Some of the
words of our elders are not very easy to translate for the uninitiated but I
will try. The hen says that ‘ o n’
ajuwu-ajuwu welu eli’; that she ensures that the prey is truly
dead before devouring. That is why it takes time after capturing
its prey, puncturing it severally with its beak, swaying it savagely
to the right and to the left, before munching. It takes some time but it
is better and safer to swallow or munch a dead prey in peace than to swallow a
half-dead prey, which is equivalent to eating a half-done food. This story of
the Living History book broke about 3 months ago and a flurry of comments, denials, accusations and counter
accusations, and clarifications have occurred. However, just like the hen, I wanted to
get to the root of the story, to
ensure that it is safe to ‘devour’,
before doing so.
The story started when one uncouth fellow did
a video labeling nd’Igbo as the ‘most worthless’ people in Nigeria.
His angst was that there was no mention
of Igbo’s in the history book being used by his child in school even though we
are the third largest tribe in Nigeria. He
supported his motion with
the table of contents of the said book . He further said that the only
thing the Igbos who are ‘all mouth and no depth’ are good at
is to show off their big white houses in
their villages online especially during festive periods , and giving their
children Jewish names . His angst was
that the Igbo’s were not mentioned in the son’s history book while some small
tribes were mentioned; that we have been ‘erased’ from Nigeria but
we did nothing about it, moving on as if nothing happened! Incidentally, he did
not castigate the publishers or the authors or the Ministry of Education,
probably agreeing with Einstein who
opined that the world will not be destroyed
by those who do evil but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Initially, I did
not give it much attention to this
matter; the man’s umbrage against the entire Igbo-race, as well as
his foul-tongue put me
off. I also never believed that it was possible to write a history of Nigeria
without including Nd’Igbo’. Indeed, I
took it as one of those contents being created by traffic chasers in the
social-media space. However, one of my
town’s man, a usually taciturn fellow, called me and asked if it was true that the book did not include Igbo’s and what
I was doing about it as a media ‘activist’ and one of those
who ‘know
book’ . So, I decided to first
of all obtain a copy of the book, a task that
I assigned to Tony Ezeanyim, a young history teacher at Girls secondary
School, Igbo-Ukwu, Tony Ezeanyiam . He tracked the book to Onitsha and this took me time (about one month) and money ( N6500, excluding courier from Igbo-Ukwu to
Ijebu-ode for a booklet of that size and texture) .
A lot has happened on the ‘living
history’ matter since then. The Federal Ministry of Education
immediately issued a disclaimer, stating that it was not an approved text book
and had not been recommended for use in any Nigerian school. Good but not
good enough! This evidences a failure of oversight. What if
a book stated that Igbo-Ukwu is
the capital of Lagos State or that the
Maiduguri is located in the Strait of Hormuz or that Chicago State
University has a satellite Campus at Iragbiji? Will a mere disclaimer ameliorate the damage? It wasn’t me is not
usually enough!!( You can go and ask Adam!) This was followed by clarifications
by the authors that the book was one of the best in its class and
appropriate for junior learners, that
there was no truth in the anti-Igbo
allegation as there were ‘enough’
materials on Igbo history and that the
unnecessary ruckus was fueled by mischief. The publishers
averred that it was developed in accordance with the template by Nigerian Educational Research
Development Council and challenged the public to review the book first hand rather than
relying on ‘dem-say,dem-say’! There were also accusations by many Igbo
individuals and groups that ‘they have done it again’! Some
also dragged the Minister of Education as the Yoruba man ‘ who removed Igbos from Nigerian history book’ and
recalled how ‘he failed’ some 15000 Igbo
aspiring JAMBites.
I don’t know what emboldened
the publishers to throw that challenge
to ‘we the people’ . They
challenged us to go and read the book and I I
have gone ahead to read it and here is my VERDICT! The table of contents is a critical part of
any book, showcasing and promoting what lies within, and often
arousing the readers’ appetite.
To write about Nigerian History and exclude the third largest tribe in the
contents while including many ‘minor’ tribes, and even Niger Delta, which is
neither a tribe nor a race, is an act of
deliberate mischief, an absurd sense of judgment or unpardonable blunder. Based on the above, I sympathise with the fellow who originated the allegation but I
think that he is guilty of hasty generalization.
He should have exercised some patience and gone deeper.
However, having gone through the book several
times, I state UNEQUIVOCALLY that the authors did NOT include Igbo history, not to talk of
enough materials on it, in the book. It mentioned ( just an ordinary mention)Igbo
as one of the people of Nigeria (p15) and as the third largest tribe in Nigeria,
constituting 18% ,( P16; a figure
contradicting pre-colonial census) , and among the earliest group of
surviving Nigerians( p22). It then listed Igbo-Ukwu among the early centers of
civilization and described the archaeological discovery sites in Igbo-Ukwu
(pp27-28). There was even nothng about the lifestyle, people and history of
Igbo-Ukwu. I am from Igbo-Ukwu, a town that is central to the history of Igbo,
black and African civilasations. So I am glad that Igbo-Ukwu received a mention
in the said book. However, three paragraphs on three IgboUkwu sites in a book of 110 pages cannot equate
enough materials in Igbo history.’
This is a book that wrote on Hausa(pp38-47)
, Yorubas(pp75-83), and Kanuri( 49-61), amongst others.
The book contains a chapter on Niger-Delta( pp
96-102) and still contains chapters on
some Niger-Delta tribes(pp91-95; pp103-106). I am not a historian but the inclusion
of Niger Delta, when they are not
writing geopolitical history of Nigeria(
3 or 4 or 6 regions, included Niger Delta, baptized SS) looks ‘somehow’
to me . Niger Delta is not a race or a tribe and its
composition is nebulous. The Niger Delta
Development Commission for instance covers Imo, Abia, Nd’Igbo of Delta and River states and before long will include Anambra as an
oil-producing state.
The beginning and end of my treatise on this
matter is that the authors of the Living
History for JSS1, excluded Nd’Igbo from
the book. The title, Living History, is quite enigmatic but as far as some of
us are concerned, the book is not living; it is dead!
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