What is the history of flag day celebration in Africa?

Answer 1

Flag day celebration in Nigeria was first observed on the 3Oth of September, 2OO7 at the national stadium, surulere, Lagos. The celebration was pioneered by Solanke Akinola Adebayo, who was then a student at the Olabisi Onabanjo University.

This was motivated by Akinola's Flag Project known as the Building Our National Image Flag Project, an Patriotic developmental initiative to orientate Nigerians on the significance and importance of the Flag as a way of restoring in all and sundry the spirit of Patriotism, love and passion for Nigeria. Akinola in 2OO6 discovered that the flag day meant the birthday of the flag and was started by the United States of America in 1877 and the celebration is been celebrated today by many nations in the world but not in Africa.

His research shows that the only African nation observing this celebration was Liberia every 24th of August. He then decided to start a flag day advocacy campaign to create awareness to Nigerians and the Government for a Flag day bill to be passed and September 3O of every year be Nigerias flag day and the preceeding week the Flag day week.

To achieve this objective he dared all odds to organize the very first Flag Day in the history of Nigeria at the national stadium in Lagos. The celebration has in attendance the designer of the Nigerian Flag, Pa Taiwo Akinkunmi, Top Governement functionaries, youths from different part of the country and Mr. Fela Durotoye as the guest speaker. The event include a flag day conference followed by a flag day rally where over 5OOO flags were distributed.

In other to further get the attention of the Federal government, he and is team decided to take the celebration to different states in the country and round the 6 geopolitical zones. So in 2OO8 it was the turn of Ogun state where the state government endorsed the celebration making ogun state the 2nd state to celebrate the event. In 2OO9, the Flag Day train moved to the North Central zone in Plateau state and the governor of the the state, Da Jonah David Jang was particularly interested in the campaign and was priviledge to meet the designer of the flag for the very first time.

Akinola believes that this celebration will go a long way is raising a patriotic citizenry who will be responsible and commited to the values and ordinance of the Nigerian State. Akinola solanke is therefore engaging the federal government and the Senate in talks towards the Flag day bill passage and has vowed not to give up until it becomes a law and a nationally recognized celebration in Nigeria and the rest of the African nations.

Answer 2

Flag day is the celebration of the birthday of the flag of a country. It is today recognized and observed by nations with high respect for their symbol of freedom and those who value patriotism. Many nations of the world have joined in this celebration especially in Europe and the Americas. In Africa it is highly unpopular, some observers have attributed this to poor motivation towards living a patriotic life and lack of respect to national symbols, values and ordinance by governments whose life and unpatriotic conducts of abuse of power and corruption has eaten deep into. Little wonder our society does not radiate with the same kind of glow and excitement towards national patriotic celebrations like this talkless of signing such into law.

Liberia happens to be the first African nation to observe the Flag day celebration in Africa since August 24, 1847. The second country however to celebrate this event however was Nigeria on the 3Oth of September 2OO7. Although the celebration is still not yet recognized officially by the Nigerian government, but the group (the Building Our National Image Flag Project, a.k.a BONI FLAG PROJECT) who pioneered the event in Nigeria are engaging all stake holders towards supporting the passage of the Nigerian Flag day bill which will make it a national celebration. This fight is been lead by Akinola Solanke, a patriotic and flag educator who is one of the leading youth voice and authority on the subject of flag and patriotic education and one who is credited to have brought the Flag day initiative to Niger.

Unfortunately for Nigeria however, while she is still battling to get her government to recognize the celebration, Ethiopia has robbed her of the honor of being the 2nd African country to observe the event. The Ethiopian government celebrated their first colorful historic celebration which took place on the 5th of July 2008, and was attended by millions of Ethiopians, government officials, diplomats and invited foreign guests, to play a vital role in strengthening the harmony of the people.

The Ethiopian National Flag Day has enabled people of Ethiopia to forge unity on the bases of mutual respect, commonality, and equality. The celebration not only strengthens the solidarity and unity of Ethiopians but also expedites peace, democracy and sustainable economic development of the nation. In 2OO9, Ethiopia celebrated her 2nd Flag day and has establish October 5 as her flag day. For now no other nation has joined in this Patriotic celebration but the earlier the better African nation arise to engage their citizenry the better our chance of having a Patriotic driven African continent filled with a highly charged atmosphere of selflessness and patriotism both of which form the backbone of good governance and hence development, as with patriotic leaders in power, Africa can be assured of sincere and genuine development.