Documenting history can provide solution to Nigeria’s challenges, says author

Bayo Adeola, Nigerian author, has called on local writers to document the country’s history so as to preserve its values for national development.

Adeola, also the founder of Comprehensive Project Management Services Limited, made the call recently at the launch of his new book titled ‘the life and times of Imran: a family in the history of a nation’.

Adeola said it was important to document the country’s history as it is important in understanding current problems for effective solutions to be proffered.

“So, I’m documenting what happened so that when you want to solve the current problems, you don’t repeat something that somebody has tried and didn’t work. You don’t premise it on wrong assumptions,” he said.

Commenting on the removal of history from the Nigerian school curriculum, Adeola argues that teaching the subject requires writing it first.

“To teach history, you must first, of all, write the history. If you decide that you want to teach history tomorrow, which book will you read? Where will you find it? So, in the whole spectrum of writing history, and teaching history, I have stayed at the writing-the-history end. So, I will write it whether you teach it or not, will be a policy decision. But the day you decide to teach it you will find somewhere where you will find it because if nobody writes it, the day you decide to teach it you will not have it.

“So, those who have the skill, and the responsibility to write, should write it, whether they are teaching it or not.”

The author also said cultures are preserved and made stronger when history is documented, especially in the age of globalisation.

According to him, social media is accelerating globalisation and only stronger cultures will survive.

“Anytime two cultures come together, one culture will try to dominate the other and the stronger culture will dominate the weaker. Even at that time, 1830, it was happening after all Yorubas started bearing English names. They started wearing trousers and shirts instead of buba and sokoto. So, there was the influence of the culture on the society even at that time,” he explained.

“However, because it wasn’t massive, social media has accelerated it to the point that what happens in America today gets to Nigeria today. In a way, we’ve gained a little from it because our music is now international. Our videos are international, but our way of life has also become international, and in becoming international, we’re losing some of our social values. It’s inevitable.

“But if our values are strong, it will be a little more difficult to destabilise us.”

Meanwhile, the book, ‘the life and times of Imran’, follows the life account of Murana ‘Imran’ Adeola from childhood through adulthood to death.

The biography is interspersed in Yoruba history, tradition and culture, and Nigerian history.