The Return of History for the Umpteenth Time and the Fate of Nigerian Teachers, by Abdulkadir Salaudeen

I stated in my last column for 2024 that I have stopped watching presidential media chats. I have also stopped listening to presidential speeches and addresses to Nigerians. Except if a president would be addressing me in person (one on one), in which, out of respect for ruler, I would have to listen and pay attention. But if the address is to Nigerians, I know there are many Nigerians out there who would be listening.

So when I learnt President Tinubu has re-introduced History back into our primary and secondary schools, I said to myself: “this is the disadvantage of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.” I should have listened to the President’s New Year Speech. But when I later learned that the promise was made by the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, on the last day of 2024 on a Channel TV program titled “Focus on Education,” I heaved a sigh and said to myself again: “nothing to regret for not listening, watching, or reading the President’s New Year Speech.” In a word,  I mean to say, the return of History is commendable. 

Alausa said on the program: “Let me go to basic education—the curriculum is good. One important thing that had been missing in the past was Nigerian History. We have now people who are 30 years old who are totally disconnected from our history. It doesn’t happen in any part of the world. President Bola Tinubu has mandated that we put that back in our curriculum, and that is back. From 2025, our students in primary school, JSS, and secondary schools will have that as part of their course of study in schools.”

He further said that a lot of our universities are churning out unemployable graduates deliberately. Courses that are not relevant to our country are being taught. Which courses are not relevant? I am time-constrained to address that. I will address the issue of universities deliberately churning out unemployable graduates. That is true. The Minister is on point. But it is surprising that this is coming from the Minister of Education. Isn’t the government aiding and abetting universities in deliberating churning out useless graduates? I am sorry if “useless” sounds offensive, I just do not have the time to check my dictionary for a better synonym for “unemployable” after undergraduates are being deliberately trained for at least four years to be unemployable.      

Is it not the government that grants universities the liberty to admit students who have not shown any readiness for study than writing UTME (JAMB)? JAMB candidates in Nigeria do not need to pass. Rather, they may even need to fail and admission will still be granted. Any student may choose to fail by scoring 120 or 140 out of 400 UTME maximum score; admission is still guaranteed. So the blame of deliberately churning out unemployable graduates should not only be apportioned to university administrators. The government should have its fair share of the blame. We can only reap what we sow. 

This is not to talk about funding of university and welfare of university teachers which the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, is becoming too lethargic to complain about due government deliberate insensitivity. Though I just read that ASUU has declared 2025 a year of long battle with the Federal Government. I hope the Union still has the strength for this battle-ready-government for which hunger is the most lethal weapon.       

That being said, the question to ask is: how many times would History be returning to our schools? In 2016, we were told that the National Council on Education had approved the re-introduction of history as a stand alone subject. In what looked like a follow up, the Nigeria Education Research and Development Council, NERDC, announced that History would be re-introduced in 2017. Nothing happened. We were told, again in 2019, that History has officially made a u-turn in the direction of our schools. Yet, it was not officially taught. In 2022, as if the government was serious about it, the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) was said to have been tasked to conduct refresher training for 3,700 teachers—100 drawn from each state of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory in preparation—ahead of the  re-introduction of History into our schools.

What happened to History and the 3, 700 teachers? This can be best answered by the former Education Minister, Adamu Adamu. Was History kicked out by our schools or it was coldly received by school  administrators and left in annoyance?  Or to be more precise, how many histories do we have and which history is returning to our schools this time around? Dr Alausa could respond to this. Each time one thinks Nigerian government is inching forward and thinks of the need for some sort of celebration, one realizes, disappointedly, that the government is only moving in circle. 

History was removed in 2009 with the lame explanation that students avoided the subject; that graduates of History did not have job prospects; and that History teachers were scarce. One wonders how subsequent governments in Nigeria make students do Mathematics despite the fact that many hate and would have avoided the subject. That there is no job and career prospects for history graduates is far away from the truth. 

History graduates could be teachers like graduates of other courses. They can work as lecturers in higher institutions and as researchers in research institutes. They can work as archivists and liberians in museums and libraries. They can be employed as chroniclers in our traditional institutions and provide consultancy services especially in land and chieftaincy related matters. They can be employed by some media outlets to write historical piece (feature writing) on regular basis  in newspapers. Historians are good administrators and can fitly serve as ambassadors of Nigeria to other countries. 

Historians can be employed as government advisers on historical issues to include history of political appointees to ensure that there is fair representations in government. The danger of history not being taught is that mistakes of the past will be repeated with their horrible consequences. We learnt from George Santayana in his The Life of Reason that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (see page 92). This quote is often paraphrased as “Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.” 

In our own case, even those who do study history are doomed to stand by, helplessly, while everyone else repeats it. Historians have learnt from Nigerian history how nepotistic was former President Buhari regime and how nepotism doomed the country under his watch. But because we are people who fail to learn from history, our historians can only stand by, helplessly, and watch the disturbing Lagosianization of Nigeria. Lagosianization is the name of the current nepotism since the Yoruba in the Southwest persistently counter that the ongoing nepotism is not about them and does not favor them.

Would the latest announcement of the return of History be another tarmac politics just to generate media attention and for the gullible to think the government is working? Time will tell. In case the government makes good its promise, many graduates of History might end up getting teaching job but may not be gainfully employed. They should look at teachers who are civil servants around them and see how wretched many of them are. They should learn from the experience of professors of History in our universities whom History has taught why not to be teachers (historians) in Nigeria. Being employed as teacher in Nigeria by Nigerian government is like signing a pact with poverty and wedded to penury.

The message to our rulers is this: teachers at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels are suffering. I am not saying this because I am a teacher but because that is the fact and the factuality of the fact is too factual to dispute. 

However, since half bread is said to be better than none, I wish our would-be History teachers best of luck if they are eventually employed.

Abdulkadir Salaudeen 

salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com