A Cardiss Collins Professor of Arts and Science, Northwestern University, Evanston, USA, Professor Akin Ogundiran, has challenged academic historians to embrace their roles as custodians of the past to save the misrepresentation of history, which is causing needless tensions.

This is as he proposed the establishment of a Council on Yoruba Historical Studies to take on the responsibility of organising historical retreats for traditional leaders, including princes, princesses, kingmakers, chiefs, and kings, and fact-checking misleading historical pronouncements they might make in public, urging the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission to take the lead in the endeavour.

Apparently speaking on the recent supremacy tussle between the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Abimbola Akeem Owoade and Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi, the scholar lamented that academic historians have been hesitant to deploy the tools of critical historical thinking and deep-time perspective to inform controversies and national issues that involve cultural identity in Nigeria.

He spoke while delivering the Faculty of Arts Distinguished Alumnus Lecture, University of Ibadan, on the topic: “Ancient History for the Present: The Challenge of Ancestral Yoruba Cosmopolitanism to Post-colonial Nigeria.”

Ogundiran, a Professor of History and Courtesy Professor of Anthropology and of Black Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, USA, however, identified the roles of uninformed social media influencers, historians who cannot decipher the difference between history, fable or allegory and history as well as Artificial Intelligence and Google as challenges bedevilling the profession and rewriting history.

While noting that academic historians must be deferent to traditional rulers, he charged them to reject royal rascality, pomposity and arrogance, adding that historians must not allow egocentric fables to be mistaken for facts.

He said, “If the kingmakers will not check the traditional rulers, historians owe it to the profession to call them out through their professional organisations, adding that it would be wrong to entrust kings as custodians of ancestral history, because they have political interests that scholars must interrogate.

He noted that the royal tussle between the Alaafin and Ooni is needless, saying both domain have their different histories.

He said, “Most academic historians are in the public space. But we have been hesitant to deploy the tools of critical historical thinking and deep-time perspective to inform controversies and national issues that involve cultural identity in Nigeria.

“I recognize that we face three challenges: first, we have the legion of social media influencers who also double as armchair historians—highly opinionated, irascible, and quick to abuse; second, there are well-meaning citizens and intellectuals who understand the logic of critical thinking but are poorly equipped with critical historical thinking and cannot decipher the difference between history and fable or allegory and history; third, we are confronted with the challenges of Artificial Intelligence and Google.

“Who is an Academic Historian? This is a person for whom historical inquiry is a profession and vocation, often with a teaching position. Academic historians utilise primary sources, which include documents, eyewitness accounts, oral traditions, language forms and linguistics, archaeological artefacts, and material culture, to write history.

“They also use performative arts such as music, dance, and rituals as sources. They ask questions of what, why, how, where, and when, and are attentive to the six Cs of historical thinking: context, change, continuity, causality, complexity, and contingency. When done well, their work is different from hagiography–an adulatory, idealised, and uncritical story about a place, time, or person.

“Unfortunately, it seems most Nigerians don’t know the difference between academic history and hagiography or amateur history. I can therefore understand why some of us devoted to the historian’s craft and spend enormous time and resources excavating and interpreting that past with primary sources are often exasperated by the pronouncements and writings that we encounter on social media, and which some of our elites parrot as gospel truth.

“Such falsehoods and illogical stories are causing significant harm to the general public, particularly to younger people. Therefore, I call on historians to embrace their roles as custodians of the past. The same way it will be absurd to trust the President of Nigeria to serve as the custodian of Nigerian history, it is also absurd to entrust a king as the custodian of ancestral history.

“They have political interests that we must interrogate, and I am aware of any town in Yorubaland where the palace is the only repository of history. Every lineage, every Orisa temple has its history. The history of a town or past kingdom is shared by different constituencies.”

To put history in its proper perspective, the Scholar challenged traditional rulers to invest resources in preserving ancestral legacies, artefacts, and memory, adding, “if they are committed to the truth and not self-aggrandising, they should build museums and establish royal and ritual archives in their communities. These are the resources that historians need to do their work effectively.

“We must be deferent to our kings, but we must reject royal rascality. We expect our kings to move with pomp and circumstance, but we must reject pomposity and arrogance from them. We must not allow egocentric fables to be mistaken for facts. Yoruba history is bigger than the ego of any royal father.

“If the kingmakers will not check them, we owe it to our profession as historians to call them out through our professional organisations.

“To this end, I propose that a Council on Yoruba Historical Studies be established to take on the responsibility of organising historical retreats for our leaders, including our princes and princesses, kingmakers, chiefs, and kings, and fact-checking misleading historical pronouncements they might make in public.

“The Council’s intervention must be based on established evidence and references to relevant literature. The Council must be humble to admit what we don’t know and guide in pointing to areas of new research. I particularly call on the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission to take the lead in this endeavour.

“There can be no development without an evidence-based history. I admit that historical narratives are always being contested and revised, but such revisions must be based on new evidence and theoretical insight, not on an individual’s whims and caprices.

“Likewise, I call on our Departments of History across Nigeria to rethink their approaches to historical education. A curriculum that focuses primarily on colonial and postcolonial history can only impoverish the intellect of future generations. I have said this many times, and I will say it again. We need a closer curriculum alignment among departments whose intellectual frameworks are based on historical thinking, such as archaeology, anthropology, Classics, Art History, and History. (The Nation)