Earlier in April, the Niger State Governor, Umar Bago announced a ban on dreadlocks in the state. Anyone with dreadlocks hairstyles would be arrested and shaved by force, he said. There was loud outcry, and he reversed this condemnable position a few weeks later. But it is important for us to look beyond this half-hearted reversal and even his shameless initial position.
Across centuries, the African identity has been systematically vilified. From the era of the transatlantic slave trade to the post-colonial present, the African body, its features, languages, religions, and even its hair, has been branded with a mark similar to that placed on Cain, the brother of Abel by the Abrahamic God: a mark of shame, disgrace, and criminality as narrated in the book of Genesis .
Few aspects of our identity have endured this burden more persistently than our hair.
African hair, in all its natural and diverse forms, has been labelled “unprofessional,” “untidy,” “ugly,” and “rebellious.” These labels are not neutral—they are deeply political. They are products of a global system that equates whiteness with goodness and blackness with deviance. When European colonisers enslaved and colonised African peoples, they didn’t stop at our land or labour—they colonised our self-image.
With colonisation came not just the looting of our resources but also the imposition of Western cultural hegemony. In this new world order, beauty was white, straight-haired, and European. Anything else was “less than.” Generations of African people were made to see themselves through colonial eyes—eyes that shamed what was natural and celebrated what was foreign.
As a result, African women have been pressured for decades to chemically straighten their hair or hide it under wigs. African men have been urged to conform to narrow standards of acceptability, where dreadlocks, braids, and afros are treated as symbols of criminality rather than expressions of cultural pride.
In Nigeria and across the continent, this continues today. Schools regulate hair rigidly. Male students are often forced to shave their heads, while female students may be punished for wearing their hair in certain ways. In workplaces, certain styles of natural African hair are subtly discouraged or outrightly banned under the guise of “professionalism.” This is nothing short of internalised colonialism.
Governor Umar Bago’s position was a sad reminder of how deep this cultural self-hate runs when in response to insecurity in the state, he announced that any young man seen with dreadlocks would have his head forcibly shaved, as such hairstyles are deemed indicators of criminality.
That was more than an authoritarian policy—it was a dangerous act of cultural violence. It was a betrayal of African identity and would have amounted to a flagrant violation of Section 42 of the Nigerian Constitution, which prohibits discrimination based on personal characteristics.
What the Governor did was to show his lack of African cultural consciousness, and also his complete disregard for law and Constitutionality even in its almost meaningless capitalist sense. To criminalise African hairstyles is to criminalise African people. Our hair is not just aesthetic, it is an expression of our identity as African peoples.
We cannot allow our leaders, many of whom are still mentally enslaved by colonial values, to dictate how we express our Africanness. If we remain silent while they attack the very fabric of our identity, we are complicit in our own erasure.
We need to challenge these anti-African biases wherever we find them. In schools, we must insist on our children keeping their hair whichever way they want, and in places of work, we must refuse to be controlled by employers on what hairstyles are appropriate or not. We must challenge all backward facing and anti-African policies wherever they exist in order for us to move forward as African people.
We commend everybody who raised a voice and made Governor Bago to withdraw the disgraceful and unconstitutional policy. This is a significant victory on the cultural front.We salute the people of Niger State—particularly the youth in Minna—who dared : resist with unity, with pride, and with unrelenting clarity of purpose. Wear your hair with confidence. Reject shame. Reclaim your identity.
We must struggle against imperialism on all fronts. We must resist economically and culturally the domination of the foes of African liberation, which include those who rule over us, like Governor Bago.
Oghenero ABU
