Watching the Megan/Harry royal wedding, preliminary stages, featuring guests, great and small, in a procession to the church, flanked by public spectators spread on grass verges or corralled by rope and railing barricades. Procession attractions include visions of the great: celebrities such as the Cloonies, David Bekham, Serena Williams, Elton John and visions of the small: charity workers, soldiers, young people and the like, handpicked by bride and groom. The sum of grate and small are resplendent under the golden sun in the best of their getups. Fashion styles by world top designers are represented, as were, here and there, cultural ones from India. Oh, how the stage was so primed for Nigeria’s cultural representation in the form of our multifaceted and varying ethnic attires. But nothing! I’m convinced Nigerians are among the guests; if they were, they made no impression subsumed no doubt by the forward-backwardness that has afflicted the rest of Africa so that they represent nothing but pointless multitudes by abandoning the slightest visage of culture.

Forward-backwardness is the throwaway term I’ve just thought up because it describes adequately the attitude of the Bush man /woman types that appear to believe that development and sophistication means adopting Western norms and values above all ancestral ones. This type of person sees no value in what they have, blinded as they are to the comparative superiority of what they have over the Western ones when it occurs. A bit like forgoing the Nigerian goat meat, crabs, shrimps, towel, vegetables and yam diet and glorying instead the Western Bread, Butter, Eggs and Tea diet. We should consider regretfully, not with pride and hope, Nigeria premier news channels adopting suits over Nigerian attires. Nigerian celebrities are increasingly great ones for displaying Western fashion in the Worlds eyes, which is to the detriment of Nigerian cultural designs and potential local designers and manufacturers. These attitudes are retrogressive, not progressive.