THE DEARTH OF HISTORY

Who is Nnamdi Azikiwe? What did he fight for? What were his political ideals? What were his shortfalls? What is the story behind the man who alongside with other founding fathers like Obafemi Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello fought for the independence of Nigeria? If you are able to answer all the questions above, you are probably 28 years and above. If you are not, the little you know you must have read from those little books the sellers call "Current Affairs." If the later is your case, how much would an 18-20 page booklet teach you of the history of your nation; not to speak of Africa?

As an average Nigerian, aside Nelson Mandela, his wife Winnie Mandela, Oscar Pistorius known for the murder of his girlfriend (a bad historic example, of course), Desmond Tutu, Steve Biko,  and then probably the current South African President, Jacob Zuma, how many  historic Southern African figures do you know? How much of their history do you know besides the apartheid? Oh no, their history did not start with apartheid. They were a people with their belief systems, cultures and arts. They were a people in all their rights but how much of these do we know as African youths from other countries? Yea, I'm also very guilty of all these. I'm not absolved of the whole chastisement and I'll get to my point as quickly as I can. So then, we come to Ghana; Kwame Nkrumah, Jerry Rawlings, Kofi Anan, John Atta Mills and the Kente (a very rich cultural heritage of the people of the Gold Coast) and the Ghana Cedi come to my mind. After that, what next does average Nigerian or African know about the rich history of the people known formerly as Gold Coast?

What of Cameroon and Zambia and Sudan and Rwanda and Malawi and etc.? What does the average African youth know of the other African countries, except a few of us who go out of our way to study on African history? Most African Countries appear on international news only when those countries are going through crisis: the electoral crisis of the Gambian people last year; Sudan wars; Nigerian Boko haram crisis and the missing girls; Cameroon and the bi-lingual wars; South Africa high rate of pregnant teenage girls and drug trafficking; I could go on but let me stop here. These are the only times some of us become consciously aware (I have a reason for using an adverb and an adjective that are almost doing same thing in the sentence. It's for emphasis) and then read up about these countries. What does it do to our psyche? It propagates the propaganda that Africans are mentally poor and therefore economically poor and incapable of leading themselves or managing their resources.

Many of us no longer believe in our countries and that things can ever get better. We seem to have resigned our fate to an invincible hand that has vowed to keep the African Continent in a perpetual state of darkness and to the hands puppets whom we call our political leaders. Here in Nigeria, people are restless. The Igbo's are calling for a cessation. The Yoruba's believe they too will do well as a nation and wouldn't mind a cessation. Amongst the Igbos, some believe in the cessation; some of us are worried about it and have our valid points. What then is there to believe or follow? I have watched the development of the resurrection of the Biafra awareness and fight. A young man, after years of in depth research began to educate the Igbos on whom they were. He reminded the people of how great a people they have always been. This sparked a revolution first in the mind of the people and now, a lot have died and are still willing to die for the Biafran cause. This is the power of history!

As I reminisce on the foregoing, a lot of questions come to my mind? What happened to our people (Nigeria)? The same people whose independence fathers came together to fight for their independence. Where did this come from- that a certain part of the nation has the scepter of leadership, while the other parts should simply follow? What made our leaders so myopic that they focused on oil as our only economically viable natural resource while neglecting our vast arable lands that should be used for agriculture and other natural resources this country has been blessed with? This same oil exploration that has destroyed the land and vegetation of the people who own it, impoverished them, enriched a very minute percentage of the citizens and the foreign companies who do the oil exploration and have torn the country in several pieces. Why are some parts of the nation (a bit) developed while in the other parts, people live as nomads and people in the Stone Age? Why have these people of a certain part kept their poor masses uneducated and living in undeserving conditions? And finally, why is African history not taught in our primary and secondary schools? Why was civic education removed from our curriculum? What are we hiding, or rather, what are we afraid of?

There's much I'd like to say and so I'll write a rejoinder to this but let me end with this analogy. A mad man wakes up and keeps walking. He doesn't know where he was the previous day or where he would end up today; all the same, he keeps walking. Everywhere is alright for the madman because everywhere is home.

So, as Africans, have we become madmen? Is everywhere home for us? A people who do not know where (and whom) they were, where they are and where they are going will never get anywhere (make any real progress).

 I ask again, as Africans, have we become madmen?  

IGBOKWE V,I

Nigeria