THE HISTORIAN V THE SYSTEM(Part One)

The first part of a five-pack series on my journey through The Den. This very essay was written by a younger, inexperienced Onu. I had the urge to rewrite it, alright, but I believe it would make more sense to read it from the perspective of the Onu who saw and felt theses things as they were no matter how raw he must have been when he wrote them.

Discretion: This is long personal rant.

Like most Nigerian students of history that I know, I never intended on studying the course as a major. Unlike most Nigerian students of history that I know, I actually applied for the course as a major, not law. There is a very long and cute backstory to that decision but that was just the case. When I got admission into the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, which most viewed as the pinnacle of university education in this country at the time, I did not really feel the excitement that comes with finally making it to college. You know, the thrill of getting the university education I see in people’s faces; none of that came to me. Perhaps, it was because of the way I viewed the course at the time: Who in their right frame of mind would apply to study this when the prestigious majors were there? It was just something I wanted to do and get it over with; however, a deep introspection changed everything. I decided within me, to give the time and effort my best shot. Maybe, just maybe, something beautiful would spring thereof. As I packed my luggage to school, I endeavored to pack enough motivation to keep me through. There was no love lost between the course and myself; but I knew that if I was to develop any sort of affection for it, I needed to gear up.

A FIERY INTRODUCTION

I resumed school a little bit later because I had stuff to do at home, but my resumption did not go as I expected by any stretch. First, I was launched into the rigors of first year clearance. Every day, freshers would line up in front of the General Office in running patience, waiting for the shorthanded staff to as much as take a look at their files. Not that I didn’t expect that much population of students; but that I thought that, in this day and age, schools this big would be more digitalized. I wondered what it would actually take to add a platform where students can do verifications without having to cover so much distance and time to get their files sorted. Or, at the very least, what it would take to employ more non-academic staff to make the process less chaotic. I remember having a very short conversation about the entire procedure with a student from Archeology and Tourism then. I remember saying something like: this is the 21st century, we should be passed this level and he said:

It’s a gradual process, we’ll get there.

As I write this, I can still feel my head hanging over Jupiter because of that response. What exactly is supposed to be gradual in creating a portal where students could easily scan and upload documents so that going to the office would just be more a confirmation process? What is supposed to be gradual in getting more hands to help with the overwhelming population of students? This was the kind of thing I considered elementary and getting it sorted out would actually create room to address other issues. I feel we as a people are so used to mediocrity that we do not actually demand to change it, we only hope the change happens. We are consciously been taught that development should be a slow process, which Is bewildering in this computer age.

With clearance out of the way, I got to study the departmental curriculum which kicked me into a new ball of vexation. I understood that we would be offering six departmental courses for the semester, but only two of those courses were directly affiliated with Africa and Nigeria. I began to wonder why, as a Nigerian, it is considered right for me to know more about Europe and its history more than Africa and Nigeria. Are we that historically inferior to the first world that they have to represented even more than us in our country? I told Daniels my observation and he said in a painful tone, "we have a very long way to go Bro" and he was (still is) a hundred percent correct. What does it say about our education system if we cannot even pay attention and look inwards? To upset myself even more, I decided to take a look at the British and American curricula for the same course, and boy did I find what I was looking for?

Remember I said there were two courses? Well, it was technically one since the other kept talking about how wrong it was that Europeans claim to have discovered the river Niger when they were just explorers. It would say time and time again, every lecture, “It is absolutely ridiculous to say that Mungo Park discovered the Niger river when our ancestors had been fishing in the river long before Mungo Park was even born!” I had a lot of questions burning my lips about the statement, never mind the mindset. I mean, how does one’s forefathers fishing in a river prove or disprove the discovery of it? Rivers are there to be fished in, so there is actually nothing significant in the act. I found it boring, really boring, trying to cope with these types of lectures because they just seemed like repetitions. So, I took the statement with me to the library and it was more of the same issue: Africans trying endlessly to prove their history by screaming at the very top of their voices “WE HAVE A HISTORY!” instead of actually saying what the history is. Hundreds of textbooks stacked against one another, all saying the exact same thing in different words. I could not find something substantial; something that actually shows the details of our lives before the whites gave us new ones. There was nothing that says a little more than ‘fishing in rivers’ or the tripod economy; about the numerous sacrifices the communities close to Oshimili offered to keep the peace between the land and the water. Something about the numerous intercommunal wars and the roles of the river in navigating them. It seemed as though we are not ready to study our history, we just want to argue about it. So, I would go back to the great fictions that actually do tell more about us than history books will ever do: Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, A Grain Of Wheat by Ngugi Wa Thiongo, and the likes.

Reality would hit me, though, that I had to accept things the way they were or risk falling behind. No one cares about what I have to say about the way we study our history, and even if someone does, what would they do about it?

LIGHTNING ‘STRIKES’ TWICE

There are different types of losses, but the grief for any type always follows the recognized five stages. First is the denial. The refusal to succumb to the reality of a loss; the belief that there is hope, that there is a glimmer of light in the tunnel. This denial is immediately followed by anger. Whether in one’s self for the inability to change or reverse the situation, or from the relative pain caused by the loss. Then comes the bargaining stage where one tries to limit the impacts of the loss and take charge of the painful situation, still not accepting the reality. The bargaining stage is doomed because the loss has already happened, so every attempt at control faulter in every possible way. This throws one into the fourth state which is depression. Grasping at straws and wallowing in disparity, one encounters not only the psychological effects of grief, but the physical impacts of it too. This is why the last stage, acceptance, is more about surrendering to the reality of the loss, rather than moving on from it. In fact, acceptance does not mean that the hole created by the loss is no longer there because one’s subconscious will visit it at intervals, but that some losses are beyond one’s control.

I went through these five stages in just a few months; trying to come to terms with the fact that I was not learning the proper way and also accepting the reality that if I did not take it that way, I was doomed. The acceptance of the situation made it easier for me to both study and attend lectures. In short, I found myself falling head over heels in love with the course in little time. Greek Mythology, The Rise of Christianity, and the likes were topics I threw myself into. I was finally finding myself and becoming happier for it too, before Nigeria happened and took it all away from me in a brutal way.

We had not even taken to our seats for second semester when the news of the strike broke. At first, I saw it as a rumor; after all, there had been rumors of impending strikes uncountable times in the preceding months. Plus, ASUU had just returned from a three months long strike not up to a year before then and achieved nothing. But as the minutes turned to hours, it dawned on me that the break was real. To make matters worse, it was an “indefinite” strike. I became livid. What the fuck?! To my knowledge, the institution had achieved fuck all with all the strikes they had been going on, so what was really the point? Pardon my French, but this came at the most inappropriate of times for me. I felt like a dark cloud was coming down over my head fast and I had not enough time to adjust.

E.I.G.H.T. M.O.N.T.H.S.

1. A woman can conceive and deliver within this period.

2. Columbus would “discover” another new world in a shorter time.

3. Bola Tinubu could campaign for and “win” another presidential election for sure.

4. Armstrong and Co. could “walk” on the moon again.

5. Heck, even god “created” a world in six days, he could surely do it again in eight months.

I do not think those at the top ever sit down to discuss how much negative impacts their actions have on the citizens; or else they do and just decide to punish us. I know from outside looking in, one could easily say that students could and should take advantage of such breaks. Put their lives into use. Learn a skill. Etc. But it hardly is that way. You see, it was very hard, at least from a personal perspective, for one to concentrate with the probability that the strike could be called off at any moment looming over one’s head. Committing yourself fully was a very risky venture, and even if you did apply yourself, it would be difficult to psychologically adjust considering the position we students were thrust into. It was eight good months of my life that I would never get back; everything would surely have been different. It is funny how those at the bottom of the ladder consistently suffer the shit of those at the top, and will continue to.

I do not think I have ever felt less interested in education as I did when the strike was finally called off. All the momentum I had generated to start the semester, gone. The strike sapped the life out of me to state bluntly, so much so that I forgot my registration number upon resumption. (Okay, that was a joke, but it was really that bad). But the worst was yet on the way because it was barely two weeks after lectures began that the rumors of exam timetable began to circulate. I could not believe it. In what world do students return from an eight-months long strike to jump right into exams without any time to recoup? That was not a rhetorical question because the answer is obviously Nigeria.

Trying to shovel materials into my head was a fruitless effort that even sleepless nights could not solve. It was the single act that showed me all I needed to know about the relationship between the educational system and the students of Nigeria; there is no love lost between both parties. There are no conscious efforts to make the students’ lives easier; in fact, everything humanly possible is being done to make it even more difficult.

Daniels was right, we have a really long way to go, but does the distance really matter when we are moving in the wrong direction?

THE HISTORIAN V THE SYSTEM (Part Two) Soon