“Touching Grass: Why Nigeria Must Reclaim Its Cultural Compass Before It’s Too Late”

IN a world shaped by global media, financial power, and cultural soft influence, nations with large populations often succeed by asserting a strong sense of identity. For a country of more than 200 million people, Nigeria should naturally stand among those capable of shaping—not surrendering—their internal culture. Yet today, the opposite is happening.

Nigeria is increasingly absorbing foreign cultural norms at a pace that raises fundamental questions about sovereignty—not only political or economic sovereignty, but cultural sovereignty. And culture, more than policy or politics, is what determines how a nation sees itself, survives adversity, and evolves across generations.

Across the world, countries like Bangladesh, Brazil, Indonesia, and Pakistan—none of them perfect, none free of internal turmoil—have nonetheless shown a remarkable ability to safeguard their cultural DNA. Despite social media waves, global entertainment, and foreign capital, these nations maintain deep-rooted norms that cannot easily be overwritten. You cannot simply drop American money or algorithms into Jakarta, Karachi, or São Paulo and instantly flip their values, politics, or identity. Their cultures resist; their populations instinctively push back.

Why, then, is Nigeria showing such porous vulnerability? Why does it feel as though anyone with enough money—or enough digital influence—can reshape our social values, political behaviours, and aspirations?

The danger is not theoretical. History is full of advanced civilizations—Mayan, Aztec, Inca—whose people survived but whose cultures vanished. Their languages, religions, values, and worldviews now exist mostly in museums and academic circles. Their cultural extinction happened not through physical elimination, but through slow erosion by external forces and internal disunity.

No Nigerian should want that fate for us.

Nigeria deserves to exist—not just physically on a map, but culturally as a unique civilization with distinct ways of thinking, living, and problem-solving. But cultural survival requires awareness, self-respect, and intentional preservation. And right now, Nigeria is failing on all three fronts.

A Nation Overrun by Imported Values

The symptoms are everywhere:

• Private schools in Lagos and Abuja drilling British and American accents into toddlers, creating children who can barely speak indigenous languages.

• Foreign curricula shaping Nigerian thinking, sidelining local history, ethics, and knowledge systems.

• Architecture designed for winter climates being replicated in a tropical environment, producing energy-inefficient buildings that ignore local realities.

• A generation conditioned to chase wealth without solving societal problems, echoing the American hyper-capitalist messaging that glorifies money above meaning, community, or humanity.

These shifts are not harmless. They reshape identity, aspirations, and eventually, national destiny.

Nigeria is being socially engineered—not by a single nation, but by a global ecosystem that sees profit in molding our minds, markets, and behaviours. The intensity of this influence is amplified by a core Nigerian weakness: the worship of money as the ultimate goal and moral compass.

When a society elevates money above culture, values, and long-term planning, it becomes easy for external forces to steer it in any direction. And for Nigeria, a country with enormous human capital but fragile national cohesion, the consequences are profound.

A Cultural Crisis in Slow Motion

The most troubling part is not just the influence itself but our belief in our own unimportance—a psychological surrender that no other large nation exhibits. For a population as large as Brazil’s, Pakistan’s, or Indonesia’s, Nigeria behaves uniquely as though external standards are automatically superior, foreign solutions inherently better, and imported identities more prestigious than home-grown ones.

This self-erasure is unprecedented for a nation of our scale.

If Nigeria does not consciously step back, reflect, and reclaim control of its cultural direction, we risk becoming a case study in how a major population can lose its identity without ever realizing the danger.

The Call to ‘Touch Grass’—Literally and Metaphorically

The metaphor of “touching grass” speaks to a return to reality, grounding, and clarity. Nigeria urgently needs that moment:

• A moment to recognize that foreign influence is not inherently evil, but cultural surrender is.

• A moment to realize that preserving Nigerian identity is not nostalgia; it is survival.

• A moment to decide that our size, diversity, and history entitle us to define our own cultural destiny.

If we continue on this path—riding a monster of imported values, digital manipulation, and money-driven priorities—we may soon find ourselves swallowed whole.

Nigeria must choose to exist, intentionally and proudly. And that choice begins with touching the grass—before we become a footnote in anthropology textbooks, a cautionary tale of how a great nation lost itself.