Give Us Our History
“Public libraries are not places of government indoctrination. They are not places where the people in power can dictate what their citizens are permitted to read about and learn. When government actors target public library books because they disagree with and intend to suppress the ideas contained within them, it jeopardizes the freedoms of everyone.” Above is an excerpt from Texas residents’ lawsuit in an escalating book ban feud in Llano County, USA. Here in Nigeria, we suffered a similar fate when an important subject like history was removed from our junior secondary school curriculum sometime in 2010. Though it was later reinstated in the year 2018, that wasn't to be in the first instance. The reason is, government must allow us to know our past – ugly or glorious, and not try to sweep things under the carpet. Our history defines our roots and perhaps lends an explanation to why things are the way they are today. Like Soren Kierkegaard – the famous Danish Existentialist onc