A Professor of African Studies at the University of Texas, Professor Toyin Falola has expounded on the importance of history studies to the country’s development, urging the Federal Government to make the study of history compulsory for all secondary school students nationwide.

Making this call at an exclusive interview on Community Today, an online television programme on CEOAfrica, Prof Falola explained the knowledge of a country’s history by its citizens – young and old, will serve as an instrument of nationalism and patriotism, adding that it would imbue the citizens with a sense pride.

Prof Falola, who is also a fellow of the Historical Society of Nigeria and the Nigerian Academy of Letters, stated that all societies are the embodiments of their past and present, noting that those embodiments of our past must be worked into our present to make our future.

 Noting that a people’s history defines who they are, the Professor of African Studies said “History is what you are expected to cherish. We have to come to the point where our government will make history mandatory for all students who wants a degree. This works in the US, anybody who wants a degree from Texas University cannot graduate without doing Texas and US history. It is mandatory for every student, whether in Medicine, Engineering or any course whatsoever.”

The Ibadan-born scholar, who is currently the Chairman of Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker in the Humanities at the University of Texas, further explained that the teaching and learning of history in schools is a function of the way the country places importance on its history. “Bear in mind that in the case of the US, they constructed themselves as an imperial power as well as a dominant power; they use history and government as a tool to build their own nationalism,” the Professor said.

Prof Falola, however, lamented the poor attitude of the Nigerian government and schools to the teaching of history to its citizens, blaming it on the lack of the country’s historical narrative. He said “Nigeria does not have a narrative of itself. There is no aspect of Nigerian issue you look at that you can point with dominant narrative. We need to have consensus narratives that will teach our young men and women, so that they can acquire knowledge and use this in terms of their connections to the Nigeria’s nation state project.

The Professor further explained that students’ disinterest in learning their country’s history is also responsible for the gradual waning of history as a subject, adding that a revival of students’ interest in the subject will be challenging but achievable. “The problem is that the students don’t take history too seriously. However, how to organise things for them to take it more seriously is going to be the challenge.

“Putting the subject into a syllabus is not an issue. There must be a way to motivate the children by teaching it in a creative way, a way that will communicate energy and purpose, to connect that teaching to the ideology of the nation. Every nation should have an ideology, the ideology of the United State is capitalism, it is dominantly a capitalist country and Nigeria certainly has its own ideology,” Prof Falola stated.

Packaged by: Oghara Tosin