Meet Nigeria's Tartan Bagpipers

A small but growing number of Nigerians are embracing the most Scottish of instruments as their own.

Transcript

00:00 The streets of Abuja, Nigeria may seem like an unlikely place to hear the stirring sounds

00:07 of the Scottish Highlands, but there is a tradition of tartan-clad bagpipers here.

00:13 Some may see the bagpipes as a remnant from the British colonial era, but Chukwu Kalu

00:17 is someone who's embraced this most Scottish of instruments as their own.

00:21 The self-taught musician is the founder of the Scottish Power Pipe Band Nigeria, a group

00:26 that's grown in numbers over the years.

00:28 So the permanence of this came in the early 2000s.

00:34 In the early 2000s.

00:35 And since then we've been progressing gradually, gradually, from three man band to five, eight,

00:44 ten, up to 24 as we speak right now.

00:49 Bagpiping has not been a common sound in Nigeria since the country's independence in 1960,

00:54 making the sight of pipers marching on the streets a puzzling novelty for some.

00:59 But those who stop to take a closer look like what they see.

01:02 What I like most is the dressing.

01:04 This dressing.

01:06 The dressing can just move you.

01:08 Whatever you are doing, you just say, let me see what these people are up to.

01:13 The Scottish Power Pipe Band Nigeria has now become established enough to book professional

01:18 gigs at weddings and national events.

01:20 But its founder wants to go even further and use piping as a force for good in Nigerian

01:25 society.

01:26 We are making our effort to see that young people, especially civilians, who have nothing

01:32 doing, instead of engaging into crimes, that they should engage themselves into learning

01:37 this special instrument, because this is a special instrument.

01:40 The band hopes one day to visit Scotland's National Piping Centre in Glasgow to better

01:44 connect with the origins of the instrument.

01:47 They're also dedicated to cultivating new roots for the bagpipes in their West African

01:50 homeland.

01:52 Chris Ma and John Van Triest for Taiwan Plus.

01:55 (chimes)

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