The death of history in Nigeria

The decision by the Nigerian government to remove history from the Nigerian primary and secondary school curriculum came to me as a terrible shock. I can’t exactly figure out how and where in the educational chain of command such a preposterous decision was reached. The reasons that have been cited are that there are neither jobs for graduates of history nor sufficient teachers for students of history. These reasons are simplistic at best and mostly misguided.

I am a history graduate, so I may seem to be biased. The idea that history is no longer taught in our schools is profoundly disconcerting. The denigration of history, in my view, will have dire ramifications as our children grow up ignorant and unaware of the essential beliefs which have guided our country and our forbears for the last 100 years and beyond. If the youngest generations of Nigerians lack a basic understanding of the past, what kind of nation will we be in 10, 20 or even 100 years from now? What kind of leaders will we produce?

The purpose of basic education, elementary and secondary, is primarily to provide students with the requisite knowledge and skills to live more successful lives. Yet, when we perpetually fail to teach history in schools, we inevitably weaken the nation because our children grow up without any real sense of a national identity.

We study our own history, at least in part, to commemorate and remember all of those who gave their lives to preserve the liberties and freedoms we cherish as Nigerians. To forget the humiliation of the people of Benin by the British in 1897, or the courage of the Aba women who in 1929 dared to challenge the restriction of the role of women in government, or the suffering of the Igbo people during the three years of the Nigerian Civil War, would be an affront to their legacy and reflect the narcissism and ingratitude of our own people.

The study of history cultivates an understanding and appreciation for the ideals the nation was founded upon. Every Nigerian child needs to know that Herbert Macaulay is not just a street name in Yaba, Lagos. Herbert Macaulay was the grandson of Bishop Ajayi Crowder; the first African Bishop of the Niger Territory. His father Thomas Babington Macaulay was the founder of the first secondary school in Nigeria, the CMS Grammar School, Lagos. Herbert Macaulay studied civil engineering in Plymouth, England. He later became a strong opponent of colonial British rule in Nigeria. He founded Nigeria’s first political party, which by the way was not the PDP, but Nigerian National Democratic Party. The NNDP won all the seats in the elections of 1923, 1928 and 1933.

Every American child knows the story of “Honest Abe”. The 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, was called “Honest Abe” when he was working as a young store clerk in New Salem, Illinois. According to one story, when he realized he had short-changed a customer by a few pennies, he closed the shop and walked to customer’s house to deliver the correct change.

Every Nigerian child should know the humble beginnings and early struggles of “Zik”. Nnamdi Azikiwe was the son of a colonial clerk. He was born to Igbo parents in Zungeru, Northern Nigeria. After secondary school, he stowed away on a ship to America but only got as far as Ghana. In Ghana, he joined the police but his mother came from Nigeria to withdraw him from the police training. She wanted more in life for her first son. With the little money from his father’s pension, his family bought him a ticket on a ship to the United States in 1925. He worked as a labourer, gardener and porter among other odd jobs to put himself through university in the United States. He earned three degrees while in America. He taught political science for two years at Lincoln University where he also devised a syllabus for African history and wrote a book, Liberia in World Politics (1934). Through focus, honesty and self-determination, he became a successful journalist, publisher, businessman and eventually Nigeria’s first president.

By eliminating the teaching of history in public schools, we deprive our children of an opportunity to learn about their heritage. And in so doing, we fail these students by neglecting to adequately educate them. Failure to teach history will result in an undereducated and disengaged public. A firm understanding of history is paramount to the success and effectiveness of our political leaders.

I can understand the Nigerian educational policymaker’s eagerness or obsession with a skills-based education. In an age defined by technology and globalization, everyone is talking about skills-based learning. Politicians, businesspeople, and many educators see it as the only way for nations to stay competitive. This cannot be achieved by jettisoning the study of history in schools.

I have had a first-hand experience of the United States, having lived there for many years and having children that have gone from primary school to university there. American children are taught history with an emphasis on making the subject fun and memorable. In elementary schools students are shown history videos, they get to act out scenes from history, create art projects that are tied into themes they are learning about and cook recipes that were used during historical periods. In the US, the month of February is designated African-American History Month for the remembrance of important people and events in the history of the African Diaspora.

My niece returned a few weeks ago from the Czech Republic where she spent one year in JS2. She regaled me with stories of European kings and queens, the Renaissance and the French Revolution. When I told her how Oba Esigie of Benin in the 16th century sent an ambassador to Lisbon and the King of Portugal reciprocated by sending Christian missionaries to teach the Bini people the gospel and build churches in Benin, she was in awe. She knows the capitals of Germany, Austria and Croatia. But she couldn’t tell me where Zaria is or who Queen Amina was because they never taught them history or geography in her previous seven years of schooling in Nigeria. Her new subjects for JS3 (16 subjects in total) do not include history.

You teach history in schools not to produce history teachers. Just like all biology or physics students are not expected to be doctors or rocket scientists. Historians do not perform heart transplants, improve highway design, or arrest criminals. In a society that quite correctly expects education to serve useful purposes, the functions of history can seem more difficult to define than those of engineering or medicine. History is in fact very useful, actually indispensable, but the products of historical study are less tangible, sometimes less immediate, than those that stem from some other disciplines.

History is very important in creating knowledgeable and engaged citizens for any nation. We’ve all heard the old adage that those who don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it. History teaches us to analyze the social, political, and economic threads of the past. The study of history gives us the skills to analyze those threads in the present. History or other liberal arts like English Literature teach the student how to think, write, speak their mind, and most importantly how to learn. These are immensely valuable tools no matter what profession you eventually enter. Technology and globalization are actually making these skills even more valuable as routine mechanical and even computing tasks can be done by machines or workers in low-wage countries.

Learning your history is more than just a path to a career, it is an exercise in freedom. Above all, it is an expression of the most basic urge of the human spirit – to know.

Greg Idehen