By: Toriola Adedayo [Contributor]
“We learn from history that we do not learn from history” is a statement by Georg Hegel, a German philosopher, depicting the recompensation a nation gets for losing its touch with history. Or in the Nigerian case, to rattle in the darkness of its own past.
In the conceptualisation of history, it is worth noting that history is a continuous interaction between the present and the past, a veritable tool to shape the nearest future. By implication, history is like the sight of a man, without which, his whole body is enveloped in darkness; a situation not too far-fetched from the present state of affairs in our country, Nigeria.
In fact, one of Nigeria’s problems is largely due to paucity of knowledge about our history. We, as a people have lost the intrinsic value we ought to have placed on our history; leaving us shallow, bare and naive, creating a vacuum of problems in our society, causing our beloved nation to be embroidered in different feud of ethnicity, religiosity and the likes, thus, bringing us into webs of confusion, animosity and bitterness.
The absence of history has also made us lose our identity as a people. Today, Nigerians are oblivious of who they really are, where they are coming from, the civilisations of their geography, the rise, fall, prosperity, decline and grandeur they once had. It has reached an appalling point where Nigerians do not know the heroes’ pasts, their actions and reactions, and as such the vital role which kith and kin had played in the liberation of the human race. We are today like snakes without heads, thus, making “Nigeria in search of Nigerians”.
It is essential to note that Nigeria did not however or arbitrarily resume into this ignorant state. There were indeed various contributors to this obliviousness. A major contributor that can definitely not be overlooked with regards to this decadence would be the orientation of the people. The people have being unconsciously programmed or psychologically worked into the school of thought that history is a “worthless endeavor”, especially for those studying it as a course of study; a vocal effect of the lack of efforts to educate the people on the impact their history has and the volumes it speaks of them.
In furtherance, another contributor to this gross obscurity, is the inexcusable removal of “History” as an academic discipline, from the curriculum of secondary school students in 2009. This reprehensible action has made successive generations of students ignorant of even the most basics of the Nigerian historiographies. This they did all on the no acceptable excuse begging the question of leadership.
Colonialism effected the “de-Nigerianisation” of our land. The cultures and heritage of our people which had been in existence for centuries were displaced at the instance of an alien intrusion. We, as a people now term our indigenous languages “vernacular”, while we promote, encourage and appreciate degrees in other languages. The sophistication of our heritage is at the moment in need of revivalists; quite worrying.
Suggesting ways out of this quagmire, hope may not be lost as these problems are definitely not without rectification, only if we as a people can start paying rapt attention to the value or importance of the study of our history. For instance, if Nigerians pays conscious attention to their history, it will go a long way in restoring our long lost identity. We will be able to get to a point where an average Nigerian will be able to tell the history of the grandeur and sophistication of empires like Old Oyo, Benin, etc, and have it in his consciousness that long before the advent of the Europeans, there were indeed empires in Nigeria that had oil-powered street lights, sophisticated buildings, etc.
Similarly, the knowledge of history in contemporary Nigeria will also help to quench the undue ethnocentric brawling among the various tribes and across the Nigerian territory. The average Nigerian student will be able to confidently tell whoever cares to listen, how the Yorubas, Igbos, and other similar tribes have been in close contact centuries earlier, and not just the obscure rhetoric that “1914 amalgamation was the event that forcefully brought us together” (an act that contributes, in no small measure, to the division and sentiments tribes in Nigeria now bore towards one another). Likewise, if Nigerians can consciously start seeing the damages the lack of historical knowledge is bringing upon our society, it would create in us the sense of unity needed to salvage our country from the bondage of blindness, as every man will start seeing the other as his brother.
In short, it is expedient to know that the value the knowledge of history provides a nation is just inexhaustible, and to this end, Nigerians, and even the citizenry of other nations must place intrinsic importance on upholding its tenets, as “those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.
