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By Emman Ovuakporie
President of National Historical Society of Nigeria, NHS, Prof Okpeh Okpeh has adduced reasons why it took Nigeria 36 years to re-introduce history into primary and secondary curricular after it was yanked off.
TheNewsGuru.com, (TNG) reports Prof Okpeh disclosed this at the Investiture of the society on Wednesday when prominent Nigerians were recognised for their achievements in all walks of life.
Okpeh and other knowledgeable historians noted that the wide gap has affected generations of Nigerians who hardly know the past of their country.
He said: “Actually, it is more than 20years, the yanking off of history as it occurred several decades ago but we got to know more closely about it, more deeply about it in 1986.
“Between 1986 and 2018 when it was restored, you are looking at about 36years.
“The implication of that is that a whole generation of Nigerians has had to go through schools without having a deep sense of their historical past.
“If you look at the problems this country is having now, it is the challenge of multi-culturialism and that challenge of multi-culturialism we as a society have dimensioned as an issue that is a consequence of what has happened to history in three decades plus.
“So we re-engaged the federal government on the matter of getting history back to school and we have been able to persuade the government to understand that it cannot achieve development unless history comes back.
“It was like a stroke of accident when the present administration initiated its national rebirth programme. We approached it and told the government that there is no way you can do a national rebirth programme outside a deep knowledge of the history of this country.
“Nigerians must know themselves; we must know our differences, more importantly we must know areas where we have interacted on the basis on which you can frame national integration and any form of rebirth you are saying.
“Part of what is occurring now is to begin a process of awareness creation, a consciousness building that history is important to national development.
“If you heard the chairman’s opening remark, those were the things he was emphasizing, history is development, there is no development that can occur outside history.
“Until you realize that and begin to invest in a deep sense of history as a country you cannot achieve development.
“We have also written a curriculum on the basis o which our younger ones will be taught, books have been published.
Also speaking in the same vein, Vice President of NHS, Prof Sam Aghalino said” well meaning Nigerians like the minister of education, the Okiroro of Isoko land, Chief Ovuzuorie Macaulay and other prominent Nigerians helped us to restore it.
“A people without history are bound to hit the brick wall which we are fervently praying against and hope that the restoration of the subject at both primary and secondary schools will help us achieve.
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