How Obasanjo Misled Nigeria
OpenLife Nigeria reports that President of the Senate, Federal Republic of Nigeria, Senator Ahmad Lawan, has criticized former President Olusegun Obasanjo over the removal of History, as a subject, from Nigeria school curriculum, saying the removal of history studies from primary and secondary schools’ curriculum from the academic session by the Federal Government was a misguided.
The President of the Senate made the observation in Abuja during the public presentation of the book titled, “Foundation of Nigeria’s Unity,” written by the Cross River State Peoples Democratic Party governorship candidate, Senator Sandy Onor.
He stated that Nigerians were misguided some years ago that history should be removed in schools and wondered what the country intended to achieve then, saying that thank God Nigerians saw the fallacy in that decision and it was reversed.
He added, “Therefore, I feel we are challenged. This book is telling us that we have to go back to our roots. The rest of us as leaders are supposed to work assiduously and make Nigeria a country where we want to be.”
The President of the Senate hailed the government’s decision to restore the subject to the teaching curriculum in 2018 after several criticisms, saying that it was not a right decision.
It would be recalled that in 2007, History was removed from the teaching curriculum in Nigeria by the Federal Government, supposedly because students avoided the subject and graduates didn’t have job prospects.
Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian playwright said ‘I feel like strangling the Minister who removed history from the curriculum,a crime has been done to our children and our advancement. It’s questionable that these things happen and we allow them to go on for so long that our children grow up intellectually stunted. A huge part of their brain is unused because certain facts are not available to them. They do not even know where the existence begins.’
However, the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu who was appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 fought for History to be placed back. He spoke of the importance of history to nation-building, national identity, patriotism and to overall human development that could not be overemphasised. According to Adamu, one of the cardinal principles of the present administration is social and behavioural change of which history is key to its realisation.
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