Tonight, the Nigerian Students Association is going to bring a complete slice of Nigerian culture to UCLA. The NSA’s Fifth Annual Culture Show will exhibit everything Nigerian, including a fashion show, spoken word performance, theater, music, dance and, to keep the promise of the slice analogy, food.
This is all part of NSA’s main goal, which is to educate the UCLA community about Nigerian culture. Far from being a closed group, they welcome people of all kinds to be educated about their culture. Indeed, several who are not Nigerian will be participating in the show.
“Our main mission of the organization is to spread cultural awareness about our group to anyone who’s interested in learning about Nigeria,” said Ola Owolabi, a fifth-year mechanical engineering student and NSA president.
While educating the UCLA community about Nigerian culture, NSA also serves as a social group for Nigerian students.
“NSA is a community service-oriented group as well as a social group,” said Stephanie Anyanwu, a second-year psychobiology student.
NSA has recently worked with the African Activist Association for a Haiti benefit, and has also given a tutorial on Nigerian culture in the Watts Tutorial Program. Yet, NSA is also a second home both for those who emigrated from Nigeria to UCLA and for those who were born in America and want to keep in touch with their cultural roots.
Staying in touch with current events, such as the death of former Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua on May 5, is also very important to the club.
Each meeting, one member leads an open discussion on current events. Most members cited either family still in Nigeria or online newspapers as their main source of information, which they will then share with each other.
Today, Nigerian culture continues to thrive, with its most recent and notable achievement being the rising film industry. Known as Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry is second only to India’s in the number of movies produced per year, jumping ahead of the U.S., according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Contemporary musicians have decided to keep some traditional Nigerian styles in their music, but have largely gravitated towards the more western sounds of hip-hop. Nina Okoye, a second-year sociology student and NSA vice president, cites Timaya, D’Banj and P-Square as some of the newer artists to have embraced the hip-hop culture.
“The main thing I love is just having a Nigerian culture. I’m grateful that I know where I’m from,” Anyanwu said.
Anyanwu added that even though she was born here in America, she appreciates that she can still be close to her culture through family and NSA, a sentiment shared by others involved in NSA.
“I’m able to stand out everywhere I go. I might be with a group of African Americans and I’m still able to stand out. I’m seen as Nigerian and my character comes out as Nigerian. … I’m able to show that representation of me wherever I go … and then use that to make a difference, to create a conscious image for Nigerians,” Owolabi said.