He gave historians a positive image, and promoted the study of history. “No country ignores its history except at its own peril,” he said in an interview published in 2020, giving reasons Nigeria could not afford to exclude the study of History from its educational system.

Prof. Obaro Ikime, renowned historian, fellow and one-time president of the Historical Society of Nigeria, who died on April 25, aged 86, was a strong voice among protesters against the Federal Government’s decision to, in his words, “abolish History as a subject.” He explained: “History is the memory of human growth. If it is forgotten, we cease in that measure to be human.” A native of present-day Delta State, he was also a retired priest of the Anglican Communion.

After his secondary education at the Government College, Ughelli, Delta State, where he was head boy, he studied History at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State, and graduated with an upper second-class degree. “History was my best subject at Ughelli,” he said.

With a doctorate at 29, he became a professor of history at 37, and was a distinguished member of the famous Ibadan School of History, which originated at the University of Ibadan and flourished from the 1950s to the 1970s. The school, characterised by its passionate Nigerian nationalism and rigorous examination of Africa’s colonial experience, was in its heyday the dominant intellectual tradition in the study of the history of Nigeria.

Ikime taught History at the University of Ibadan from 1964 to 1990, and served as Head of Department, and Dean of Arts. A productive scholar, he is credited with more than 20 books, including those he authored and edited. His 1980 edited seminal book, Groundwork of Nigerian History, is regarded as “a comprehensive history of Nigeria’s diverse peoples,” and underlines the role of history and historians.

Importantly, he also focused on historiography, paying attention to the methods of historians in the writing of history. This aspect of his scholarship is highlighted by his books, History, The Historian, and The Nation (2006), and Can Anything Good Come Out of History? (2018).

The latter, according to the blurb, seeks “to demonstrate that History is not the useless discipline it is so often portrayed to be in our nation: that Nigeria and all her component entities, and the loyalties attached to them are products of History; that whether we realise it or not, it is History that provides that understanding of our country’s multifarious peoples and their cultures which is so crucial for peaceful co-existence.”

A striking incident ended his academic career prematurely. “I was retired in 1990 and I was not yet 70,” he said. He was 54 at the time. His narrative about what happened showed the despotism of the Gen. Ibrahim Babangida regime, but also showed his own sense of history and social consciousness.

His account: “I was the chairman of the Chapel Committee. The Organisation of Islamic States met in Nigeria in 1990 and issued a communique after their meeting. My error was that I discussed that communique at the chapel in the presence of the whole committee members. I said at the meeting that the communique was the first step towards war. They were planning how they would dip the Quran into the sea, and that was how they were going to organise jihad and spread across the country… Therefore, I suggested that the Church should organise prayers so that Nigeria would never get involved in a religious war. That was my offence.

”I also said a few things about the looting by the Babangida government. That was my error. I didn’t know how it was published in the newspapers.”

He ended up spending about 90 days in detention, wearing the same clothes and sleeping on the bare floor. The powers that be then directed that he should be retired.

Ikime lived long enough to witness the reversal of the government’s anti-history policy. It was, ultimately, not only a victory for History but also the great historian.

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