Culture is an established pattern of behaviour, the totality of a people’s historical experience, their tradition, values, morals, beliefs, and every aspect of their life. It is an all embracing and heterogeneous concept of any acquired capabilities and habit by a man as a member of a particular tribe or community. Cultural heritage is an asset acquired through the ways of life of a group or society.
Internationally, many countries have realized the importance of cultural heritage and have made intentional efforts to promote and preserve it. The United Nations Organization (UNO) recognized this and adopted the convention of October 17, 2003, aimed at safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage of nations. In Nigeria, many state and national awareness have been created towards this course. I remember in the 90s when my Dad was one of those who championed ANILAC (Association of Nigerian Indigenous Languages and Culture). It was a great campaign, I witnessed the seriousness and zealousness of the organisers and participants. It was aimed at raising the consciousness of preserving our cultural heritage in homes, institutions, organisations, and all spheres of our practical life.
Over the last century, the Nigeria cultural heritage has experienced gross neglect, rapid decay, degradation, and deterioration, and this has worsened as it ages. Lots of efforts were made in the past to conserve and ameliorate this fast declining social and economic conditions of the Nigeria cultural values. Unfortunately, all these efforts and awareness seem to have yielded no positive result as people are fast losing their cultural identity.
The question that begs an answer is, how do we advance the course to transform this deteriorating condition and create a sustainable cultural identity in our country? How do the present and future generation build formidable ideas, attitudes, and values towards our culture? What hope do we have in a generation who can barely understand or speak their language, who has a narrow view of their culture, who hardly associate or visit their cultural homes, who takes no pride in their origin, who has no innovate development plan towards restoring our cultural values?
It is evident that the Nigeria cultural heritage is increasingly threatened with destruction by the traditional causes from families and by the evolution of socio-economic developments. The concept of traditional dances, traditional institutions, art, music, rites of passage in marriage, birth, initiation burials, and so on has been severely limited. Religion has played a distinctive role in that some old historical artefacts have been demolished or burnt by religious organisations. Some heritage buildings have been neglected to justify some religious views and beliefs. There are lots of social, economic, or religious developments that aggravate the situation with even more phenomena of damage, which threatens the present and the future cultural position. The rate of migration to foreign countries is alarming and one of the biggest threats of our cultural values.
Language is one the most significant aspects of culture. In Nigeria, English is the official language with more than 250 individual tribal languages. The second Nigeria language is Hausa, which is the oldest known written language in West Africa, as far back as 1000CE. Then followed by the other languages like Yoruba, Igbo and others. These languages, especially the Igbo language, are gradually going extinct.
From the perspective of language as a means of preserving the Nigeria cultural heritage, parents should check if their children are missing out on the richness of their culture. Do they speak their language? Are they connected to their roots? Do they embrace the traditions and values of their culture? Do they have cultural confidence? Do they know their cultural songs, proverbs, stories, and customs? Are they connected with their grand parents, relatives, and village communities? Are they equipped with the language skills to communicate and bond well with their culture? Do they feel a sense of pride in their cultural heritage? Sadly, almost all these questions have a NO answer, especially the commonest being language, where most parents speak only English to their children. It is a big shame and repugnant to every cultural value for children not to be able to hear or speak their language.
I remember some rich Igbo cultural practices with nostalgia. The traditional proverbs, tales by moon lights (akuko ifo) play/dance by moon lights (egwu onwa), the adages, native poems, lullaby, native praise songs, riddles and so on. How many of these were passed down to this generation? If the now generation is losing touch of these, what becomes of the then generation?
It is generally accepted by most states of the globe that cultural heritage is a necessary aspect of human life and the importance of preserving and promoting it as an asset can not be over emphasized.
This article seeks to create more awareness on the importance of our cultural heritage and the need to preserve it from deteriorating the more. It seeks a paradigm shift from the increasing decay to a resuscitating approach through a sustainable physical preservation of our cultural identity.
Our cultural heritage distinguishes us from other people and other things and makes us unique. It is our identity, our pride, and asset. Our children should be taught to take pride in it, practice it, and preserve it for the sake of generations to come.
Amara Ann Unachukwu
