‘’I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say, is they must change if they are to get better’’-George C. Lichtenberg
The quotation above from George talks lucidly about change. It’s not just a camouflage change, but a sincere and better change.
All over the world, wars have been fought to obtain freedom from their oppressors, famine had made empires collapse and rose owing to good governance or misrule. A lot of waters have really passed through the bridges of nations and many are still groping in darkness reclining on false or fragile past handed over to them orally by the selfish bunch of leaders, masking the vibrant youths building on false hope, waiting for a GODOT (apology to Samuel Becket) that may not come, instead of using the past errors or history to forge ahead for a better society they want for themselves.
Some of the challenges that Nigeria is facing today are not unconnected to the palace coup on the study of history in our secondary schools in the early 90s. That was a dark age in our schools. It was a period when the teaching of history was expunged from the school curriculum because the powers at the echelon thought it insignificant for their self-aggrandizement preventing learners to know about their progenitors but prefer warped history to deceive the ignorant.
Lord Brougham once said, ”Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.’’ I want to add that education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
When you know your history, your background, and where you evolve, things look better for you to step forward.
History is not just about understanding what happened in the past, neither is it a boring subject as some claim. It is a subject that suggests the world that we live in now. It also postulates about the future. History is about change.
History as a subject in secondary Schools would help us to understand the cultural heritage and traditions of other nations for a better understanding of our coexistence.
In history, you will study different stories of the world. How they evolved and others. Thus, apart from African, and West African histories, you are exposed to European history and World History, as well, at the advanced levels.
In our cultures lie our languages, laws and all other aspects of our lives. All these, students will make use of it for a future living either in the public or private service.
Land disputes, have sent many people to an untimely grave, most times because of ignorance of what belongs to you owing to inadequate history from their forefathers. Same with ethnicity and controversies on who owns a country like Nigeria and who are the migrants and how we can live together peacefully with an adequate understanding of one another.
Greediness, encroachment and its attendant acrimony are all from the same source-lack of in-depth knowledge of our immediate environment.
How History Can Help Change Nigeria Political Climate Better
As mentioned above, History is not just about the rise and fall of kingdoms and Empires. It is more than that. In Nigeria, a lot of benefits are in store for our political climate to become sane:
- One of the benefits is that it will help in the understanding and developing critical thinking of individuals when they have insight into present-day problems.
- Reading culture is gradually diminishing in Nigerian schools among students. A lot of our leaders have made good and bad names. Uninterrupted study of history will help students to develop an interest in reading autobiographies of both local and foreign leaders to learn and know the aspects and style of good governance, and how it impacted positively or negatively (and why) in their environments. They would understand and identify despotic and uncivilized rulers and want to avoid the pitfalls of those despotic and uncivilized rulers.
- History will build up the right citizenship as they exposed to the role oratory plays in building people to dialogue for peace at war times, thereby involved in a better understanding of oneself and others, their grievances, wants and many other essential needs at the grassroots, thereby making positive change a strong footing in governance.
- It will build their writing skills and sharpen their oratory with an increase in their vocabulary
- Encourage research
To shape our political terrain, we need to take a cue from Australia of the 1990S and 2000s.
The Australian public was pre-occupied as never before with arguments about the past.’’The History Wars of the 1990s and 2000s were fought over the rewriting of history tailored towards political visions.
Research indicates that in a National Press Club, speech on the eve of Australian Day 2006, Prime Minister John Howard called for a root and branch renewal of history teaching in schools. He was critical of the way students were taught Australian past and indigenous History and proposed some new directions.
The debates focused on his desire to produce a national Australian History curriculum starting with the convening of a curriculum. This idea of Prime Minister Howard was widely celebrated by Historians and teachers without prejudice to Howards’s political agenda.
Students studying history are usually inspired by the content embedded in the study. World leaders were exposed to how they helped in the past to build their empires and kingdoms. And as students are exposed to the role oratory plays in building people to dialogue for peace at war times, deeper harmony triumphs.
POSER
Now that History as a subject has been reintroduced in Nigerian Secondary Schools, the Nigerian Government should employ more teachers to take this vital subject in schools. Incentives should be given to these teachers and students should be encouraged to study the subject, especially those in the Arts .or humanity.
CONCLUSION
History as a subject in Nigerian Secondary Schools will bring a positive change in governance in the country. Positive ideology will come to play and wranglings and suspicions will be eradicated once everybody knows where he or she belongs rather than conjecture.
By-Tunde Idowu