A nation without a past
One of them says that ‘It is the prerogative of the victor to rewrite history’. This means that history as we know it, is what ‘victors’ wrote down for us to believe, having conquered the rest of us. In our own case as Nigerians, our history has been written for us by Colonialists who would […]
One of them says that ‘It is the prerogative of the victor to rewrite history’. This means that history as we know it, is what ‘victors’ wrote down for us to believe, having conquered the rest of us. In our own case as Nigerians, our history has been written for us by Colonialists who would want us to believe that all our forefathers were monkeys jumping from one tree to the next. The way it works is if two people are fighting and one kills the other, the one who is victorious can alter the story as he likes. A dead man cannot talk. Africa is not quite dead yet, so we should find time to rewrite our history. If we are wise! Flowing from the above is another quotation from the same man. He once said ‘History will be kind to me, for I will write it!’. This means that people will always write history to favour themselves.
Churchill also has another great quote. He said ‘The farther back we are able to look, the further forward we will be able to see’. Because I started my research into Nigeria’s history from around the year 1400, I must say that thanks be to God, I have a fairly good grasp of why we are at this point as a people. I have told friends that I would rather be called a historian than anything else today. Because that profession will soon become extinct in Nigeria. Many commentators on public affairs like to start their analysis from ‘the Lugard mistake’ of 1914. I went back much further, and I know that Lugard did not make any mistake. In fact, not many countries were formed with the consent of the inhabitants. Not even the USA, our modern-day paragon of democracy and governance.
The USA was formed by castaways from today’s Britain; the dregs of the Earth from there. Those castaways were so crazed, that they saw nothing wrong in annihilating all the aboriginal Indians to take their lands. The Indians never had a say. Ditto, Australia and New Zealand, among other countries, were formed by convicted criminals who were banished to serve 7 years hard labour by the then British Monarchy. That is why these days I laugh when people complain about Nigeria’s amalgamation. Indeed we are a people without a sense of history, and anything we try to build on the false foundation we have, amounts to nothingness. Until we know, and rewrite, our history.
Hear Churchill again; ‘Of this I am sure, that if we embark on a contest between the past and the present, we will lose the future’. Churchill recommends that we should not bicker too much about our past, as to waste too much time in the present. The knowledge of the past is not meant to create rancor in the present. It is not about recriminations and blame-sharing. As we stand in Nigeria, many people, especially from the south, are so convinced that the north is holding them back. But the knowledge of our history is meant to focus us on the strategic import for the future. We should know our history in order to unite for the future. We have failed immensely in that regard.
The crux of my discussion today, centres around this quote by the same man; ‘Any nation which forgets its past, does not deserve a future’. As it concerns Nigeria, we have not only accepted the history written for us and about us by the victors (the colonialists and their predecessors the Americans), but we have also failed to document our contemporary history. Ask a youth of 20 years today who is Balewa, Zik, Awolowo or Ahmadu Bello, he doesn’t know and doesn’t care! His heroes are Tuface, DBanj, PSquare, BigBrotherAfrica and RuggedMan, not those great thinkers who got together to set up Nigeria. What about Gowon, Ironsi, Abacha and co? Our Secondary schools no longer have history teachers and where they do, they still teach Mungo Park and Songhai Empire. We ought, as a thinking people, to have updated same with our contemporary history by now. So the question is, since we have forgotten our history, do we deserve a future?
Visit the internet sites on which Nigerians converge, and you see the level of retardation, banality and decadence of our intelligentsia. People lambast each other in a sense that shows total disregard for history. We have learnt all the wrong lessons from whatever is available to us as our history. The so-called cerebral southerners would have done better by appreciating the challenge that northerners have with transiting into the English-type education and modernization, and they should also know that their western education advantage does not make them superior to their northern counterparts. Instead, what we have is a scenario where the entire north is dismissed as ‘barbarians’, ‘parasites’ and so on. How this will not lead us all into perdition I don’t know. Again, do we deserve a future, having neglected our past?
One thing happened recently that brought this matter to the forefront for me. There was a young chap named Dagrin who was a musician/rapper in Lagos. People liked his music so much. They said he was the first person to perfect rapping in Yoruba language. One night, he went to do some recording and left very tired (or drunk), and drove his car under a stationary truck, and died. The whole music-loving nation mourned him for quite a while and the newspapers were full of his praises. I wondered then why we would mourn a 22-year-old musician when we didn’t give a hoot just recently when a very honest president passed on. I hope people have read the account in Saturday Sun of 7/5/2011 where that newspaper confirmed that Umaru Yar’adua died WITHOUT EVER BUILDING A SINGLE HOUSE FOR HIMSELF! I doubt if President Jonathan has even bothered to visit Umaru’s graveside since he died. To most Nigerians, it was good riddance to bad rubbish, but for me, a great tragedy befell this country, and we would be lucky if Almighty God does not punish us greatly for our actions and utterances. The drift of this country into the Hobbesian state since Yar’adua departed seems to be confirming my worst fears.
As if the noise, and indeed reverence that attended Dagrin’s death was not enough, our Music and Video industry recently announced that they would get together to create a Biopic of him. That is a biography in video form. They would put together all his life activities and make it into a feature film. I then asked; where is the video for Awolowo, given than Dagrin is a Yoruba man? Or Azikiwe? Or Sardauna? Or Tafawa Balewa? How come out of all the multitude of actors and actresses we have in Nollywood, weekly churning out incomprehensible videos just for the money, none has been inspired to dress up like our great men and women, in order to immortalize them and preserve our history. Now Dagrin will be more remembered and revered than the people who strove to make Nigeria great. And President Jonathan is actively contributing hard-earned resources to Nollywood to continue exciting us and leading us astray… Hmmm. A nation that forgets its past…