Let me begin with a lesson on history! Non-professional historians lack the expertise to differentiate history from fiction, not necessarily because they do not have the requisite competence to separate facts from emotions but because history itself is a complex and dicey endeavour.
Regardless of how it is preserved, history has the potential to mislead its consumers, often with little or no probability of repairing their destroyed psyche. Whether past events are retrieved through an oral archive or collected from the pages of historical narratives, history can be extremely dangerous when wrongly handled.
Although professional historians have the intellectual materials and skills to conduct impartial research into the retrieval of history, they do not have the epistemic authority to gatekeep the practice of writing it. Conventionally, history is exclusively associated with past events that are provable and retrievable. Over time, however, it has been extended to include different disciplines, so much so that the activities and engagements of these fields are sometimes regarded as history themselves.
For example, scholars in literary studies often treat nonfiction as a branch of history. To them, nonfictional productions are reliable materials that can educate people about the past to the extent that they could be given the same legitimacy as history. This becomes particularly interesting when they classify personalized writings such as memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies under the umbrella of history. If these professionals claim the authority to classify something as closely related to history, where then does a historian place controversial nonfictional writing?
Let me preface this conversation with some relatable historical events. Driven by the demands of expansionism, imperialists employed mechanisms and strategies to take control of their target groups, people, and communities. In essence, when Europeans arrived in Africa for exploitative colonialism, they ultimately shattered many indigenous accomplishments and replaced them with narratives that undermined, marginalised, and devalued the world of the African people.
Across nearly all domains of human existence, colonizers claimed that Africans were grossly incapable of addressing their challenges as they had not intellectually evolved enough to organize themselves. These narratives, crafted by Eurocentric historians, were presented as nonfiction and accepted as true history.
It was not until efforts began to be made poignantly that these unfounded narratives were critically challenged and eventually displaced. When actual research engagement began, it revealed that Africans had long been frontiers of innovative ideas, using them to transform their societies for ages, contrary to the claims that Europe was the Big Brother behind the continent’s progress. However, these false narratives have been promoted for so long that challenging the unfounded claims has proven futile. This is the same experience as that of an average African country today, where history is always projected by individuals who played massive and indelible roles in its systematic destruction.
Recently, General Ibrahim Babangida, a former Nigerian head of state, published an autobiography, and while such intellectual endeavours often spark discussions, they can also mask very important epochs of human history. Stay with me.
Some individuals have argued that such works are unnecessary for unravelling Nigeria’s political identity because they have the potential to be inflammatory. Do not get them wrong. People who object to this kind of autobiography recognise that any former head of state in a postcolonial nation is bound to have made significant errors that would be, in the real sense, difficult to correct. Given Nigeria’s diversity and irreconcilable interests, citizens are bound to read different meanings to such a book, irrespective of the author’s intent. However, the problem does not lie with the individual guilty of misconduct while in office or with the agitated public; instead, it stems from Nigeria’s national identity itself.
The country’s identity, shaped by the union of diverse groups, cultures, and societies, predisposes it to controversial relationships defined by self-serving motives and an exclusionary thirst for power. In essence, any actor who steps on the national stage must not only be mindful of their undertakings and roles while in office but also be conscious of the ripple effects of their actions and inactions.
General Babangida entered Nigeria’s national stage as a military officer―an undemocratic condition that naturally tied him to controversies. Regardless of what his roles were, his actions, intentions, inclinations, and motives were bound to spark different reactions. Of course, people read meanings based on where a leader comes from and the underlying philosophy of his actual actions.
Recall that the focus of this writing is history and its attendant political underpinnings, especially in how people construct narratives for their gains. History is complex because it is indifferent to human emotions and unconcerned about what posterity holds for its characters. In other words, human actions in the present are often undertaken without much understanding and plans about the future implications. In this sense, history is also innocent because it does not concern itself with the future of a people or the consequences of their actions.
However, human nature compels individuals to strive for a better tomorrow, often driven by the desire to protect their image and preserve their identity. Despite their past actions, people are always concerned about how they will be remembered at the end of their lives. This speaks to why Babangida decided to write a nonfiction book that would essentially perform a “reputation surgery” on his character. He considers this necessary because he understands that his history does not exclusively affect him as an individual—while his actions during his rule were linked only to him, their impact extended far beyond him.
As a result, writing an autobiography was not only a necessary effort to save his name in the historical records of writers but also an inevitable one, considering the realisation that his legacy must embody competence and even courage, especially when talking about those whose actions have shaped the country at critical periods.
Many Nigerians who are old enough to have experienced Babangida’s actions as a head of state were utterly gutted by this book, believing that such a controversial character in the country’s history should not have the courage to voice their perspectives. For this category of citizens, anyone who actively subjects others to excruciating anomaly has no moral right to speak on nation-building. However, Babangida was not particularly concerned about this demographic. His focus is on something more.
His gaze is on the future, where he wants the unassuming generations to pick up the book and see a man who was overtaken by his desire to build a great country. Like us historians, he understands the level of influence history books have on human society. While we cannot dismiss the dissenting public angered by Babangida’s bold undertaking, we also cannot cast him in the stone of generational invectives for attempting to reframe himself and offer a more nuanced portrayal of the “no-nonsense” man who once dominated Nigeria’s political theatre.
History cannot cease to be funny and even interesting.
When people attempt to rewrite history, it has a way of resisting such an imposition. What better example of this irony than the fact that the current President of Nigeria, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, alleged a victim of Babangida’s persecution, was present at the launching of the very that was meant to rechristen the man?
As a historian, I have professional experience in informing the public that the essence of writing historical or nonfictional material, such as Babangida’s autobiography, is not to position some characters into the spot where they are considered infallible or pious. Instead, it serves as a document that invites us to investigate and understand human vulnerability when they realise how their actions and inactions shape the world. It is through recognizing their vulnerability that we all ultimately come to understand that humans, irrespective of their economic and political status, are not what they think they are. Instead, they are the opposite: vulnerable and fragile.
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