President Tinubu, thanks for restoring History,

We must therefore not shrink from accusing our friends or praising our enemies; nor need we be afraid of praising or blaming the same people at different times; since it is impossible that men who are engaged in public affairs should always be in the right; and unlikely they should always be in the wrong.

“We must therefore detach ourselves from the actors in our story; and apply to them only such statements and judgments as their conduct deserves” – Polybius, c200-118 BC.

President Tinubu has started 2025 very well by correcting one of the worst errors of Obasanjo’s government. OBJ, with his usual arrogance of power, ordered History removed from schools’ curriculums. His argument that science and technology are more important ignored the fact that even scientists find out how their branch of study evolved over time to where it is today. Tinubu has started 2025 on a glorious note. Unfortunately, there are problems to overcome.
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January 12, 2025

President Tinubu, thanks for restoring History, by Dele Sobowale

President Tinubu, thanks for restoring History, by Dele Sobowale
“We must therefore not shrink from accusing our friends or praising our enemies; nor need we be afraid of praising or blaming the same people at different times; since it is impossible that men who are engaged in public affairs should always be in the right; and unlikely they should always be in the wrong.

“We must therefore detach ourselves from the actors in our story; and apply to them only such statements and judgments as their conduct deserves” – Polybius, c200-118 BC.

President Tinubu has started 2025 very well by correcting one of the worst errors of Obasanjo’s government. OBJ, with his usual arrogance of power, ordered History removed from schools’ curriculums. His argument that science and technology are more important ignored the fact that even scientists find out how their branch of study evolved over time to where it is today. Tinubu has started 2025 on a glorious note. Unfortunately, there are problems to overcome.

Where are the teachers? And what would be taught? History is best taught by people with a passion for it. It is one subject I love above most others. Few candidates going for JAMB select History as their first choice and fewer still want to teach it after graduating from universities. It will be tough.

If asked today who among my teachers in primary school I remember most and who had the greatest influence on my life, the answer unhesitatingly would be Mr Udoh. He taught us everything; but he was fond of History. His enthusiasm for the subject was infectious – at least to me. My favourite teacher at Igbobi College was Mr John Sagay; who taught us History. He also was apparently obsessed with History. As an undergraduate at the university in the United States, starting with Medicine as my goal; then switching to Economics almost made it impossible to study History. Fortunately, students, not enrolled for a Course, were allowed to sit in at any class of their choice. I took advantage of the privilege; and sat in on History Courses every single one of my eight semesters in the university. My favourite book out of the over 3000 I have read is still THE RISE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE by Edward Gibbons, 1737-1794; and it has nothing to do with the fact that, like me, he was born on May 8.

Only God knows how many Ministers have been appointed in Nigeria; but, my favourite was Professor Babs Fafunwa, 1923-2010, Minister of Education under Babangida from 1990 to 1992. IBB earned my pardon for all whatever he did wrong for giving me a Minister I could walk into his house and borrow a book on History.

One of the reasons Obong Victor Attah, a former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, is my favourite retired politician is his sense of history. To the best of my knowledge, he is the only former Governor who has allowed to be documented the activities of his eight years in office. I was fortunate to have been asked to undertake the writing. The attempt by one of his successors to take credit for Attah’s achievements failed because there was a record. Copies of the book are still available and online.

Failure to write our own histories has been one of the banes of African societies.

Consequently, we fail to learn from our successes; and more importantly, from our mistakes. Rivers State is sliding towards the same crisis which led to the Wild Wild West or ‘Wetie” in the Western Region in the early 1960s and we are apparently impotent to avert the catastrophe unfolding in Rivers State.

HISTORICAL PRECEDENTS AS GUIDE TO DECISION-MAKING

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, a statement by George Santayana, 1863-1952, has featured on this page several times since 1994 because every government in Nigeria has fallen into the same dark hole.

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They have loved sycophants and detested the truth until they are out of office.

Nigeria’s debt addiction started with the $2.8 billion loan taken by military Head of State Obasanjo with assurance from the praise singers and objections from people like me. OBJ was convinced the loan could be easily repaid; we thought it was better to increase tax collection. The debt escalated to $36 billion before Dr Okonio-Iweala released us in 2004.

We are back in a worse debt trap and people are still resisting a tax bill which basically will introduce the discipline of tax revenue to replace perpetually increasing debt. Obasanio has prepared us for this disregard for historical precedents. Otherwise, it is difficult to understand why a section of the country wants to throw the baby out with the bath water by spreading disinformation.

Furthermore, the 2025 Federal Budget exhibits two major faults of every budget since 2013. First, it was written without the slightest glance at the actual performance for the nine months of 2024 and projections for the balance of the year. Second, the authors disregarded the economic history of the last twelve years. From Jonathan to Tinubu, every budget had started with the demonstrably false assumption that Nigeria would produce and derive revenue from 2 million barrels per day of crude oil. Records and facts available to the three Presidents would easily prove that Nigeria cannot now, and might never again, be able to produce 2 mbpd of crude.

Our capacity to reduce crude oil has never been consistently up to 2mbpd.

Membership of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, imposes an annual limit on our production; and it has never been up to 2mbpd.

For 2025, it is 1.6mbpd. Non-OPEC nations now account for the majority of global oil production and increasing percentage of exports – thereby crowding out OPEC members. Given all these facts, it amounts to the worst form of wishful thinking and disregard for historical precedents for every Nigerian President to allow himself to be persuaded to present a budget based on that false assumption. We have tried everything else; we might as well try the truth.

Moreover, overestimating our crude oil revenue remains the cardinal reason why every annual revenue estimate has been missed; why we have recorded higher deficits than envisaged, why we borrow more than planned and why inflation is heading up. No board of directors of any well-managed company would allow the Chief Executive Officer to fail on so many variables, so often, and still take him seriously. The 2025 Budget is already dead on arrival because the country is probably not going to produce 2mbpd in January; and making up for the negative variance later is impossible.

Journalism has been described as the first rough draft of history. If our leaders actually want to govern well they should at least appoint someone to conduct research into historical precedents before introducing programmes and policies.

They might just discover that their new initiative is actually “same stale stew, warmed up, and served in new plates” (President Babangida).

When in the months leading to the 2019 elections, Vice-President Osinbajo went about giving ‘Trade Moni’ to selected market women as loan, I warned that it was a cheap replay of the Peoples Bank idea and would end up as another disaster. Even the Professor turned deaf ears to History. What has happened to the billions given out under that scheme; or, more appropriately, scam?

WHO WILLTEACH AND WHAT WILL BE TAUGHT?

“You can get in more trouble with good ideas than bad ones. It is much easier to push a good idea to excess” – Ben Graham, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ, p 97. Rebuilding what Obasanjo thoughtlessly destroyed will not be as easy as announcing it. Like any good idea, it requires careful planning. To start with, there are very few History graduates. It has never been a favourite subject for secondary school leavers going to university. All my six daughters are graduates; but, it was not until the last one that I had someone interested in History; and even that was because it was combined with International Relations. She wanted to be a diplomat; not a History teacher. So, we might have problems there.

What to teach is another problem. Africans and Nigerians don’t write their own History. My first roommate at the university was reading History; and, as early as second year, he was determined to be an expert on Thomas Jefferson – who presided and died 180 years before and already had four books written on him.

Nobody has written a History book on Gowon, Shagari, Babangida, Abacha and the one written by Jonathan and by Buhari’s former staff is not History. We need writers of History of our rulers; in order to educate generations unborn about how we progressed to where we are at any point in time.

Still, thanks Mr President. I appreciate it very much Sir.

PRINCE EJIKE OF ORLU, YOUR DAUGHTER WANTS YOU

“The most moral man is not the one who restrains from doing evil, but he who does good”- Professor Emevwo Biakolo, in Guardian, VBQ p 164.

If you think that only foreigners made it into the VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, well, here is one from a Nigerian. I hope Prof is still alive and well. I borrowed his idea long ago. Unable to refrain from doing evil, I have tried to do some good like helping total strangers. Here is one.

Miss Favour Ejike is desperate to get in touch with her father Prince Ejike of Orlu. Kindly get in touch if you can help locate him: Call: 0703-777-29

Source :Vanguard