The first in the series of lectures to mark the beginning of the ‘U.I at 70’ commemoration took place inside Trenchard Hall on June 27. Professor Tim Stapleton, of the University of Calgary, Canada was the guest lecturer. The paper was entitled, ‘Hugh Trenchard and the African Colonial Origins of Strategic Bombing’. It was a most instructive experience for me, as a die-hard Africanist with intolerance to Western hegemonic domination in a myriad of ways. Trenchard (1873 to 1956) was a Marshal of the Royal Air Force in Nigeria during the early part of the 20th century. He was a no-nonsense combatant who bombed the Igbo and their neighbours into submission, when he was holding sway over much of the Nigerian territory. The ‘offence’ of these Nigerians was that they resisted colonial rule enshrined in all kinds of unprintable ideologies and activities.
Nigeria collectively suffered heavy casualties in the process given the superior firepower of the colonial military men. Today’s University of Ibadan and Nigeria as a whole should not forget in a hurry, how the Anglo-Aro War between 1901 and 1902 devastated the Igbo, for fighting for their individual and corporate freedoms. The British colonialists violated their (Igbo) human rights, collective dignity and other elements of fine-grained humanity with impunity. Many survivors holding leadership positions in the Aro Confederacy were tortured and/or hanged. The Aro people also took part in later conflicts like the Nri War (1905 to 1911) and Ekumeku revolution which ended in 1914. They (the Aro) made all legitimate efforts to protect their neighbours who were equally being harassed by the British colonialists. As usual, there were heavy casualties due to the poor, low-tech weaponry of the former (the Aro). Nigerians have to compulsorily develop more interest in their history and memory so as to liberate themselves from the bondage of ignorance and underdevelopment.
The British colonial government which established the University of Ibadan in 1948 had every reason to memorialise Trenchard, whose killer instinct and military prowess were second to none during this period. His ruthlessness brought about the eventual silencing of the recalcitrant Igbo, Ibibio, and Efik among other ethnicities in eastern Nigeria. This paved the way for maximum exploitation of human and material resources in the region by Britain.
But as far as postcolonial Nigeria was/is concerned, Trenchard was a quintessential aggressor whose villainy can only be glorified at the peril of the present-day people of this country. It is the height of ridiculousness by all moral, critical standards to continue to immortalise Hugh Trenchard, Nigeria’s super abuser during the colonial period. Participation in the international community has to take cognisance of our social history and natural environment otherwise Nigeria will remain a puppet with strings which the majestic West pulls from time to time. It seems to me, that our ancestors are excruciatingly uncomfortable in their graves because of a general lack of readiness by the moderns to reverse the narrative in favour of Nigeria.
A fair-minded Briton today would be saddened rather than flattered that complacency arising from a gross lack of historical consciousness still reigns supreme in the Nigerian vocabularies of popular engagement. The morphology and content of the grammar of memory and memorialisation in the University of Ibadan, as elsewhere in many parts of Africa, have to be re-defined. Nigeria needs new, pragmatic articulations of its memory and history. Such an articulated redress becomes our moral, collective compass for charting the pathway to an enlarged future.
Memories, whether inscribed (material) or incorporated (extra-material), are inseparable in a neat way, from the concepts of social remembering and forgetting. They are not fixed once and for all due to changing socio-political interests and circumstances. In other words, memories are time-and space-bound. No group of people or nation can survive robustly, when it de-couples from its memories. A colonised mind lacks self-confidence and is always in a perpetual state of fear. It is against this backdrop that the dismantling of the statue of Cecil John Rhodes at the University of Cape Town in South Africa in April, 2015 by some angry but critically thinking students gains its relevance. This is food for thought for Nigeria!
The remote ancestors of present-day Nigerians were active innovators or producers of ideas and ideologies of profound, challenging insights. They were not passive, habitual receivers of hand-outs or ideas and things from some ‘super’ humans from outside Africa. The taproot authenticity or originality of these ancient Nigerians, despite their global interaction cannot be contested. These local heritages of science, arts, and technology ought to serve as a springboard for greater critical thinking leading to concrete scientific and technological achievements. This is the gateway to knowledge anchored to wisdom. It is unfortunate, that many Nigerians due to the thorough traumatisation of their minds continue to celebrate passively or otherwise our colonial/neo-colonial tormentors. This narrative must be quickly reversed in order to play our expected role in the sun.
The Trenchard Hall, University of Ibadan, represents the nucleus of the intellectual cell of the institution. It is the centre of academic gravity – the heart and soul of the nation which has to be re-named after a Nigerian hero/heroine. Most of our undergraduates today, are like logs of wood because the current system is disdainful of creativity and originality. This is at variance with the situation in the 1960s and 1970s when students were playing critical roles in national development. The University of Ibadan can begin to work against complacency and a lack of constructive analysis through the lenses of openness and fine-grained social engineering. This is our collective mandate as knowledge producers and mobilisers of human and material resources! It is the beauty of intellectuality- the hallmark of university training and education. Nigeria is no longer a colony of Britain even though the latter remains a component of our cultural/intellectual patrimony. De-colonisation must entail the crafting of a new philosophy of education. That is to say, that there is need for culture-loaded curricula. In this regard, the hidden indigenous epistemologies of Nigeria must form the core value of university education as if sustainable development matters. Nigerians must reject the age-old Western stereotype which claims that Africans are generally unthinking or intellectually lazy. Students despite their excusable youthful exuberance can only be caged by the management at the peril of the larger society. They have to be trained to raise foundational questions and constructively challenge conventional wisdom whenever the need to do so arises. Inclusiveness has a constructive role to play in the reform process.
- Professor Ogundele is of Dept. of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Ibadan.