024. Whu History Hep?
Justification of Humanities & Social Sciences
One would wonder after all this justification for history put forward by Ikime, why some Nigerians still ask, “Of what use is history?” Even amongst my erstwhile colleagues, some have asked “Wetin I wan use history do after I graduate? [What would I use history for after graduation?” Same could be said of some Nigerian students and scholars alike, who mock historical studies with questions like “Whu history hep? [Who does History help?]”, "Na history we go chop? [Is it history we will eat?]". Shocking? Beyond all reasonable doubt!
History is consciousness. As a matter of necessity and one of utility, History only helps people, nations, and countries who are ready to help themselves in the grand schemes of a lopsided world. This century and beyond, Africa and Africans must objectively use their history to assert themselves in defiance of the bottom-place the global system has ascribed to it.
History, and by extension, Humanities and Social Sciences, becoming a butt of jokes is a horror to behold, even shameful to know that some humans could scorn the substance of their existence. Conceivably they are fatally ignorant to the fact that Humanities and Social Sciences (wherein history as a discipline strongly resides) remains the only faculties that speak to the “Who am I” and “What are we” questions and assists us in locating our place in an unequal world and why and how we must change it against all odds. If Humanities and Social Sciences continues to be mocked and nudged to the bin, we are only pre-mourning ourselves.
Ikime exceptionally demonstrated History to be omnipresent yesterday, today, and forever. Given its fundamental value, if history is again yanked off school curriculum again, we must hold the elite responsible—for they are terrified and have many more secrets to clothe. The onlookers and bystanders should be held responsible also because we bear witness to the coup against the substance of our existence. The Gods forbid history is binned into obscurity. If so, we are full-speed into becoming a living necropolis or a marketable geo-wild circus.