A friend of mine with whom I attended university, visited me last week at my residence. She is a sports analyst with a mainstream media house in Lagos state. I had just returned home from a lengthy sojourn away from urbanity, so we had a lot for discourse. A question popped out, “Tina, do you know Cyprian Ekwensi?” She looked puzzled at the question, and appeared lost in thought. Finally, she blurted “I honestly don’t know him, is he a footballer?” Bewildered, I sarcastically replied “Yes, and he plays for Warri Wolves FC”. However, she knew I was joking, so she prodded me to tell her the truth. I went on to explain to her all what she didn’t know about one of Nigeria’s foremost authors who also was a veteran broadcaster.

Recently, the federal government directed all primary and secondary schools across the country to immediately implement the teaching of history as a standalone subject. This implementation is to be kick-started at the beginning of the next academic session in the country. This decision-cum-directive by the Buhari-Osinbajo led Presidency has garnered widespread accolades (and critique) nationwide and I am not indifferent to it at all. The wealth of “Historical Knowledge” has so long been denied our young minds and such, has led to the unwavering flair for foreign culture and values which is NOT slowly creeping into our belief system and lifestyle. The truth is; an average Nigerian does not currently care about a certain Obafemi Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello or Nnamdi Azikiwe. There are salient issues like unemployment and poverty to tackle. Hence, it is a commendable initiative by the Nigerian Federal government to bring back HISTORY to its pre-tertiary educational institutions as a standalone subject.

However; the implementation of this new curriculum in the schools and colleges would not be easily profitable if collective efforts are not engaged. The need for vision and responsibility must not be sidelined in this educational quest. In essence, the direct study of the Nigerian people history and their relatedness with other elements of the human race must be prioritized as the core of this new curriculum. As mentioned earlier, a larger portion of school children nowadays, owing to their exposure to the well-portrayed visual, audio and audiovisual gifts of ICT, are conversant with a generous amount of foreign history and cultural knowledge whilst down here in Nigeria, they are bereft of indigenous knowledge; (e.g. “Who Is Cyprian Ekwensi?”). History (Charity) begins at home, so they say!

History is wide and consequently, teaching it as a subject at schools would require adroitness and efficiency. This goes to say that it is imperative for all schools to recruit capable graduates of History to teach the subjects to the young students- who sadly are amateurs in the understanding and knowledge application of Nigerian History. The keywords here are “capable graduates”, but because of the rot in the educational benchmark and administrative standards; we should not be surprised that quite a lot of schools would not do this. The educational stakeholders in the country should know what to do as regards mandating the recruitment of “Qualified and capable” teachers of history by all schools. The future of our young children should not be shaped by mediocre and academically indigent teachers.

Perhaps, something worth reorienting is the general attitude of parents towards their children on cultural teachings and historical knowledge acquisition. It might be quite alarming that a lot of parents do not directly teach their children certain “firsts” at home before sending them to schools and expecting the teachers to do the rest. Personally, I have only travelled to my parents’ respective hometowns on just one occasion, when I was in junior secondary school. This is the jet age and if parents do not want their culture eventually obliterated after being ignored for a long time; then they should consistently teach their children important elements of ancestral culture and history. These can be done through vacations, visitations, excursions, documentaries and oral teachings.

Lastly, there is no society that can thrive on paucity of any form. If the Nigerian government is truly intentional about the need to bring back cultural relevance and teaching to the education sector; then it should be ready to take responsibility for the scheme’s ground-laying foundation. The need for a stable political system cannot be overemphasized! Policies that support education growth and development in the country must be implemented! The education sector must be funded abundantly!

The Nigerian education sector is not something to be proud of right now, just like other sectors such as security, health and finance. However, this latest move by the Federal government could be just a reason to smile. Or maybe not? Questions are waiting to be asked.

Bolu Daniels is a social commentator from Lagos.
He writes via @Bolu_Daniels on all social media platforms.