By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
There is talk here and there of bringing back History with a capital “H” in the Nigerian school curriculum. It is cool by me to do a short history course with the ruling party, APC, and President Muhammadu Buhari. Necessary lessons need to be learnt before the elections that will lead into the next dispensation of Nigeria’s much touted democracy.
To
start back in time, Nigeria’s first coup as arranged by Emmanuel Arinze
Ifeajuna, Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, Adewale Ademoyega, etc. did raise the issue
of corruption as a major prong of why they struck to sack the First Republic.
The entire coup attempt got mired in the corruption of ethnic politics until there was the bloodier counter-coup in which the revenge squad wanted secession, code-named “araba”, until the British colonial masters advised against herding into arid nothingness. Of course, the Nigeria-Biafra war supervened, and after the war, the youthful Head of State Yakubu Gowon proclaimed “No Victor, No Vanquished” and “Rehabilitation-Reconciliation-Reconstruction” that became more fictional than Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
