Is there any particular reason why Nigeria does not produce Josephine Bakers on a yearly basis? 

Ayo Akinfe 

[1] I still cannot get my head round why apartheid and Jim Crow produced global heroes but in the case of Nigeria, oppression tends to produce complicit rogues 

[2] Why does all this corruption and mis-rule not radicalise the populace and lead to the emergence of another ANC? Is there something about us that defies logic?

[3] When I read about Josephine Baker, it brings tears to my eyes. She was the first black female superstar in Europe but this did not go to her head. She was a French resistance fighter and a civil rights campaigner , all at a huge personal cost 

[4] Josephine Baker, born on June 3 1906, was the first Black woman to star in a major motion picture, the 1927 silent film Siren of the Tropics, directed by Mario Nalpas and Henri Étiévant in Paris 

[5] During her early career, Baker was among the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the Folies Bergère in Paris. Her performance in the revue Un vent de folie in 1927 caused a sensation in the city.

[6] When World War Two broke out, she aided the French Resistance. After the war, she was awarded the Resistance Medal by the French Committee of National Liberation, the Croix de Guerre by the French military and was named a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur by General Charles de Gaulle

[7] Back in America, Josephine refused to perform for segregated audiences. This made the FBI label her a communist and ban her from entering the country 

[8] On 30 November 2021, Josephine entered the Panthéon in Paris, the first black woman to receive one of the highest honors in France. As her resting place is to remain in Monaco a cenotaph will be installed in vault 13 of the crypt in the Panthéon. Her last major public outing was speaking alongside Martin Luther King on that I Have a Dream day in Washington 

[9] During her participation in the Civil Rights Movement, Baker began to adopt children, forming a family which she often referred to as "The Rainbow Tribe". Baker wanted to prove that "children of different ethnicities and religions could still be brothers

[10] This was a mega star who could easily have colluded with the Nazis and the US establishment but refused to. Why does Nigeria produce so few people of principle like this