The Nation Newspaper

Tag: history

  • Values, history and leadership

    I   read  on the internet  his  week  that  the man who  introduced queuing  into Nigeria is now  trying  to  clean up  the same nation. That  man  or leader of  course is our current  Head  of State President  Muhammadu  Buhari. This time around  however,  according  to  the  report,  he   was  trying to  change Nigeria or tell  Nigerians    to  change, by  trying to  change themselves by inculcating  the values  of honesty, integrity  and  transparency in  their daily  lives.

    On  the surface  and at  face value,  this is a very direct  political    and  moral, appeal.  But  in the context  of  world  politics,  and the topsy  tturvy  terrain   of  Nigerian  history   and  development, it  is  certainly   not  original.   To  me it  is  not  only   diversionary  it  is begging  the question  on the president’s   electoral  mandate  of   change     on which  he secured  the  presidency  of  Nigeria in the 2015  presidential  elections. It  is like telling  Nigerians the buck  does  not stop  on    his  table   but    it  is a collective  responsibility  of  Nigerians   to  change    in  terms  of the way  and manner    in  which      they  apply  the   tenets  of  honesty, integrity,  and   transparency to   their   work   and overall  way  of  life.

    Unfortunately    that  really  is not  the point   and  is indeed  a painful leadership  fallacy in  the context  of  Nigerian  politics,  given   the all  pervasive  culture of corruption  and   poor   leadership  that  have   brought  us to  our  knees  in terms  of  poverty  and    economic   deprivation  as a nation.  That  was  what  the war  on  corruption  was  supposed  to  be about and the pivot  or  Commander  in  Chief    of  the    war  was  supposed  to  be this  president.   So    what    happened that  all  of us  are  being  asked  to  take  the  bull  by  the horn when  we don’t have the means and  cannot  even  recognize  the  bull  in  the first  instance? It is like  asking  Nigerians to  commit  mass  suicide and  this is just  not   right  as  Nigerians  put the mantle of  change on this presidency when  they  booted out the   Jonathan  presidency and  chose  the APC and  President  Buhari in the 2015 presidential  elections. The  dog  should  wag  the tail  in the war against  corruption  and in  the  instilling of honest  and  progressive values in  any  society  including  Nigeria. The tail  should  not  wag  the dog as the slogan  that change starts  with  Nigerians clearly demands. That  is the issue  for  discussion today.

    I intend  to  illustrate  my  position    with  the  history  of  a social   club which  is  the   oldest  indigenous  club    in Nigeria  and which   celebrated  its  90th  anniversary  this week.   That  club  is  the Yoruba  Tennis Club   founded  on  September  15  1926. The  club  in  90  years  has  weathered  the  political  storm and uncertainties of first,  colonial  rule, independence, military  rule and  a pervasive  culture  of  corruption in  a nation that is  now  engaged  in  a war  on  corruption . Yet,  the Yoruba  Tennis Club  has never  in its  chequered    history    been  found  wanting in the values  of honesty,  integrity  and above  all   sheer human  courage.

    The   Yoruba Tennis   Club  celebrated  its 90th  Anniversary  with  a long  programme  that  included  several  events  including an anniversary lecture  by  the Vice  President   Professor  Yemi  Osinbajo,  yesterday and  ends   with  a Gala Dance  today. The  Vice  President’s  Lecture  provided a  genuine menu  of  change  that  the government promised  in  sharp  distinction  from the diversion of  asking  Nigerians to  change  themselves  and their  morals  in an environment  reeking from inescapable and  avoidable  corruption  and  poverty. indeed  the VP ‘s  analysis  of  the challenges  facing the nation in this recession goes  to  the point in making  Nigerians  know  that  government  is not sleeping on  change  and that  Nigerians can  expect  some  succour  from  their  sufferings  and economic  woes  sooner  than  later. Most  appropriately  the lecture  has  the title –  Revitalising  the Nigerian  Economy, the  Challenges  and  Opportunities.

    As   pointed  out during  the lecture,  the VP  noted  that  the club, the  YTC,  was  founded  by men  of  integrity and  courage  90  years  ago as  a protest  against  the racial  discrimination of  the colonial  masters who  barred  them  from  membership  of the  now Lagos  Lawn  Tennis  Club  whose  first  Chairman  was  Lord  Lugard,  Nigeria’s  first  colonial  governor. Ironically  and   rather   fortuitously,  the  present  president  of  the Lagos  Lawn  Tennis  Club, a  young  Nigerian   supervised  the  cutting of  the  cake of  the  90th  anniversary  of  the YTC  which  was  founded   on  September  15, 1926  by  bold Nigerians of  integrity  and honesty    who   resented  the  racial  discrimination  of  the colonial  governors  who did  not  allow  them   to  socialize  with  them.  Which    means     that  in  terms  of  social  and  political  change,  Nigerians   need no new  teachings or  masters  on  their  manners  and  values    and  only  expect  government  to  live  up  to  its  responsibilities in  2016, a year  after  the promised  change  of the election  victory  of  2015.

    The VP elucidated professorially on the  solutions  being  put in place  to revitalize  the  Nigerian  economy. He said  government putting in place fiscal  prudence to  curtail  costs; an Efficiency Unit is in  place to ensure  swift  service  delivery;  the  TSA  is  being  used  to  monitor  diversion  of  funds and  fraudulent  collusion between  government  officials and bank  managers; a  flexible  exchange  rate structure is being  put in place while  the Downstream  oil  sector  is being  deregulated.

    More  importantly,  the  VP said  government will  ensure  that salaries  of government  workers   at  state and federal  level  will  be paid  as and when  due. As    government   knows  now that the  states  cannot  meet  their  needs as they rely on government  allocation  which  has  dwindled as a result of  falling oil  prices in a mono  product economy.  He  said  paying  salaries  of  workers  would stimulate  consumer  spending and  confidence  and chase  away  recession  which  he admits is  peculiar  to each  economy in terms  of  causes  and  effect . Government  is planning  direct  creation of  jobs  for  about 500,000  graduates  to  get  jobs  by  September as  well as a Micro Credit Scheme  for 2m  market  women  and traders. In addition  government  is planning   a  500km  pipeline    to  be  embedded  in  the high seas to  stem  pipeline  vandalisation   and its   negative  effects  on  the economy  and  power  supply. Government  is stepping up on diversifying  the economy   and  is  funding  alternative  sources  of  power  while also working  earnestly  on  solar  energy  power  supply. Indeed  one  can  say  that  government  has woken up on its change sleep  and has put its  hands  to  the plow  to  save  the Nigerian  economy.

    Again,  on  the issue  of  morals,  the VP  commended the Chairman  of  the YTC, Mr  Dele  Martins, lawyer, as  a man  of integrity that the VP said  he  wanted  to recruit as a judge  when the  VP was the Attorney  General  of   Lagos  State. In addition, a Trustee  of the YTC, Alhaji Femi  Okunnu SAN, in his contribution demonstrated  the virtues of boldness and courage which  are  the hall  mark  of  the leadership  that  founded  the YTC.  He  said  government  must  cut  the cost  of governance at the legislative  and  executive  levels  to  improve  the economy.  He  said  the judiciary  has  not reflected  the federal  character in judicial appointments  from around  1978. He  asked  government  to  work  hard on  social  housing.  More  importantly  he said that the insurrection in the  Niger  Delta  will persist as  long  as  the issue  of Resource  Control, which is not the making  of the present Administration is  not  judiciously  resolved  and  urgently  too.

    Earlier  on at the anniversary,  the reviewer  of  the  Club  History,  Dr.  Femi  Olugbile,  commented on  several  aspects  of  the YTC 90  year  old  history.  As  a member  myself I  wish  to  highlight the part of  the club’s  history  that  says the Chairman  of  the club  can  do  no wrong. While  this  may  sound unrealistic and  impossible  at  once,  it  has  been  a   strong   catalyst   for orderliness and  control.  Especially   in   a  club made  up of professors, lawyers and eggheads  in various  professions  as well as captains of industry  and  business. It  is a salutation  that I  have personally  discovered makes for smooth  flow of obedience  from  members  to  tradition and  customs  of  the club as  well as   total  recognition of  the responsible  authority   of  the YTC   Chairman. It  is indeed  a  good  recipe  for political  stability in any  environment  and  not  only a social one   such  as  the  YTC  and is  highly  recommended.  Once   again,  long live  the Federal  Republic  of  Nigeria.

  • Cleric underscores need for History in schools

    The Chairman, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Southsouth Zone, and President of Niger Delta Bishops Forum, Archbishop Goddowell Avwomakpa, has called for the reintroduction of history in secondary and tertiary education.

    The Archbishop made the call during Delta State’s 25th anniversary celebration in Asaba.

    History is taught as part of the Civic Education Curriculum at primary level, and offered as an elective subject at secondary school level.  At tertiary level, History is not taught generally.

    Avwomakpa, said if the Buhari administration with its change mantra cannot use its political will to introduce history into school curriculum, then the government should stop marking the army remembrance day as well as other historical events in our nation’s national calendar.

    He said: “Why has the nation named some institutions, streets and buildings after some prominent Nigerians who have contributed to nation building? History teachers are going into extinction in Nigeria while the rest of the world is teaching school children history about their country and leaders.”

    The cleric warned that denying the young generation any written records of past events is tantamount to allowing foreigners who keep such records to write it, a situation he described as dangerous.

    He called Christians to continue to pray for Nigeria and her leaders, adding that if people who are faithful and righteous stand in the gap to pray for Nigeria, the country will rise again, but if those who should stand in the gap fold their hands in lamentation, worse things will happen.

  • Cleric underscores need for History in schools

    The Chairman, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Southsouth Zone, and President of Niger Delta Bishops Forum, Archbishop Goddowell Avwomakpa, has called for the reintroduction of history in secondary and tertiary education. The Archbishop made the call during Delta State’s 25th anniversary celebration in Asaba.

    History is taught as part of the Civic Education Curriculum at primary level, and offered as an elective subject at secondary school level.  At tertiary level, History is not taught generally.

    Avwomakpa, said if the Buhari administration with its change mantra cannot use its political will to introduce history into school curriculum, then the government should stop marking the army remembrance day as well as other historical events in our nation’s national calendar.

    He said: “Why has the nation named some institutions, streets and buildings after some prominent Nigerians who have contributed to nation building? History teachers are going into extinction in Nigeria while the rest of the world is teaching school children history about their country and leaders.”

    The cleric warned that denying the young generation any written records of past events is tantamount to allowing foreigners who keep such records to write it, a situation he described as dangerous.

    He called Christians to continue to pray for Nigeria and her leaders, adding that if people who are faithful and righteous stand in the gap to pray for Nigeria, the country will rise again, but if those who should stand in the gap fold their hands in lamentation, worse things will happen.

  • Echoing Soyinka on study of History

    SIR, Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka is not known for frivolities. He seldom talks, but  when he talks, he talks sense. His statement on Thursday, August, 25 at a press conference to unveil the beneficiaries of the initiative between the Wole Soyinka Foundation and the Cedars Institute, Notre Dame University, Lebanon deserves serious attention. At the gathering, Soyinka advocated the re-instatement of History as a subject in Nigerian schools.

    He said “I learnt not so long ago that history has been taken off the curriculum in this country; can you imagine that? History? What is wrong with History? Or maybe I should ask, what is wrong with some people’s head?”

    One major problem which has crept into the nation’s education system is the insignificance currently given to the subject of History in our schools. History, as a subject, presently has little or no place in the country’s curriculum, and this is below par for a country that seeks to produce nation-builders. It is so painful seeing that the majority of younger Nigerians today have little idea about the country’s past, particularly the roles played by its founding fathers.

    It is deceitful to think that the nation-builders and problem-solvers who would lift the nation’s status would emerge without a proper knowledge of the past. Many do not know how we arrived at where we are today as a country. Did we just automatically land? Many students do not care to know, and this has been due to the absence of History in the academic curriculum in schools. From primary to secondary schools, History has been abandoned as a subject. More so, many bright students are increasingly twining their back to History in favour of seemingly more lucrative and marketable disciplines like Engineering, Medicine, Law, Accounting and Business Administration. History as a discipline is increasingly offered by students in the universities as a second choice. In other words when they are rejected for their first choice course, they fall back to History. This to say the least is very unfortunate.

    One reason History was removed from the curriculum could be as a result of the lack of interest in it by students. This will definitely happen when it is optional; however, if it is made compulsory, students will have no choice than to ‘love’ it. The Federal Government through the Ministry of Education is responsible for choosing subjects which are included in the curriculum of schools. If History can be made mandatory from primary school, then the interest in the subject will developed.

    In United States, History is compulsory from elementary level into the second year of college, while in Britain, it is compulsory till secondary school level.

    The average secondary school or high school leavers in these two countries can give a proper intellectual account of their country’s past. Even sadder is the fact that British and American schools in Nigeria teach British or American History as mandatory in their curricula. One is bound to ask: where is the place of History in Nigerian schools? Where does it stand? Some have said Social Studies and Civic Education has replaced History in junior secondary school, while Government replaced it in senior secondary school. This is not correct. The content in the three subjects are not adequate and will not satisfy the level of knowledge required which History being taught as mandatory will provide.

     

    • Sunday Ogunkuade,

    Ogbomoso, Oyo State.

  • Again, history beckons in Edo

    Voters in Edo State will this Saturday head to the poll for the election of the person to succeed incumbent Governor Adams Oshiomhole, whose second term and final tenure of office expires on November 11. As should be expected, partisan sentiments in the state are by now cresting their peak. We can only hope that the political elite have as well upgraded in their refinement of conduct as to allow the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) sufficient room for smooth and conclusive conduct of the governorship poll come September 10.

    A decent elite culture is as crucial a success factor in the imminent election as the performance of INEC, granted though that the stakes have never been this high in any previous governorship poll in the state. Among the parties contesting in the poll, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), which currently holds power at the Federal level, will be hard pressed to at the minimum fence off its sphere of control – even more so in Edo because the national chairman of the party is a native, actually, one-time governor of the old state. Opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), for its part, will be seeking to turn the tables on the ruling APC in what, if such occurred, would be the ultimate statement of rejection of the status quo by the voting public. The opposition party, as it were, is booby-trapped with internal contradictions arising from an unrelenting factional attrition, but that is another issue altogether. For purposes of the imminent poll, the competing quests by the parties are perfectly legitimate. Only that the political elite should wage those quests with a great deal of civility and decorous comportment, and guide their voter-followers along similar paths.

    Why do I make this point? I do so in view of the experience of the electoral commission with the last Edo governorship election held on July 14, 2012. That election was hurdled by a number of challenges, not the least of which was unhealthy partisan brinksmanship by leading political actors. I happened to be a part of INEC at the time and knew first hand how the intemperance of politicians hazarded the poll. To begin with, aggressive partisan bickering and mutual suspicion among the political elite hamstrung the electoral commission from conducting Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) as it had intended to update the voter register ahead of that poll. Politicians accused one another of an intention to exploit the CVR in importing fictitious name into the register and agreed, at least for once, that the commission should step it down. But the most dramatic hazard to the election was an intemperate reaction by then re-election seeking Governor Oshiomhole to unforeseen logistical challenges experienced by the electoral commission, which nearly pre-empted successful conclusion of the poll.

    For emergent reasons that INEC had no cause to anticipate in its preparations, electoral materials were delivered on time in areas of the state further away from the capital on Election Day, but were delayed in Oredo local government area and environs within the capital. True, that scenario must seem inexplicable to anyone not familiar with the commission’s logistics architecture. The very fact of the logistics architecture, however, and the challenges that popped up at the last minute made that scenario perfectly explicable, and INEC’s leadership at the time under the chairmanship of Professor Attahiru Jega was frantic at work to remedy the situation. Only that partisan tension was simply too high and politicians never gave the electoral commission benefit of the doubt. And so, the Governor, justifiably agitated perhaps, went on national television in undue haste to shoot down the yet ongoing election as fraudulent and unacceptable, and he didn’t spare relevant INEC principals savage remarks. Eventually though, he won the election and was left to savour his victory swigs from a chalice that he had himself poisoned. Supporters, of course, spinned the narrative that his outburst rattled INEC and compelled the commission to backtrack on its fraudulent plot; but, trust me, that was far from the truth.

    Now, for the impending governorship poll, political leaders will do well to rein in excessive partisan tension and foster a climate of mutual tolerance. It is such a climate that would promote peaceful and decorous conduct by their supporters, and as well discourage incidents of violence and over-voting, which warrant cancellation of votes by INEC and largely account for inconclusiveness of elections. There has been much ado in recent times about inconclusiveness of elections. But I happen to know that the electoral commission, by its processes in themselves, cannot work at making an election inconclusive even if, for whatever reason, it so desired. Rather, it is factors arising on Election Day at the behest of the political elite (for instance, violence and over-voting) that compel the commission to apply extant rules, which could then make an election end up inconclusive. INEC must by all means discharge the onus of running a smooth electoral operation. It is trite though, as they say, that successful conduct of elections is not the responsibility of the commission alone but also that of all stakeholders – most especially the political class.

    The electoral commission certainly must be fully accountable for making its processes smart and efficient, and it must hold its officials firmly liable for any infraction of established guidelines. But politicians must as well resolve ahead of time to help INEC succeed, and give the commission benefit of the doubt in the event of logistical hitches. The point must be made that elections are human operations governed by sociological laws, and not robotics governed by mechanical or atomic laws. Human operations everywhere rarely play out with statistical precision, and this is a fact of life that largely explains, without justifying, recurrent logistical challenges the electoral commission comes up against such as late arrival of personnel or materials to some polling units on Election Day. In all human projects, things that could go wrong more often than not do. The test of election administration in all societies is not that things won’t ever go wrong, because they inevitably do; it is rather how the election manager responds in timely fashion with redress mechanisms.

    The Edo governorship election on Saturday should show to what extent INEC has upgraded its processes, which the commission has already made known now involve a newly acquired e-collation system, in the build-up towards the 2019 general election. But the governorship poll is as well an opportunity for the political class to demonstrate an improved culture of electoral engagement. While INEC has a historic responsibility to scale up the mechanics of making Nigerian elections credible and globally respected, the commission’s efforts would amount to little unless it is matched with a deepening of democratic ethos among the political elite. Will the Edo election show that promise?

  • Bring Back Our History

    SIR: A man is the history of his breaths and thoughts, acts, atoms and wounds, love, indifference and dislikes; also of his race and nation, the soil that fed him and his forbears, the stones and sands of

    his familiar places, long-silenced battles and struggles of conscience, of the smiles of girls and the slow utterance of old women, of accidents and the gradual action of inexorable law, of all this and

    something else too, a single flame which in every way obeys the laws that pertain to Fire itself, and yet is lit and put out from one moment to the next, and can never be remade in the whole waste of time to come.

    This is an urgent plea to the Ministers of Education to bring back our history to schools.

     

    • FeyisetanAkeeb Kareem,

    Ogwashi-Ukwu, Delta State.

  • History and the Ganduje/Kwankwasiyya battles

    History and the Ganduje/Kwankwasiyya battles

    NEARLY one year of simmering conflict between Kano State governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, and his mentor, ex-governor and serving senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, has rubbished a proud history of mentorship and cooperation in the often volatile political terrain of Kano State. It is not unprecedented, but it is still shocking. Last week, the disagreement took a turn for the worse when policemen sealed the guest house headquarters of the Kwankwasiyya movement, a project designed to reinforce the politics and ideas of the former governor. Though a petition has been forwarded to the Police Service Commission to investigate why the police should ‘unconstitutionally’ abridge the rights of a people, the police authorities in the state said they were reacting to an ‘intelligence report that a mass wedding was to be held at the Kwankwaso-owned venue.’
    There are a myriad of reasons the two leading Kano politicians fell out, ranging from the post-Kwankwaso era composition of the state cabinet, image/influence supremacy battles, federal cabinet and board appointments, and even to the reckless and imposing behaviour of the supporters of both politicians, among many serious others. There will always be reasons to fall out between two powerful politicians. But few expect the nature and severity of the recent conflict. For eight years, the two had a great working relationship, first as governor and deputy between 1999 and 2003, and again between 2011 and 2015. Such friendship and loyalty are not forged on superficial bonds. But whether the damage can be repaired or not is the great question the Kanawa will struggle within the context of their radical and volatile politics to answer in the years ahead, especially shortly before and during the next elections.
    Political conflicts of the Ganduje/Kwankwaso texture are not a rarity in Kano, nor even elsewhere in Nigeria. The brilliant and charismatic Abubakar Rimi fell out with the iconic Aminu Kano, with telling and seismic consequences both for the two politicians and for the state’s economic development, and also for the cause of Nigerian progressivism. If Governor Ganduje and Senator Kwankwaso fail to reach a peace agreement, the naturally radical Kano electorate will ventilate their disagreements in ways that are difficult to predict or harness. The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has been unable to broker peace, for whether at state or national level, the party itself is too locked in fierce structural and ideological battles to be a credible and effective agent of peace. Of all the 36 states, Kano State comes closest to the classical definition of a civic culture. So without peace in the ruling party, the consequences may be electorally unpredictable, as the state’s very interesting recent history has shown.
    However, the malaise gnawing at the politics of Kano has precedence elsewhere, especially during the Second Republic. Even more than Enugu State in the Fourth Republic, the old Anambra State in the Second Republic seemed to be the archetype of political discord. In Enugu State, ex-governor Jim Nwobodo virtually enthroned Chimaroke Nnamani in 1999, but the former was chased out of the state by the latter. And when Dr Nnamani also installed Sullivan Chime in 2007, the latter also fed the former to the sharks. But the story of the old Anambra State archetype is a little different. There, two gladiators battled for the soul and body of the state. Chief Nwobodo, the man with a thousand political battle scars, constituted the so-called Jim Vanguard to entrench and sustain his hegemony against federal invaders, first and more tamely led by Vice President Alex Ekwueme, and then second and more fiercely led by the Nkemba Front inspired by Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu who was drafted from exile by the Shehu Shagari National Party of Nigeria (NPN) government to give battle to the Jim Vanguard. The Nkpor Junction confrontation between the two armed organisations that led to the loss of many lives bore testimony to the fierceness of the struggle in those days.
    If reason prevails in Kano, and law enforcement agencies can find the good grace, humour and professionalism to resist the temptation to take sides so brazenly as they appeared to have done last week, perhaps, eventually the friends of Dr Ganduje and Senator Kwankwaso, not to say the sometimes dithering party itself, may be able to find a formula for peace in the state. What may no longer be realistic is restoring the two Kano politicians to the state of amity and cooperation they enjoyed up till 2015. Let them eye each other warily if they must, but by all means let them keep the peace no matter how gingerly.

  • Stop distorting our history, Afa monarchy warns

    Mindful of the publication of A Short History of Ancient Afa-Okeagbe by Oladele Awobuluyi, PhD in the Punch Newspaper of July 5, 2016, the Ajana Afa, Okeagbe-Traditional Council, has refuted the said publication.

    In a rejoinder, the Ajana Afa, Okeagbe monarchy said: “Our attention has been drawn to a report in the Punch Newspaper on July 5, 2016 about the book written by Oladele Awobuluyi entitled A Short History of Ancient Afa-Okeagbe and we hereby rebut same. The rebuttal became necessary because the said publication erroneously presented the history of Afa-Okeagbe and the Afa Monarchy in a bad light.

    “While it is not customary for us in the council to join issues publicly on matters relating to an attempt to inaccurately rewrite history, and the use of already legally disproven theories which try to ridicule and diminish leaders of Afa-Okeagbe; we find it necessary to publicly state our position for clarity purposes and understanding.

    “To this end, the Ajana –Afa, Okeagbe Traditional Council rebuts details as they pertain to the history of Afa and the Afa Monarchy as stated in A Short History of Ancient Afa-Okeagbe by Oladele Awobuluyi, PhD.”

    This falsification of Afa History, they said, first came to the fore when the author’s father, the late Chief Awobuluyi; the then Ologotun of Ogotun Afa, Okeagbe authored a self-admitted false publication which resulted in his leading a delegation to His Royal Majesty, Ajana Arasanyin II in 1978, to seek pardon for his falsification of historical facts and affront to the revered Ajana Stool.

    Oladele Awobuluyi, author of the aforementioned book was already a Ph.D holder and a lecturer at the University of Ilorin at the time, and was surely aware of these happenings.

    They said they were surprised to see “these same illogical details peddled yet again by Oladele Awobuluyi, adding that it was a cause for alarm.

    “The Afa traditional council is very surprised and disappointed in the misrepresentation of the history of Afa in the book,” they said.

    They said: “Ajana-Afa, Okeagbe Traditional Council will shed light on all misinformation contained in the book and offer Afa, Okeagbe the true history of our fatherland in a more appropriate forum.

    “We enjoin all Afa Okeagbe sons and daughters to remain calm and resolute in the face of those who wish to specialise in destabilising our already peaceful co- existence.  We ask that we continue to work for the progress and development of Okeagbe during these extremely challenging times in Nigeria and focus on issues that will continue to bring pride, unity and development to our people.

  • History and a chief challenge to Buhari

    A few years ago, a former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, looked at history with disdain. He translated the disdain into policy.

    Barely a month ago, two key figures in our history were remembered. They were Sir Ahmadu Bello, who was the Sardauna of Sokoto, and Chief Festus Samuel Okotie-Eboh. The cerebral events took place in the north and south respectively.

    The one was the premier of northern Nigeria in the First Republic and the other was a finance minister in the same republic in the Tafawa Balewa government.

    During that Okotie-Eboh event, three-in-one minister, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), showed how our students no longer studied history. He noted that the students who studied abroad, especially in the United States, knew foreign histories more than ours. For instance, they know who Abraham Lincoln was and when he became president.

    An elder pitched in recently. He is the respectable J.O.S. Ayomike, a historian and chairman of the Itsekiri Leaders of Thought. He called for the return of history to the curriculum of schools. He made the call when he was honoured with an Exceptional Lifetime Achievement Award to mark the Golden Jubilee celebration of the Federal Government College, Warri, Delta State.

    Hear him: “I use this occasion to make a call close to my heart. It has bothered many Nigerians that history, as a formal discipline, is no longer taught in our schools up to tertiary level.”

    To demonstrate his fidelity to the past, he presented a gift of history books to the famous college.

    Chief Ayomike’s gifts, which also included several other books, were emblematic of the value of the past. We cannot know who we are without knowing who we were.

    It is ironic that Chief Obasanjo who turned our schools against history has been under the spell of history all his life. Was that not why he fought some partisans over the Owu leadership? Was that not why he wanted to reign as civilian president after his time as military leader? Was that not why he wrote books, especially a historical book about the Nigerian civil war?

    If we neglect the past, we lose the future. That was Chief Ayomike’s point. It is high time the lawmakers and the new president returned us to studying our history.

  • A compelling alternative history

    Title: My Name is Okoro
    Author: Sam Omatseye
    Reviewer: Ademola Adesola
    No of Pages: 302
    Year of publication: 2016

    Literature, unarguably, is a human-centred enterprise. Accordingly, if literature derives its nourishment from happenings in the human world, then it is an easy conjecture that war, being a reality of the human space, contributes largely to the sustenance of literary productions. Put differently, war may be awfully toxic to any human commune,but it is tonic to the imaginative minds of that commune who witness and survive it or who decades after discover it in tomes. War is atincture that powers the creative minds of fabulists. Wherever war happens, literature prospers.In reaching the same conclusion, ChinyereNwahunanyaavers that ‘the five hundred and twelve novels produced by the American civil war indicate how fertile wars can be as material for creative literature’.

    Like in many other countries of the world, what goes by the classification, Nigerian Literature, received a major boost from the poorly resolved drama of secession that is described in various ways but most notably as the Nigerian Civil War. As this writer argues elsewhere, ‘No one single event since the political independence of Nigeria has richly impacted the creative enterprise of the most populous Black nation like its thirty-month Civil War (1967-70).’

    From that decimating force – particularly the human tragedy it throws up, its socioeconomic, political, and ethnic questions – has emerged a huge body of works that has influenced and shaped the literature of the country. So proteinous is the material from the war that the prognostication of Nwahunanya, to wit that ‘the Nigerian Civil War has become so dominant as a theme in post-war Nigerian writing and may remain so for a long time[to come]’, has become a glaring reality. Indeed, as ChidiAmuta too argues, many decades after the war, ‘Nigerian literary scene still reverberates with the thematic echoes and formal patterns that the war experience made imperative’.

    Clearly, the emergence in 2016, 46 years after the end of the Nigerian Civil War, of Sam Omatseye’s compellingly readable novel, My Name Is Okoro, affirms the correctness of all of the foregoing averments. With the rare precision of a canny medieval archer, Omatseye’s muse connects fittingly with the core of the Nigerian Civil War loom and from it emerges a well-woven, riveting, provocative, and entertaining tale. With clear artistic vision, the writer transforms the material of the history of the war and creates in the process a believable fictional universe. It is in this connection that the novel merits the description as a compelling alternative history, for as Henry James contends in his famous essay, ‘The Artof Fiction’, like a picture projects reality, ‘so the novel is history’.

    My Name Is Okoro is a marvellously readable novel about the plight of the minority groups of the old Eastern and Midwestern Nigeria caught between the Charybdis of war and the Scylla of domination by a bigger ethnic group. Written in lapidary style, the novel dramatizes the story of Samson Okoro, an Urhobo who hails from the Midwest of the 1960s. Before he finds himself at the centre of the senselessness that is the massacre in Northern Nigeria after his return from the United States of America, where he is already a citizen, the name ‘Okoro’ could well embody the void that Juliet, Shakespeare’s heroine in the play Romeo and Juliet, harps on. But as the pogrom gives way to full-blown war, the name becomes a burden – at one turn he narrowly escapes death and at the other bend he is harried. ‘What is in a name?’ receives a condign answer. To his Northern assailants, ‘Okoro’ makes him Igbo. And the Igbo may call him that, but ‘he would not part’ with the fact that his ‘Okoro’ is not Igbo but Urhobo.

    Through the character of Okoro, a PhD holder in Economics whose American name is John Fox, and a few others, the author explores the Byzantine complexities ofidentitarianpolitics, the sustained injustice against minority groups, the phoniness of nationhood, and the human misery and the follies and paradox inspired by war. Just as cheap deaths and harrowing suffering decimate the people, there are others who find solace in the abode of Cupid.

    Incapable of boredom on account of its sparkling expressions, picturesque descriptions, and muscular plot, the 30-chapter novel teems with irony, humour, epigram, paradox, literary/biblical allusion, symbolism, paradox, and anecdote. Its deftly deployed omniscient narrative technique enables the author to make full use of the material of the war from which he refracts and reflects the travails of the Midwesterners, nay minority groups, and the indiscriminately disruptive effects of (the) war. Its characterisation is engaging and its characters plausible. Killers, like the killed, have humanity, and their Jekyll and Hyde are vividly portrayed.

    A movingly fictionalised account of Nigeria’s fratricidal war, My Name Is Okorois anacademy of history through which the history-lacking mind of many a young Nigerian can be equipped. It is also a treasure trove of history from which a lot of historical facts about Nigeria can be garnered. So abundant are the gemsin the trove that the novel risks being mistaken for a history tome. Happily, the novel is redeemed by the fact that the historical particulars are plotted in a tellingly entertaining way that conventional history books are not. It is as enormously a historical fiction as it is compellingly an alternative history. By its sturdy recreation of the Nigerian Civil War history, the novel stands out as a good addition to the corpus of Nigerian WarLiterature and historical fiction.

    James, to quote his essay again, is right when he observes that ‘[a] novel is in its broadest definition a personal, a direct impression of life’. What Omatseye has produced through his fictive Okoro and other characters is a conflation of his experience – direct and vicarious – of the war as he knows it and of course his creative imagination.

    It is no unctuous conclusion that whatever a reader considers the chink in the gilded armour of My Name Is Okorocannot dwarf its allures. It would be interesting, for example, for the reader to find out whether the novel revises, reinforces, or deconstructs rigid ethnic stereotypes and identities. The novel is highly recommended. Buy it, read it, gift it, and above all, critique it, for as James observes, ‘[a]rt lives upon discussion […] upon the exchange of views and the comparison of standpoints’.