Why History Should Be Taught

(Reuben Abati)-- …I have had similar encounters in more recent times: young Nigerians who do not know the author of Things Fall Apart, and who have never heard of Lord Lugard, Ahmadu Bello, Bola Ige or Kaduna Nzeogwu….

This is one of those self-inflicted omissions in our development process. Close to two decades ago, history was removed from the primary and secondary school curricula as a core subject.The teaching of history also became threatened at the tertiary level, as it got labeled as one of those disciplines that cannot get anyone a job in the oil and gas sector or the banks.

In an attempt to remain relevant and avoid being shut down by the National Universities Commission, History Departments became creative by changing their content and nomenclature to History and Diplomatic Studies, or History and International Relations.  

A succeeding generation of History graduates never failed to emphasize the suffixes. At the primary and secondary levels, history was replaced with social studies (which is at best a study of civics), or made optional, until it was even completely removed from the syllabus.  Years of lamentation by history teachers has not made any difference, but the point needs to be made ad nauseam, that the school curriculum must be reviewed to place a better emphasis on the learning and teaching of history. 

It is in fact quite ironic that Religious Studies occupies a more privileged place in the Nigerian school curriculum: we are busy teaching our students and the future generation, the two major religions, and many of them grow up force-fed with only that kind of history that the religious books teach, along with the dogma. Today, we are harvesting the dangers....