LESSONS FROM AGAINST THE RUN OF PLAY (2)

History is crucial to democratic consolidation and nation-building, writes Emmanuel Ojeifo

So what are the lessons of Adeniyi’s book? I can draw only one lesson, with multi-dimensional implications, and that lesson is that history is very crucial to democratic consolidation, to the preservation of memory and to nation-building. In a country where the teaching of history has been totally neglected, and where university departments of history are fast becoming endangered species, we must rediscover the value of telling our stories with a learning curve. Sadly, what passes for history in Nigeria today is an amalgamation of contested ethnic, religious, regional and partisan prejudices. How can we move forward as a nation if we do not know our past?

In his 2008 book, Why History Matters, the British professor of history John Tosh argues that the study and application of history is a critical resource for the active citizen in a representative democracy. For Tosh, history is essentially about two forms of empowerment. “On the one hand, it can be used to intensify the sense of belonging to a group (be it nation or community) by anchoring it securely in shared narratives of the past. On the other hand, it can empower through enhancing the intellectual resources available to the active citizen.” Apart from being an adjunct to national identity and education in citizenship, “the real value of history,” according to Professor Tosh, “lies in equipping young people with a distinctive mode of thinking which can be critically applied to the present. Without such a perspective they will have a greatly impoverished sense of the possibilities inherent in the present; they will be unlikely to be able to distinguish between what is ephemeral and what is enduring in present circumstances; and the on-going processes of change unfolding in our own time will be closed to them.”

“Our national political memory,” says Dr Chidi Amuta in his foreword for Adeniyi’s book, “is short and mostly undocumented, because the political events themselves are suffused in hearsay and myths. Our politicians hardly keep diaries let alone write memoirs. They play it as a game, albeit an unserious one disconnected from any commitment to national history and goals.” This is the huge vacuum that Adeniyi’s book comes to fill in. It will also prompt the key actors of the documented epoch to tell their own version of history, in a way that will elevate and enhance public discourse on leadership, governance, public service and nation building. According to Tosh, “To know that the past can illuminate the contours of the present is to be better equipped to make intelligent decisions about difficult public issues.”

Adeniyi’s book forcefully brings out the lesson that certain things should not be forgotten. In his 2011 Oputa panel book, Witness to Justice, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah wittingly crafted the title of the second chapter of his 519-paged book as ‘Do Not Forget To Remember.’ “Nigerians,” Kukah argues, “are very forgetful and the result is that this amnesia has contributed to diminishing us as a people.” Professor Wole Soyinka captures the same sentiments differently when he says: “We are a nation of short memories.” Elsewhere, Soyinka says that, “A people who do not preserve their memory are a people who have forfeited their history.” In this light, Adeniyi makes us realise that the battle of memory is a multi-dimensional phenomenon, and because memory shapes life as a whole, the way we choose to relate with those memories is of fundamental significance. That is why the loss of memory is not just the absence of facts; it is the loss of personal identity, family, and friends, indeed, the whole complex of life’s meaning. Our memory liberates us from what Melanchthon, Luther’s colleague, called perpetual childhood.

Sadly, as it is often said, the only thing Nigerians learn from history is that they never learn anything from history. That is why for us, history usually repeats itself as a running mix of tragedy and farce, of hypocrisy and half-truth. This is perhaps the reason for our continuous repetition of the mistakes of the past. Adeniyi’s book thus delivers the startling verdict that we cannot continue to be hideous of the lessons of our own troubled history. For Adeniyi, memory becomes a moral imperative, a means of ensuring that we do not quickly forget the past and its lessons, both for political actors and for the country as a whole. The verdict of Dr. Chidi Amuta on this matter cuts across the grain of truth: “Collective amnesia is the hallmark of a bad political culture. Yet, when politicians forget what happened before, the tendency is for them to make the same mistakes over and over. And Nigerian politics suffers from a disturbing epidemic of chronic amnesia. We forget what we choose not to remember in order to take advantage of the loopholes in the present.”

In a nation where very little documentation is done to preserve collective memory and the inner workings of politics, Adeniyi has done us a world of service for his unusual insight in painstakingly documenting the core human and institutional factors that shape our political evolution. Students of politics, history, sociology, law and anthropology, especially the younger generation of Nigerians who aspire to public life in this difficult and complex country, will find the book a ready stimulant for understanding the fascination, dangers, prospects and challenges of public service. As the book continues to generate honest, critical and intelligent conversation on the future of our country Nigeria, “those who seek to understand the pitfalls of power within the context of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious African country” must also find its hidden lessons.

After Adeniyi’s book, Nigeria can no longer remain the same. Politicians must learn to play politics with decency, honour, respect and principles; but also to put the larger interests of the nation, over and above petty selfish personal and partisan interests. AFTER ADENIYI’S BOOK, NIGERIA CAN NO LONGER REMAIN THE SAME. POLITICIANS MUST LEARN TO PLAY POLITICS WITH DECENCY, HONOUR, RESPECT AND PRINCIPLES; BUT ALSO TO PUT THE LARGER INTERESTS OF THE NATION, OVER AND ABOVE PETTY SELFISH PERSONAL AND PARTISAN INTERESTS