a home-made national anthem, irrespective of its defects, for one that was made by an imperialist whose influence we’re supposed to be independent of. That instantiates a phenomenon that social anthropologists call cultural cringe.

First propounded by an Australian scholar by the name of Arthur Phillips in the 1950s to describe Australia’s complicated cultural relations with Britain and the US, cultural cringe is the deep-rooted inferiority complex that causes psychologically damaged, formerly colonized people to inferiorize and disdain their own country and its culture and to uncritically valorize cultures and countries that their low self-esteem persuades them to believe is superior to theirs.

In previous columns, I have called this Nigeria’s national xenophilia, which I have defined as our predilection for irrational, unjustified, inferiority-driven veneration of the foreign and the corresponding sense of low national self-worth that this veneration activates.

A country whose symbolic song of independence is inspired, written, and composed by the appendicular remnants of imperialist oppressors of whom the country has supposedly been independent for more than six decades isn’t worthy of its independence. Such a country has lost the moral and philosophical argument for independence and against recolonization.

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That is why, as I’ve argued in the past, our leaders are routinely infantilized by the West. As a people and a culture, we have internalized a mentality of low self-worth and an unwarranted veneration of the foreign, especially if the “foreign” also happens to be white. Nothing has demonstrated this more than the readoption of a national anthem that was written and composed by colonial British women.

But my worry transcends this. I am mortified that the very first stanza of our national anthem derogates our humanity. I have written multiple articles on what I have called the vocabularies of racial differentiation and exclusion in which I have repeatedly pointed out that “tribe” and “native” are racist words that white people reserve only for people they consider inferior, and that their appearance in Nigeria’s first national anthem was one of the reasons for the anthem’s rejection in 1978.

I’ll repeat some of the things I’ve written over the last few years on this issue and hope that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu sees reason to rescind the readoption of this denigrating British anthem written for Nigeria.

Shorn of all pretenses, “tribe” basically means backward, primitive nonwhite people. Let no one deceive you that the word means anything other than that in the English language. Even the Oxford Dictionary of English recognizes this fact. Its usage note on “tribe” reads:

“In historical contexts the word tribe is broadly accepted (the area was inhabited by Slavic tribes), but in contemporary contexts it is problematic when used to refer to a community living within a traditional society. It is strongly associated with past attitudes of white colonialists towards so-called primitive or uncivilized peoples living in remote underdeveloped places. For this reason it is generally preferable to use alternative terms such as community or people” (p. 1897).

I personally prefer “ethnic group” as an alternative to “tribe.” But I am aware that “tribe” has been congealed in our lexical repertory and can even be said to have been resemanticized by Africans, that is, given a meaning that is different from its original one.

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For most English-speaking Africans, “tribe” is simply the English lexical equivalent of the words in their languages that they deploy to denote peoplehood. That may be so, but I come to language from a communication standpoint. To effectively communicate, you have to speak the same codes and share the same meanings.

Native English speakers would never call themselves “tribes” and understand the word to mean a group of primitive, nonwhite people who are still stuck at the lower end of the civilizational hierarchy.

You may understand the word differently, but if you tell a native speaker you belong to a tribe, you are inadvertently authorizing your inferiorization. That’s why when anybody asks me, “What is your tribe?” I always say, “You mean my ethnic group? I don’t belong to a tribe.” That was, by the way, Chinua Achebe’s attitude, too. He hated the word “tribe.”

That was also why when former US President Bill Clinton visited Nigeria and other African countries in 1998, experts told him to steer clear of the word “tribe” and its inflections such as “tribal,” “tribalism,” “tribalistic,” etc.

An influential American newspaper called Politico contrasted Clinton’s studied avoidance of the word “tribe” and Obama’s liberal use of it. “Keep in mind that the word ‘tribal conflict’ is extremely insulting to Africans,” the paper quoted a scholar by the name of Marina Ottaway of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to have told American reporters who would cover the presidential visit. “Don’t write about ‘century-old tribal conflicts in African countries’… Yet, when Obama uttered the phrase ‘tribal conflicts’ at a press conference Friday as he discussed his planned trip to Africa, it went virtually unremarked upon. So too did several references he made in his Ghana speech to battles among ‘tribes.’” “Another president,” the paper concluded, “might have been accused of racism…”

Well, I criticized Obama for this in a Jul 18, 2009, column titled, “The Anti-African Racist Insults Obama Got Away with in Ghana,” which attracted the attention of the White House at the time.

A column I wrote earlier on February 27, 2009, titled “What’s my tribe? None” got the attention of CNN International’s copy desk. After a back and forth with its Chief Copy editor, the organization banned the use of the word “tribe” from its style guide. It came from their admission that no white ethnic group would ever be called a “tribe.”

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In my September 30, 2018, column titled, “‘Tribe’ and ‘Detribalized’ are Derogatory Words,” I wrote: “Sadly, in 2018, our elites not only still call us ‘tribes’; they defend doing so. Lillian Jean Williams, the British colonial who wrote the anthem, would be proud.” I had no inkling that Tinubu would take this embarrassing sociolinguistic suicide to the next level.

“Native” is another linguistic marker of racial inferiorization that has no business being on Nigeria’s national anthem. The word was originally used by white colonialists and later by Western anthropologists to refer specifically to nonwhite people. The New Oxford American Dictionary (3rd edition) captures this subtlety well. One of the definitions of “native,” which the dictionary says is “dated, often offensive,” is “one of the original inhabitants of a country, especially a nonwhite as regarded by European colonists or travelers.”

Lillian Jean Williams was a British colonialist who thought herself superior to the “natives” and reflected that in the first stanza of the anthem she composed for us.

Notice, though, that in American (and Canadian) English “native” is used widely in a non-racially discriminatory way. When people call a city their hometown they often say they’re natives of the city, as in “I am an Atlanta native.” I am not sure how widespread this usage of “native” is in British English, but it appears only 148 times in the British National Corpus.

The New Oxford American Dictionary’s usage advice on “native” is instructive. It says, “In contexts such as native of Boston or New York in the summer was too hot even for the natives, the noun native is quite acceptable. But when it is used to mean ‘a nonwhite original inhabitant of a country,’ as in this dance is a favorite with the natives, it is more problematic. This meaning has an old-fashioned feel and, because of its association with a colonial European outlook, it may cause offense.”

There is exactly zero reason to revert to “Nigeria, We Hail Thee.” Its readoption symbolizes the starkest evidence of national defeat, national self-humiliation, and national inferiority complex that I have ever seen. If Tinubu doesn’t reverse himself on readopting this national disgrace, the next government should. This is simply unbearably embarrassing!

“New” national anthem is national self-debasement – Farooq Kperogi

Farooq Kperogi is a renowned Nigerian newspaper columnist and United States-based Professor of journalism.

Related Topics:Farooq Kperogi National Anthem

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How a Misleading Channels TV Headline Reignited Nigeria’s Religious Tensions

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3 days ago

December 28, 2025

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How a Misleading Channels TV Headline Reignited Nigeria’s Religious Tensions

In Southwestern Nigeria, the historic heartland of the Yoruba ethnic group, religious coexistence was once deeply ingrained in everyday life. Families were often religiously heterogeneous yet harmonious: a Muslim husband with a Christian wife, parents of different faiths raising children who chose Islam, Christianity or indigenous beliefs. Religious festivals were commonly celebrated together, reinforcing social cohesion.

This tradition of harmony began to erode significantly after the introduction of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1986 by the military government of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, under the influence of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). SAP policies—such as reduced government spending on education and social services, trade liberalisation and currency devaluation—triggered soaring inflation, weakened purchasing power and widespread economic hardship.

As livelihoods collapsed, some Nigerians turned to corrupt practices, while others found opportunity in the rise of commercialised religious enterprises, complete with aggressive business models and intense competition for followers. This shift contributed to rising intra- and inter-religious tensions, particularly in a region once celebrated for tolerance.

The erosion of harmony in the Southwest mirrored growing religious conflicts across Nigeria, especially between Christians and Muslims. Scholars and analysts have long warned that the media plays a decisive role in either escalating or de-escalating such conflicts. In his 2006 pamphlet Voices of War: Conflict and the Role of the Media, Andrew Puddephatt observed that media outlets can either inflame violence through partisan reporting or promote peace through independence and responsible framing.

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These concerns resurfaced sharply on 24 December 2025, when a mosque in Maiduguri, Borno State, was bombed during Maghrib prayers, killing worshippers. International and local media clearly identified the target as a mosque. Headlines from BBC, Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle, The Cable, The Guardian (Nigeria) and Daily Trust all referenced the mosque or Muslim worshippers.

However, Channels Television published the headline: “BREAKING: Many feared dead as bomb blast rocks Maiduguri on Christmas eve.” The omission of the mosque and the emphasis on “Christmas Eve” drew widespread criticism for being misleading and inflammatory.

Reacting on X, commentator Boss Kitty Kitty (@Aashfinn) condemned the framing, warning that it fed a dangerous “Christian genocide” narrative, despite evidence that terrorism in Nigeria targets victims indiscriminately. The Muslim Public Affairs Centre (MPAC) also issued a strong statement, accusing Channels Television of editorial bias, deliberate omission of Muslim identity, and the weaponisation of language to provoke religious tension.

MPAC argued that the headline change—adding “Christmas Eve” after initial publication—suggested a calculated attempt to drive engagement at the expense of national unity. The organisation further alleged a pattern in which Muslim victims are anonymised while narratives that heighten suspicion against Islam are amplified.

Media scholars describe this practice as media bias and confirmation bias, where editorial choices reinforce preconceived narratives while excluding crucial context. Studies consistently show that headlines shape public perception, especially in an era where many readers share stories based solely on headlines without reading full reports.

The controversy came just a day after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in his Christmas Day 2025 broadcast, reaffirmed the government’s commitment to religious freedom, protection of all faiths, and peaceful coexistence. While the President sought to calm tensions and promote dialogue, critics argue that irresponsible media framing risks undermining these efforts.

As one commentator, @mrabdulreacts, noted on TikTok: “Narratives can be more dangerous than bullets… misleading headlines can destroy trust for generations.” The Maiduguri bombing coverage has therefore reignited urgent questions about journalistic responsibility, religious sensitivity, and whether sections of the Nigerian media are contributing to division in an already fragile society.

How a Misleading Channels TV Headline Reignited Nigeria’s Religious Tensions

Opinion

When a Tax Law is an illegality, By Farooq Kperogi

Published

4 days ago

December 27, 2025

Trends Admin

Kperogi is a renowned columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism

When a Tax Law is an illegality, By Farooq Kperogi

What began as a routine legislative reform of the Nigerian tax system by the Bola Tinubu administration has transmogrified and metastasized into an allegation of unexampled transmutation of a duly passed law to an illegality.

It’s by now well known that a law passed by the National Assembly and assented to by the president may have been materially altered after assent and then presented to the public as binding law. If this allegation is established beyond all shadows of doubt, Nigeria would be confronting the specter of an illegality fraudulently constituted as law.

Interestingly, the discovery wasn’t brought to public notice by secretive, conscientious whistleblowers in the bureaucracy or from eagle-eyed civil society audits. It came from within the legislature itself.

A member of the House of Representatives, Abdulsammad Dasuki, raised a point of privilege after personally comparing the harmonized bill passed by both chambers with the version of the tax laws published in the official gazette. He found that the documents did not match.

His discovery was the product of days of rigorous, studious and painstaking examination of Votes and Proceedings, committee harmonization records and the gazetted text. He realized that he voted for one thing, but the country was being governed by another.

That intervention sparked a chain reaction. Other lawmakers requested certified true copies of the assented bill to verify whether the president had signed the same text that was now in circulation. According to multiple reports, those requests were denied.

The refusal to release certified copies deepened suspicion and transformed what could have been dismissed as a clerical misunderstanding into a full-blown institutional crisis.

When legislators are blocked from seeing the law that they passed and that the president signed, the issue verges on criminal constitutional transgression that must not be swept under the carpet.

While full official disclosure is still pending, several discrepancies have been repeatedly cited by lawmakers, journalists and civil society groups. These include expansions of the discretionary powers of tax authorities beyond what the National Assembly approved, alterations to reporting and oversight obligations, changes in enforcement thresholds, and adjustments that potentially increase executive control over revenue administration.

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These are not innocent, unintentional clerical slips. They go to the meaning, scope and intent of the law. In short, they change who has power to tax Nigerians, how that power is exercised and to whom it is accountable.

The distinction matters. All legislative systems experience clerical errors. A misplaced word or a misnumbered section does not invalidate a statute. But when alterations confer new powers, remove safeguards, or shift institutional balance, they cross from error into illegality.

A gazette cannot lawfully create what the legislature did not enact or what the president did not assent to. Publication is supposed to merely provide evidence of the existence of the law. It can invent a law that hasn’t been passed.

The official responses so far have been evasive and contradictory. Government representatives initially insisted that there was only one authentic version of the law and that claims of alteration were partisan, ill-natured rumors. But that posture is difficult to reconcile with subsequent developments.

For example, a December 26, 2025, press statement signed by Akin Rotimi, House Spokesman and Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, said the National Assembly has now constituted an ad hoc committee to investigate the sequence of events from harmonization to assent to gazetting.

More tellingly, Rotimi said, the leadership of the legislature has directed that the tax laws be re-gazetted and that certified true copies of the versions duly passed by both chambers be issued.

Re-gazetting is not a neutral act. It is an implicit admission that the existing gazette cannot be confidently treated as an accurate record of legislative intent. If nothing were amiss, there would be nothing to authenticate. The attempt to frame this as a routine administrative clarification rings hollow. Laws are not re-gazetted in the absence of doubt about their authenticity.

Supporters of the government have urged the public to trust the president’s integrity and to avoid speculation. The issue, however, is not whether the president is personally trustworthy but whether the law now being enforced is the law he signed. No amount of rhetorical reassurance can substitute for producing the signed text and allowing a side-by-side comparison with the gazetted version.

There is no precedent in the world that I have found for this kind of illegality. In the United States, the much-cited Deficit Reduction Act controversy of 2006 involved a discrepancy between House and Senate versions due to a clerical transmission error. The president signed the enrolled bill that was presented to him.

Courts upheld it under the enrolled bill doctrine, which treats the signed text as conclusive. Crucially, there was no claim that the law was altered after presidential assent.

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In the Philippines, in 1964, there was a case where the wrong version of a bill was signed by the president. Legislative leaders later disowned the enrolled copy and treated the signature as invalid. Again, the error occurred before or at assent, not after. Once discovered, it was confronted as a mistake. It wasn’t normalized.

Nigeria’s case, if the allegations are borne out, is more disturbing. Here, the claim is that the president signed the correct bill but that the authoritative law published afterward materially departs from it.

Comparative constitutional practice offers no comfort here. Stable legal systems do not recognize post-assent textual mutation as valid law. Where gazetting errors occur, they are corrected. They do not become the basis for enforcement.

This raises an unavoidable question: why would anyone alter a law after it has been passed and signed? Motives can only be inferred from circumstantial evidence, but the inferences are troubling.

Expanding the powers of tax authorities in a period of fiscal stress creates incentives for bureaucratic overreach. Removing or weakening legislative-oversight provisions reduces accountability. Centralizing discretion in the executive arm simplifies revenue extraction while insulating decision makers from scrutiny. These are not abstract possibilities. They align closely with the specific alterations that have been alleged.

There is an even more unsettling implication. If a major tax reform law can be altered after assent without immediate detection, what confidence can citizens have in the integrity of other statutes? Nigeria has passed hundreds of laws over the years, many of them technical, complex and rarely scrutinized line by line after gazetting. The discovery of this discrepancy raises the chilling possibility that post-assent alterations may not be unprecedented in practice.

That possibility should alarm every Nigerian regardless of political affiliation. Law is the foundation of collective life. If the text of the law is unstable, if it can be surreptitiously modified after constitutional procedures have been completed, then legality itself becomes provisional. Governance slides from rule of law to rule by document manipulation.

The seriousness of this violation cannot be overstated. If officials altered the tax law knowingly, they did not merely breach administrative rules. They subverted the Constitution. Such conduct would amount to forgery, abuse of office and an assault on democratic sovereignty. It would mean that Nigerians are being taxed under provisions that were never lawfully enacted.

This is why a thorough, transparent investigation is not optional. It must establish a clear documentary chain: the harmonized bill passed by both chambers, the exact text transmitted for assent, the document signed by the president and the version published in the gazette. Any divergence must be accounted for, step by step, with named responsibility. Institutional reviews that end in vague recommendations will not suffice.

If culpability is established, punishment must be severe. Anything less would invite repetition. As I always say, there is no greater enabler of habitual relapses into the same crime than the absence of consequences for committing the crimes.

The alteration of law after assent is not a victimless bureaucratic shortcut. It is a constitutional crime with nationwide consequences. Deterrence requires more than quiet corrections. It requires accountability that is visible, proportionate and unmistakable.

This episode can either be buried under procedural language and political loyalty, or it can become a moment of constitutional self-correction. A tax law that is an illegality cannot be the foundation of fiscal reform. The integrity of the lawmaking process is itself a public good. Without it, no reform, however well intentioned, can claim legitimacy.

When a Tax Law is an illegality, By Farooq Kperogi

Kperogi is a renowned columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism

Opinion

Experts Warn US Strikes in Nigeria Could Harm Civilians, Fuel Sectarian Tensions

Published

5 days ago

December 26, 2025

Trends Admin

Experts Warn US Strikes in Nigeria Could Harm Civilians, Fuel Sectarian Tensions

Security analysts and local observers have raised concerns over the recent United States military strikes in Nigeria, warning that the operations could misfire and exacerbate tensions rather than curb terrorism.

The strikes, carried out in Sokoto State on Christmas Day under the guise of counterterrorism, mark the first US military operation on Nigerian soil in modern history. The action follows repeated claims by former US President Donald Trump, who alleged a “Christian genocide” in Nigeria and threatened military intervention.

According to eyewitnesses, the areas targeted have no established history of terrorist or bandit activity, with some strikes reportedly affecting civilian-populated areas rather than forested hideouts typically associated with terrorist groups like Boko Haram and ISWAP. Analysts warn that this raises questions about intelligence accuracy and operational planning.

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Mallam Ibrahim Agunbiade, writing on the implications of the strikes, emphasized that Nigeria’s security challenges are regionally specific. Boko Haram and ISWAP are concentrated in the North-East, while armed banditry is largely confined to forested regions in Zamfara and Niger states. “Any counterterrorism effort that ignores these realities is either grossly incompetent or deliberately misleading,” he noted.

Experts also caution against framing Nigeria’s crisis as a religious conflict, pointing out that both Muslims and Christians are affected by terrorism. Weaponizing religion to justify foreign military intervention could delegitimize Nigeria’s sovereignty and inflame sectarian tensions.

Agunbiade stressed that the country needs intelligence-driven cooperation and respect for its territorial integrity, rather than indiscriminate bombardments that may increase civilian casualties, deepen resentment, and destabilize communities.

“The goal must be accuracy, accountability, and restraint. Anything less is not counterterrorism; it is a reckless intervention with potentially devastating consequences,” he wrote.