A Banner Without Stain.
Is our banner truly without stain?
Still in the spirit of independence, this is what the 6th line of the second stanza of the national anthem says. And I’m not even going to lie, I don’t know the current national anthem, which is the one that was written first. You know, I was born in an era when it was the second one, “Arise, O Compatriots”; I knew. Tinubu came into power, and he had to switch it back to the current one. So, that line reads: “a banner without stain.”
We actually sang this at my church on the first Sunday of October, which was our general Thanksgiving and also a time to thank God for Nigeria’s 66th Independence anniversary. Immediately, I saw that line on the screen when the kids sang the national anthem; one thing came to mind. I immediately went back to the EndSARS protests.
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We literally saw pictures of blood-stained Nigerian flags, and this was human blood. The blood of people you could know, someone you most likely had interacted with before or encountered in one way or another. Not the blood of animals, but of human beings.
And it was somehow funny to me because, when they say “a banner without stain", I’m sure they’re referring to the Nigerian flag. Even if they’re not, that’s how I interpreted it, and I might be wrong, which is fine. But if we’re talking about a banner without stain, and we’re not looking at the physical stain from the EndSARS protests, when we had human blood on our flag, how about the stains that we’re not seeing? Stains like corruption, terrorism, and kidnapping. Alright, what is the government trying to do to remove these stains? Because these aren’t just blemishes. If I understand correctly, blemishes are little spots or marks on clothing or something.
These are not blemishes. These are thick, heavy stains, the kind we’re known for all around the world. I’ve been off Instagram and Twitter for over two weeks as of the time of this writing, and I get to see what’s happening in the country, especially on Twitter. Recently, I saw people post about corps members who were kidnapped on their way to Benue for their National Youth Service. You know, kidnapping is a stain on our flag, or our banner in this context.
So, when we say “a banner without stain", I don’t know if I’d call it irony or just funny. Because what stains are we not seeing? We’ve seen everything that there is to be stained with. Corruption, terrorism, kidnapping, unemployment, and poverty. Police brutality is another stain. And let’s not forget the killings of Christians as well, because Christians are being targeted in the violence in Northern Nigeria. That’s another stain.
So, how are we going to call this a country without blemish? How are we going to say a country is without stain? It doesn’t feel right. It does not feel right in any way because Nigeria is full of stains. And it’s high time we took our dirty linen to the laundry, and that starts with the 2027 General Elections.
