FUNCTIONS/RELEVANCE OF HISTORY

History is concerned with the explanation of how and why certain events and situations have
come about, of both change and stability. This work therefore turns to examine the relevance of
History.

History helps to train the mind and equally train the individual for a living. Buttressing the
training of the mind through the teaching of history, Ikime has this to say;

......when all around us we can see that once the mind has received adequate training in
argumentation, deduction, reasoning etc., it can face challenges in areas very different from the
subject studied.

He elucidates further that graduates of history have held their own excellently in the civil service,
the Foreign Service, the army and the police, in industry and journalism among others, but
lamented that the nation has not taken cognizance of this fact. He concludes that in this regard,
he makes bold to claim that history prepares a person for a living as adequately as any other
discipline, because, across Nigeria today, many history graduates are self-employed in different
works of life.
Arthur Marwick opines that historians stress the “educational” value of history as a “training of
the mind” or “as a practical guide to the problems of human society and politics”.

History is relevant because it equips one with the knowledge of what happened in the past.
Without knowing what happened in the past, it would be extremely difficult if not impossible for
us to know how we get to where we are today or have enough knowledge about how to plan for
tomorrow or the future. Ikime emphasises that „all the historical events have created all the basic
human groupings-countries, religions, classes-and all loyalties that attach to these”.

The knowledge of History is also fundamental because of its importance to national integration.
Ikime maintains that it is history that has made us Nigerians, after all, the British conquest of
Nigeria and British rule in Nigeria constitute part of the history of the nation. Also, the
multifarious Nigerian ethnic groups and sub-groups, as we know them today, are themselves the
product of history that ante-dated the coming of the British. For the sake of nation building,
national integration and national survival, Nigeria cannot do without teaching history to its
people. It stands to reason that no human group or nation can do without learning its own history
and the history of other nations. Ikime concludes that if Nigeria marginalises the study of her
own history and the history of all other nations, she does that at her own peril, and that if we
cannot wash away history, we must do well to teach it, learn it and study it.

Finally, Ikime recognises that no American child goes through school without learning American
History. Similarly, in Great Britain, it is official policy that everyone up to the age of eighteen
years must be taught not only British History, but also that of British relations with Europe and
the larger world. He advises that the Nigerian educational system stands in need of radical
revision. Therefore, there is need to heed the advice of Ikime that:

.....every nation needs its history and its historians, whether Nigeria knows and acknowledges it
or not. For that reason, I must call again, as I have called on many occasions in that past, that our
nation should reverse its attitude to its history and historians.

Professor Emeritus, Ade Ajayi discloses that the study of history promotes a sense of history as
an essential ingredient of national life. According to him, Nigerians act and react as if there is
only today, no yesterday, no tomorrow and that we, as Nigerians seem to care so little about the
past. Professor Tekena Tamuno sounds a note of warning which Nigeria as a nation should take
note of seriously. He warns that a nation which neglects its history has not made serious efforts
to benefit from its past experience. Therefore, there is need to know one‟s history so as to know
what happened in the past and how the past had influenced the present and how we can plan for
the future, taking cognizance of the present. As Ade Ajayi pointed out, that “the nation suffers
which has no sense of history, and such nation cannot achieve a sense of purpose or direction or
stability and the future of such a nation is bleak”. Arthur Marwick believes that it is through
knowledge of its history that a society can have knowledge of itself. Cicero maintain that “Not to
know what took place before you were born is to forever remain a child”.

The Yoruba people believe that history is very useful for the solution of day to day problems.
Highlighting what the Yoruba cultural group thought of the importance of teaching history,
Professor Akinjogbin stresses that the Yoruba believe that history confers ogbon (wisdom) in
people. He stresses that Orunmila, the Oracle of divinity, who is next to Orisa-nla, the supreme
divinity in Yorubaland is regarded as the epitome of wisdom and knowledge in Yoruba
cosmology.
Orunmila is also called the apitan ale Ife (the historian of Ifeland).
Emphasising the need to teach history, Professor Olatunji Oloruntimehin stresses that in
practically all societies over the ages, history has been a major instrument for organising and
interpreting their collective and individual experiences, to provide understanding for the present
and a guide for the future. According to him, history in particular, has always been used to
provide political education for the leadership elites in all societies. He is of the opinion that in
Africa, history has always been a means of promoting of, and respect for the institutions and
practices of the community.

In another forum, Professor Ade Ajayi opines that we need to teach history at least for the sake
of knowing the past and how it affects the present. According to him, “it is of course a truism to
say that the past co-exist with the present”. He illustrated this with examples, the relevance of
history to the development of Nigeria. For instance, he demonstrates that throughout the colonial
period, it was part of British propaganda that Africans, with particular reference to Nigerians,
have no history and that our societies were static before the advent of Europeans. Europeans
even claimed that what constituted African or Nigerian history were the activities of Europeans
on the activities were removed, then, there would be vacuum (void) and history does not study
emptiness. African and indeed Nigerian historians had therefore debunked such a false statement.
They have equally shown that history is the study of both change and continuity. Professor
Emeritus, Ade Ajayi points out that even in Communist Russia, the past has continued all the
time to co-exist with the present and cannot just be washed away. He concludes that:

......if the past coexist with the present, we cannot expect to understand the present without an
effort to understand the past. The other implication is that we cannot conceive of a future and
plan for it in terms of development without attempting to understand the present and the past that
co-exists with it.